Gone are the days when I could pack ONE bag for 3 weeks for my entire family…that even included when we had Zachary. Now, it’s 2 suitcases, a stroller, 3 car seats and 2 pack and plays…I seriously look and feel like a hoarder…and try getting all of that s&(* off of the baggage belt with 3 kids running around!!
Anyway…our trip started out damned…You can’t book and pay for infants online…you have to call and add them and then pay when you get to the airport…except in Cambodia. They were completely befuddled when I explained this and when I gave them ticket numbers, prices, etc. …they wouldn’t take my word for it…Instead, they took 1 hour and 15 minutes of our time calling people and 30 more minutes to ticket them…all the while, we were LITERALLY the LAST people in the ticketing area…and they wouldn’t check us in until the twins had been ticketed. Smarts…I tell you, they are NOT overrated…so they finally ticket them and tell me that I had told them the wrong price ($158 each)…and that the correct price was ($152 each)…so you made me sit here for 1 hour and 15 minutes to save me $12…and THEN get my ass chewed by the immigrations officer who wasn’t going to stamp us out of the country because we waited too long…and when I explained to him (in Khmer) that we HAD been there for 2 hours already…he told me I was lying to him and glared at me for each passport and slammed his stamp on the passport…whatever…we were THOSE people they were holding the plane for.
If you ONLY knew the cool it took for me to get thru this…
Then the same old story on the plane…vomit, tears, pee, screaming…oh, yeah…fun times! Only to end up in the airport hotel with a confirmation and the staff telling me that it wasn’t really a confirmation…even though the email clearly states “thank you for confirming your arrival and departure times”…we were roomless for 3 hours of our 12 hour layover…3 very crucial hours where that threshold of tolerance (by ALL of us) was quickly dissolving…we managed to finally get into a room and get about 2 hours until Brandon had a night terror (or middle of day terror…or I’m so tired I don’t know how to sleep anymore terror…) and woke the entire room up and that was all she wrote…we had about 5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period…and were getting onto a 9 hour flight to Hawaii…God help us all!
We managed a long long bath and lots of visits to the various parks throughout the airport…honestly, if we all weren’t so tired, I think we could have had some serious fun there…
There are NO pictures of the flight to Hawaii…it was mostly the same, but worst…I wanted to put sunglasses on and go sit somewhere else on the plane and complain about someone’s noisy assed kids back in row 48…
Alas…we arrived, in one piece…slightly insane and quite tired…but that sign that said, “Welcome to the United States”…brought tears to my eyes and goose bumps…people who understood me at immigration and stamped us with a smile…and the friendly soldier who – without being asked – grabbed 2 trollies and put ALL my shit on the cart and told me to have a nice day…I was HOME…in America…bless that boy and the mama who taught him to be so gracious to a crazed mama with 3 boys running around!
(…and I think we can all agree that this was a VERY good thing Jimmy was NOT on the planes with us…if nobody else can, at least Jimmy & I agree!!!)
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