Sleepless in Seattle

 Our adventure has begun! Emma has been a great traveler! Monday night we got to Seattle about 9, and found the USO. We needed 2 luggage carts for our stuff, and Emma was pretty excited to get to push one by herself. She did a pretty good job. We got lots of looks....sometimes it looked like the luggage cart was moving by itself. The USO was full, so they were putting families in a conference room across the hall. She did such a great job with it all, and went right to sleep, she got about 4 hours before I had to wake her up. I didn’t get much, if any, sleep. I ended up with a sinus/exhaustion headache and they were doing some construction work either down the hall or the next floor down. Lots of hammering/jackhammering. Somehow all the kids in the room seemed to sleep great, though! At 2am I woke her up and we headed down to stand in line. She was too tired to push the cart so another mom helped us out...as much trouble as it is to travel like this, everyone around us was military and gets what we are doing and was very helpful. Thankfully the family line is way shorter than the normal line...we only stood in line for maybe a half hour, instead of the 3 hours we were expecting. So....we had lots of time to kill...as our flight did not board until 7:30. We stayed up the whole time, which seemed like a good idea...to get us used to the time change early, and I figured we could sleep on the plane. We talked to Daddy, played “I spy,” ate breakfast, got some snacks and water for our flight, and she may have found her new surprise toys that I got for the trip. She really did a fabulous job considering she only got 4 hours of sleep. 

I was pretty optimistic about the flight since we had done so well so far. I figured we would sleep most of it since we were so tired...unfortunately that was not the case. Between snacks, meals, potty trips, movies, and crying babies, and lack of room,  there was not much sleep happening on this flight for us. I did manage to get her to take a nap for a couple hours in the middle, but that’s it. She watched lots of shows and played games on the iPad, and I am learned a lot for next time. This plane was older than what we are used to, and there was hardly any leg room...and I’m short so that is saying something. It made getting into our bags for things like coloring books, snacks, etc. very difficult. And our flight crew is policing everyone about staying seated and being buckled...they said if you are sleeping they will wake you up to make you show them you are buckled if they can’t see it. A little over the top, if you ask me.  

We got right through customs and everything, and MSgt Kimble, from the FD, was there to pick us up at the airport and take us around. 

For next time: We both need our own tablets if only for these trips. I had assumed we would have WiFi so I didn’t even think to put anything on my phone, and I am trying to ignore most of the movies they have played...not super great for kids. I’m also too tired to read anything I brought, so movies would have been the way to go. Emma got to watch a lot though.

 I love my new backpack that I got from eBags, the Weekender Junior, but I should have gotten the one with wheels! It’s pretty heavy with everything in it. I packed it full. It definitely has a compartment for everything. Also, packing cubes are amazing! I got a lot and I’m glad I did, everything is super organized, easy to find and not messy. 

I bought a power bank to charge our devices, but since I charged them in the airport we didn’t end up needing it. I was pretty surprised, but I also didn’t use my phone much.  

I’m glad I brought the blanket and pillow since we slept on the floor, I almost didn’t bring them because of space. 

Ready for the flight to Seattle!

Goodbye California!

Where’s Emma?

There she is!

Excited to be camping out!

She went right to sleep!

Waiting in line. Our line was short. The ones Daddy has to stand in are probably at least a hundred people long. Yikes!!!

Breakfast of champions...at 2am.

Playing with her new toys.

On the plane for Japan!

Airplane food wasn’t bad, pretty much like a TV dinner. 

No fancy picture saying we are here...but we made it. And we are exhausted. Although I’m wondering when everything will catch up to me. Emma made it as long as she could.