A VERY long journey.

It was a very long, crazy long, NEVER ending day of traveling to cross the ocean to get here.  We got to the USO at SEATAC the night before our flight, at like 10 or so.  Apparently everyone else had the same idea of getting there early for our flight so the USO was jam packed to capacity.  We ended up making little beds for the girls on the floor and they slept for a little bit until we had to check our bags in  for our flight at a kipper 2:30 AM.  

 We somehow managed to keep the girls asleep and transported their little nest beds out into the main airport area while we stood in line to check our bags and get all situated for our flight.

 Thankfully Teri and Darrol stayed until we went through security so they stayed with the girls while we were getting all checked in.   The security to our gates opened up at 4 AM so we let the girls keep sleeping and woke them up to go through security.  They were NOT happy about waking up for that but luckily the security guys were extra quick with us so we could get going to our gate.

 The girls were really excited about riding escalators and the little tram thing to get to our gate so they were pretty good about walking, which was nice because we had three back packs and two little bags for the girls as well as their carseats, so trying to carry them too would have been ridiculous.

For the backpacks, we had one each for Marcus and I and one was just full of snacks for the kids.  All individual size snack packs and fruit snacks and fruit by the foot.  Any time they were hungry we just gave them the bag and they could pick out whatever in the world looked good to them.  It was totally perfect, especially for Bianca.  She pretty much ate constantly the whole first flight.

In my back pack I had extra clothes for the girls and I as well as toiletry essentials to help us feel freshened up.  Half way through the traveling I gave the girls little sponge baths with baby wipes, changed their clothes, brushed their teeth and wet their hair in the sink.  I also "freshened" up but will spare you the details on that one!  I noticed a rejuvenation in the girls after getting all cleaned up and it kind of reset them.

 Even though it was a lot of shenanigans to haul the carseats to the plane, I am SO glad that we did.  They girls felt comfy and cozy in their carseats and slept incredibly well whenever they took naps.   We took Bianca for potty breaks whenever she asked and walked her around a little bit each time but when we were back in the seats we told her we all had to be buckled up.  All of us stayed buckled the whole time and Bianca didn't question it very much about being buckled in her carseat while sitting down.

 Konks and I on the second leg of the flight.  We both were sleeping hard and you can kind of see me holding her hand.  She wanted to cuddle for her naps so I held her hand and we stayed like that for our whole nap time.  I was so tired I didn't even move!

The first flight felt like it went by faster than I expected it too.  We just dozed on and off.  They had movie after movie playing and served us two meals.  The meals were SO good, seriously!  Tons of food, enough to totally fill me up and it tasted so good.  It could be Stockholm Syndrome, but I swear that food was the bomb.   So it was something like 10 hours or maybe a little more until we got to Japan.

 Then we had two layovers on the mainland of Japan, each layover was 3 hours and then the last two legs of the flight were only a little over an hour in the air each time.  The layovers were hard for me mentally.  There wasn't a lot of room to stretch out at the layover points and my feet were swollen up like a (insert curse word here).  It was nice that we were on the same plane all the way to Okinawa so we could leave our carseats on the plane and any extra bags that we wanted to.  They just cleaned up the plane at the layovers, stocked up more food and we picked up and dropped off people at each stop.

Were were on a military only flight, chartered for military personnel and their families.  It is called the Patriot Express and I really liked it.  Everyone on the flight was so considerate and understanding and it really helped to reduce any stress you would feel.

 These color wonder coloring books provided literally HOURS of entertainment on our journey.  The special markers work only on the paper.  Olivia does super well with crafts and keeps things on the paper, Bianca not so much.  So it was really nice for them to have 'big girl' markers, they thought it was a super special treat and I didn't have to worry about it getting on anything.  Totally genius, totally Kaitlyn's idea and I am SO glad she told me about these little beauts.

 Olivia probably held out the longest on the nap front.  She was having so much fun coloring and watching the movies that they were playing, she was just in her own little world.  At the last layover Bianca totally stayed asleep while we took her into the waiting area, continued to sleep all through the layover and slept again once we got her on the plane.  Olivia totally conked out the last little flight.  Like she was dead to the world, the little trooper.

We landed into Kadena Air Force Base and the last bit was probably the most brutal.  Both the girls were beyond their limit and wanted to be held and we had to take everything off the plane as it was our last stop.  All the backpacks, toy bags, car seats and girls.  My feet were wretched at this point.  I have had my feet swell in pregnancy before but this was out of control.  They were throbbing and we were hauling all our stuff off the plane.  Marcus had on two back packs (front and back) two toy bags, holding Olivia and a carseat and even with his hurculean efforts there was still another girl and carseat that needed to be hauled off.  Luckily a Marine boy helped me to get off the plane with a carseat and Air Force guy helped me to get on the bus when we got off the plane.

They released all the families with children or special needs off first but ironically our bags were some of the last to come on the roundabout thing, so it felt like we were waiting FOREVER to get all our suitcases.  The girls were crying and exhausted, I was so exhausted that I probably would have just joined in on the crying except I was too tired to even exert that much effort.

Our sponsor, a guy from Marcus unit here, picked us up from the airport and took us and another family to the temporary lodging.  He has been the best!  The very next day he took us to get some cell phones and get groceries for our hotel.  He also has been taking Marcus to work and chauffeuring us around until we got our car this last week.  I am so thankful that he got assigned to be our sponsor, it was such a blessing to have all that help when we got here!

So we were in the hotel for two weeks until everything lined up for us to get our house that we are in now.  It took my feet 4 days before the swelling went back down totally.  After the first week we were totally time adjusted and ready to go.