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| Grant's Farm! |
We spent a little over a week in St. Louis after our road
trip, which gave us a lot of time to make the rounds to Ryan’s friends and
relatives in the area. It also gave us a
chance to have some St. Louis fun with the kiddos. We tried to fit something fun in each
day. We took Kiddo to the Science Center
one day, where she got to not only experience her first ever movie, but her
first ever IMAX movie. Looking back, it
feels like maybe we set the movie bar a little high…
Anyway, we took the kiddos to get sandwiches and milkshakes
at Crown Candy another day. Followed the
next day by a trip to Grant’s Farm to check out the Clydesdales and the other
animals they have there. Kiddo has a few
St. Louis themed books that she reads at home, so she had a whole list of
places she wanted to see and experience based on these books. We knew we couldn’t do it all, but we gave it
a pretty good shot. She was even quoting
the books while we visited certain places, saying things like, “I want to enjoy
some mouthwatering eats at Crown Candy.”
That one caught me off guard.
Aside from our field trips, we also got to stop in and visit
plenty of people in the area, including Ryan’s 2 grandmothers, who are 96 and
99. Between them and my 92-year-old
Grandfather I think the kids have some pretty solid genes to work with. We also got to spend a lot of time with Ryan’s
local friends, who all together have quite a brood of children that the kiddos
were stoked to play with. We had a BBQ
one day and a pool party another, gathering our 4 families and 11 children all
together. The kiddos made fast friends
here, even vocalizing a desire to quit our move to Sri Lanka and move to St.
Louis instead.  |
| Traditional trip to The Hickory Log, Dexter, MO |
After all was said and done, we managed to get everything we
needed and also managed to fit it all in our allotted bags and had it packed by the day of our flights. Since we had already done a trial run of this
process in leaving Monterey, getting ready for the airport felt
routine at this point. Our flights were
also at a reasonable time of 1 in the afternoon, so it wasn’t too hard to get
up, get organized, get everyone fed and to the airport with lots of time
for baggage checking and security screenings.
We loaded up the RV and felt pretty proud of ourselves for getting out the door with little drama or stress and lots of time, just in case. Grandma Jan walked us into the airport, did a
few rounds of hugs goodbye and watched us proceed to the ticket counter. Watching her leave as we waited for our tickets was one of those moments
that, for some reason, started to make this whole thing feel a little more real. She had been with us for the previous 2 months, helping us get ready and watching the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. It seemed very fitting that she was the one releasing us on our journey.  |
| Thanks a million Grandma Jan! |
We boarded our next flight to London around 3:30, for a 4 pm
takeoff. This was a much bigger plane –
definitely the biggest plane I have ever been on. We had to walk through 3 sections of large, plush, leg accommodating seating
before we got to our row. We were hoping to all be put in the large middle row of the plane. Unfortunately,
the airline was unable to pull that off. We decided the best split would be two and
two – one of us with each kid. It was a crap
shoot over who would be the bigger problem on the flight. I voted to take Little Boy and the two of us
had seats on the end of the long middle row of the plane, while Ryan and Kiddo were one
row ahead and to the left of us, by the window. I had
braced myself for the worst, but honestly, this flight also went off without a
hitch. We flew through dinner and
bedtime, so where I thought the kids would be really squirrely, they were
pretty chill. Little Boy was back in his
car seat again, ate some dinner and watched Kung Fu Panda. He did get a little antsy a couple of times,
so I took him on a walk around the plane a time or two, which was fine, because
it allowed me to go to the bathroom and make sure he had a dry diaper for
sleeping time. He wasn’t stoked to get
back in his car seat, but I turned on The Good Dinosaur to get him seated and
buckled and within a half hour or so, he passed out. 
I knew that I should shut my eyes to get some rest, but
starting with dinner and carrying on through the flight, the flight attendants were serving free
wine. Coupled with the free in-flight
movies and my interest in beginning work on the blog, I couldn’t help but soak
up the quiet with my plastic cup o’wine.
Kiddo was content in her seat with her ziti pasta and the cartoon movies
that were offered, as was Ryan with his own setup. Ryan cut her off
after The Good Dinosaur, around 9, and she put her head down on him and fell
asleep. We landed around midnight our
time, which was 6 AM in London.  |
| English Cottage and Tea Roses will suffice |
Our next
flight wasn’t until 9:30 that night, so we had an entire 15- hour day to
kill. In our original plan, we were
going to go out for some breakfast, come back to the hotel we booked for the
day for a few hours of shut eye, then pop back out to see some sights and
have dinner before heading straight to the airport.
This is not how our day turned out.
When we got through customs, we found out that since our flight was not
until later that night on another airline, whose counter didn’t even open
up until 5:30 in the evening, we would have to collect ALL of our luggage at
baggage claim instead of leaving it at the airport like we originally planned. This meant we had to haul all of our luggage
to the hotel, instead of the easy in and out we thought we were going to
have. It took us a few hours to get
through customs, collect our bags, and find our hotel shuttle bus. By the time we got all 13 bags, 1 carseat, 1
stroller, 2 kids and us on and off the bus and into our hotel room, we were all
done for. The 4 of us promptly passed
out around 9:30 in the morning and didn’t stir until around 2 in the afternoon. We jumped up, took a look at the map
and realized there was no way we would be able to go anywhere in London from
our hotel and still make it back in time to collect all of our bags, get to the
airport, recheck them all and get through security. We were pretty bummed about this, but in a
way, a little relieved. The impetus was
off of us to overdo it and the decision was made for us to just take a nice
walk in the neighborhood to a local pub around the corner for a bite and a
pint. It was perfect. We got some fish and chips, a steak and
kidney pie, and some cider and Guinness.
It was all so delicious and we were able to just relax and enjoy the
beautiful breeze that was blowing through the outdoor patio of the
restaurant. We took a leisurely stroll
the long way back to the hotel, collected our things and rolled our 13+ bags
back out the door, back onto the bus and back into Heathrow to get checked in
for our final flight. 
This is when we got
nervous. Now that we weren’t in America
dealing with American airline companies, we didn’t know how it was going to go
with all of our bags, their weight and the extra costs involved therein. In America, particularly because we were traveling on military orders, all of our baggage was free. When you split it up, it came out to about 2ish suitcases per person/ticket, which isn't SO bad when you look at it that way. But because American military status doesn't necessarily equate the to the same things in other countries, we weren't sure what would be the outcome here. It was our turn at the counter and the eyes
of the ticket agent grew exponentially when she saw all that we brought with
us. The weight limits were different on
Sri Lankan Airlines, with prices based on total luggage weight not numbers of
bags. So, she weighed it all, subtracted
from the total allowed, and we were given a receipt to take to a new line,
where we paid for our extra baggage weight - which was considerable.
She wouldn’t print our tickets until Ryan returned from this payment
line with a NEW receipt confirming payment. This was when we found out that, again, we were not all seated together. THIS time we had 3 seats together and 1 seat
alone. Who gets to enjoy THAT seat?!
We shrugged this off in the moment and made our way to
security, which was pretty easy to get through.
I have to say, the London security experience was an eye opener – they
have that system running like a well-oiled machine. Instead of many separate lines, there was one
line that led to a conveyor belt with individual stations that rolled the empty bins along and straight
to a radar machine. You just filed
through, while people on the other side of the conveyor helped get your things
into the boxes and through the machine. It
was like a little security factory, with everyone at different posts making
things move along at a reasonable pace.
We were in and out of that security line quicker than anywhere else I’d
ever been. Easy Peasy. From here, we knew we were going to need to
let the kids run for a little while, grab a quick bite then get to the
gate. Fortunately, the international
terminal had an entire play place on the 3rd floor – it was super
hot in there, but there was a set of rooms with play structures and coloring
tables, among many other things for the kiddos to play on for an hour or
so. This upcoming flight was a 10 hour
job, so we had our work cut out for us. 
Our flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka was set to leave at 9:30 London time, with a flight time of 10.5 hours and a time jump ahead 4.5 hours, we were set to touch down in Colombo around Noon the following day, Colombo time. We weren't sure how the timing was going to work out with the kiddos, so we grabbed a pizza to go on our way to the gate and the 4 of us consumed that delicious pie as we waited for them to call our row. Excitement was definitely mounting, especially for me. If you have ever traveled internationally (which, before this, I had not), as you walk through the airports you see all of the different flight attendants in their different uniforms. The Air Emarites crew is a good example. Seeing the red hats and white scarves, matched with the red lined beige skirt suits moving as a group through the airport presents such a striking image. Sometimes just the beauty or intrigue of the uniforms makes me want to fly with that airline to see what it's like. I suppose that's the idea. Anyway, I was excited to see what this airline would be like. After we boarded, I felt like a little kid taking in all of the sights. The flight attendants had beautiful teal saris on and everyone was so accommodating and helpful getting us seated and situated. We were toward the back of the plane (which was quite large) so making it back there with our carry-ons, children and Little Boy's car seat was quite a spectacle. Then, we had to figure out how to make the seating work. Eventually, the man in front of our 3 given seats, switched with Ryan, so he sat with Kiddo, while Little Boy and I sat sandwiched between two gentlemen in the middle row. I prayed, for their sake, that I was able to feed him and get him to go to sleep soon and without much fuss. As it turned out, they were both fathers of littles and ended up trying to help us throughout the flight. The kindness of strangers has not yet been lost. What I didn't expect was how much this airline was going to cater to the kids on board. While we were still getting situated, the flight attendants brought coloring books, pencils, and even a baby kit with diapers, wipes and bibs. Then, within minutes of the cabin doors being shut, they came around again and offered apple juice to each of the children. Once we were in the air, the flight attendants came around again to bring out the kids' meals - which Ryan admitted, made him think his meal was coming as well, and was disappointed when it took another hour for them to bring our meals. I was impressed, though, with the thought that went into their decision to care for the kids first. Little Boy fell asleep before they ever brought the food around, though, which I was also grateful for. The rest of the flight went very smoothly, I am happy to report. They served us free alcohol again, except this time it was any alcohol. I went ahead and had a tall rum and Diet Coke, then some wine with my dinner. There were a bevy of recent movies on the screen that I hadn't been able to see due to our crazy schedule, so I saddled up with my cocktail and delicious meal and watched a few. I was about to doze off for a while, but Griffin woke up instead, which totally threw off my mojo. I fed him some snacks, took him for a walk or two, then set up another movie hoping that maybe he would settle back down. He stayed up for a couple hours and, it took some doing, but I finally made it happen. I cat napped here and there, but ultimately didn't get much sleep on that flight despite how long it was. I think I had just fallen asleep, actually, when they turned on the cabin lights to bring around breakfast. We were happy to find that all of the food was so delicious. I wish I was able to take a picture of the intricate detail that went into these plates of food. Individual bowls of delicious bites, real silverware and china teacups - in economy class. Made me wonder what life in first class looked like...
10.5 hours is a long time to do anything or be anywhere, particularly seated on an airplane. So, needless to say we were all a little antsy when they announced we were making our final approach and would be landing in 30 minutes. It felt like a very long 30 minutes. Once we landed, though, and parked at the gate we were able to make it off the plane quickly and easily. The kids were happy to run around the airport, while we were more focused on finding the customs line. We finally made it to Sri Lanka! Despite my travel fatigue and jet lag, I was suddenly filled with the excitement and reality of our new life. Something about being in the airport gave me a second (or third or fourth) wind and I was filled with a new kind of energy. I had so many questions occur to me that I never thought to ask before as we exited the gate area. What is the exchange rate? We need to refill our water bottles - but can we drink the fountain water? Should I have applied bug spray and sunscreen to the kids already? My mind was flooded with questions I wasn't sure how to answer and now that my phone's SIM card was inactive due to our relocation, I didn't even have Google as a reassuring back up. For all of the many months that this move has felt like a story I was telling people about something happening to some other family, it all suddenly became unimpeachably real.
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