Leaving Houston

I’m typing this as I sit in the backyard oasis of my in-laws.  We’re in Portland for two weeks to say good-bye to family and getting a reprieve from the craziness of moving our family around the world.  It’s been a delightful week thus far and a joy to see our family once more.

We stayed in a hotel during our last 5 days in Houston.  I’m glad it was only 5 days.  That hotel room seemed to get smaller each day we were there.    We spent our last half-day repacking our duffels and finding places for the odds-and-ends that had been in boxes for the last week.  After several hours, we finally got everything into our bags.

Our bags…  We have a LOT of bags!  We figured we might as well take advantage of the 2 free checked bags our airfare affords us, as well as our carry-ons:

So how does one move a pile like this to the airport?  You can’t fit them in a rental…not even 2.  So we hired a bus to pick us up and take all of our stuff, and us, to the airport.  It was kind of fun to have our own bus.  The kids thought it was pretty high living.    They waved at several places as we drove out of the area and all that was familiar to them.

Once we arrived at the airport, I hired a skycap to take all of our bags on his huge cart to the check-in counter.  The lady at the counter was very helpful and we got all of our bags checked through to Portland and on our merry way. We made it through security without any headaches or lost children.  2 points for the parents:

We had some time to kill while waiting for our flight, so I took the kids on the sky tram.  I think this was their first time, and they LOVED it.  They seriously giggled and laughed for the first 5-10 minutes of our several round trip rides . Cute kiddos.

The kids did great on the 4.5 hour flight to Seattle.  The elderly lady behind us even commented about how well behaved they were the whole flight.  Way to go kids!  Let’s see how you do on 20+ hours in a week… 

I always love flying in the Pacific Northwest.  No where else in the country do you get such a scenic flight of volcanoes, mountains, and beautiful sunsets.

We arrived in Portland on a little puddle jumper well after midnight our time.  Most of the kids were sound asleep and waking them up was not easy.  We got off the plane and were able to get our loads-o-luggage pretty quickly.  Grandma and Grandpa were ready to pick us up and hugs and smiles were all around.

We’ve got one more week here and then we’re truly off overseas.  Feeling both excited and a little anxious.  We know it’ll be a challenge the first few weeks and months, but we’re optimistic it’ll go well and we’ll overcome the challenges…together.