America to England in 7hrs

The craziest day of the move is travel day. Or so I am told. My moving day started at 4:00 am with my youngest walking into our room in tears having just been sick all over himself and his bed. This wasn’t a little problem, this was the kind of sick from which the phrase “tossing chunks” comes from. After I got him cleaned up, he thankfully went back to sleep in my bed. I went and found a bowl (which was not easy as all our things had been packed up and shipped earlier that day) and attempted to join him in the dream world. Every time he moved, however, I frantically scrambled for the bowl in desperation to keep my bed clean. Needless to say a hard moving day only becomes more interesting when you add a sever deficit of sleep and the need to do a load of laundry.

We managed to get all our things shoved packed into 8 suitcases and 5 carry ons, make a mad dash to the post office to mail to ourselves the extra things we couldn’t stuff into our bags because of the absolutely stupid and irrational strict weight limitations on luggage, clean off the huge black streaks that randomly appeared on our wall (a big thanks to my brother Scott, for his help in that!) and get ourselves and our bags into the shuttle for the airport. It wasn’t until we safely stowed our carry ons and buckled ourselves into our plane seats that I turned to my husband… and asked for a divorce. (Only kidding here… I did ask him for a divorce, but of course, I wasn’t serious.)

No sooner had the flight take off, when the woman in front of me (with complete disregard for the rules of flying and general compassion for those sitting behind her) shoved her seat back with such strength, you would have thought she was desperately breaking free from being tied to her seat. Her seat practically landed in my lap and if I was a dentist, I could have performed her dental check up.

The boys traveled like troopers. They planned all their movies, snacks, and activities before we left the tarmac (which if course did not include sleep time) and by the time we reached cruising altitude, they were a quarter way through Monsters U. Between snacks, drinks, meal, and bathroom runs, I managed to watch one movie in the 7hr plane ride. Which I am actually happy with… Normally I don’t get to watch anything. The boys are growing up!

I did try to sneak into first class to get a cup of tea and got myself into trouble with another passenger for being to loud and keeping him awake. I promise you I was not being to loud. But I did get that cup of tea. Have you ever seen first class on a transatlantic flight? I mean wow. They get to fully recline. So much so that the passenger nearest to where I was standing on the other side of the screen of protection (I like to call it) was on his side, curled up, and snoring. I got my tea and returned to my dental duties.

We came down out of the sky through two cloud layers into London and quickly realized that in order to get 13 bags from baggage claim to the car rental shuttle, one needs three luggage carts and a child old enough and awake enough to push one of the carts. We managed to hold up the shuttle long enough to get all our bags in, but probably should have tipped everyone else in the van as well for waiting. They were even more irritated with us when they had to wait until all our luggage was taken out before theirs was accessible.

So we have made it this far. We are staying with our friends in Birmingham recovering from jet lag and trying to convince everyone that we are not crazy, we will have electricity, and probably even the BBC.

Two days until we fly to Africa. And I still need to buy some wellies (rain boots).