Boracay: Getting Here

We left our house at 4pm Thursday afternoon and headed to my mom's because of course, she was feeding us an early dinner and taking us to the airport. John really wanted to be extra early just in case we had any mishaps. Everything went as smooth as silk, which gave us an hour and a half to hang in the Salt Lake City Airport. Here we are all happy and fresh and cold! Killing time wasn't too bad, a couple of trips to the bathroom and/or drinking fountain, letting the kids play on the rail until Bailey fell and hit her head and everyone looked at me like I am a bad mom,

coloring (I got this 3D colorwonder book for Austin that kept in occupied for hours! Nothing keeps the girls occupied for hours, but I had enough variety to change things up for them),

never too early to break out the treats.
So I'm going to keep the timing of this as if we stayed in one time zone, just to simplify getting my point across about how much we traveled.
We left Salt Lake at 8pm and arrived in Los Angeles at 9:30. Just for the record, I HATE LAX. I think it's the most awful airport. Awful food, rude workers, terrible seats, etc, etc. Not to mention walking from the national terminal to the international is a marathon!

I promised the kids we could have ice cream there. All we found were freezer burned ice cream bars. Hate LAX.

After our "ice cream" we brushed teeth in the small, dirty bathroom (hate LAX) and waited to board in the over-crowed terminal (did I mention I hate LAX?) We boarded our 13 hour flight to Seoul Korea at midnight.

The kids did great. Bailey was out before we even took off and once we got in the air, I put her on the ground. Austin, Bailey and I sat in 3 seats in one row and John and Addie sat in two seats behind us. Addie is my gold medal sleeper, so no problems there either. Austin is a total crack up. Once the girls were asleep, I let myself drift off. I woke up at one point to find Austin watching a movie and eating pizza the flight attendant had brought him! I stayed up until he finished and forced him to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, a flight attendant came and woke me up and told me that the fasten seat belt sign was on, so it wasn't safe for Bailey to be on the ground. I asked what she suggested I do with her since Austin was sprawled on his and her seats. She said I had to hold her. I looked at my watch, 4am. No Way! I was already grumpy, so I told her that I wasn't going to do that, thanks for your concern, good night. She stayed and said "Ma'am why you not obey safety regulations?" I said "Because that's stupid. How is my daughter more safe in my arms, when I'm clearly going to fall back to sleep. I will probably drop her and she'll end up right back on the ground. So she's just going to stay there." It was a good point, right? And please, what is she going to do to me? We're 30,000 feet in the air over the Pacific Ocean. I was tired and not scared of her! We went back and forth for a while. I kept telling her I know what's best for my children. I'm not picking her up and risking waking her up. Leave me alone. And she just kept saying "Why you not obey safety regulations." By the time the argument was loud enough to wake up John behind me, he tapped me on the shoulder through the seats, which meant "give it up" (easy for him to say, he's not the one holding a 25 pound child for the rest of the night), so I picked her up and was left alone. 15 minutes later, another flight attendant came by and told me that the fasten seat belt sign was off, so I could put Bailey down now. I was so bugged!

I finally got off that plane at 1:30 Friday afternoon (although it was 5:30am Saturday morning in Seoul. I lost all of Friday).

The layover in the Seoul airport was a dream compared to LAX (which I hate). They had a few of these great playplaces for the kids. Plus, sleep lounges (which we didn't get to use because of the playplaces). The only bad thing was that since we were there so early, nothing was open and we were hungry. Thank goodness for the bag of mini cadbury eggs my mom gave me on the way to the airport. It seriously saved my sanity!

We got on a 4 hour flight from Seoul to Manila at 4:30 pm on your Friday (over 24 hours since we left our house- and actually 8:30am Saturday morn). Bailey slept almost this whole flight and the others were angels. We had a long layover in Manila which gave us time to get our bags (all 3 made it!), go through customs, get a taxi from the international airport to the national airport, change from pants and sweatshirts to (clean-hallelujah) shorts and tees, recheck in, get lunch, the get a few wiggles out.

(notice the newly donned beachwear!)

This fourth and final flight was a blast (not a blast like Disneyland, but a blast for a flight after 33 hours of travel). It left at 1am Friday morning your time (that Friday I never saw). It was a quick 45 minute flight on this 2 prop plane that only flew at 17,000 feet, so we got to watch islands swim by. The kids were glued to the windows and I kept eyeing the flight attendants (who were wearing khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts- a far cry from the pant suits and neckerchiefs of the Koreans), but they didn't seem to care that my kids were out of their seats and piled at the windows. I guess they're a little more laid back in the Philippines than in Korea. (this pic is lame, but gives you a better idea of the plane)

The "airport" was a glorified canopy. There was a counter area with a hand written sign in a sheet protector that said "Baggage Claim." I didn't see why we could just grab it off the plane ourselves. I watched the guys pull it out, put it on a cart, and wheel it the 50 feet to the baggage claim. This was the only problem we had. Before the flight took off, we were told that we were over the weight limit (I just could not lose those extra 5 pounds before I left!), so they had to take off some bags and put them on the next flight. I really thought all our bags would make it, but one didn't. They promised to have it delivered that night, which they did and all was well.

Off that plane we had to take a "trike" (which is a motorcycle with a side car) ride to the port. Had it not been for our luggage, we could've all fit in one...

...Serioulsy. I'll get you better pictures as this is our mode of transportation for the next 5 weeks.

At the port we took a 10 minute boat ride to our actual island and another 10 minute car ride to our condo, arriving at 3am. 35 hours of travel time. I was in a total daze and couldn't believe we actually made it! It was actually just about dinner time here, so we pulled out bathing suits and ordered dinner by the pool. After showers, we were all able to lay flat and sleep- HEAVEN!

Bailey was up at 4am and never went back to sleep.

Here's what the sunrise looked like. We saw it because of jet lag.

Right now, I'm sitting on our back patio on this...

Looking at this

Sorry about the lengthy, wordy post. I think they'll be like this for awhile. Mainly for my mom and sister. I'm so not offended if you take me off your google reader for the next month:) It's going to be a good one though!