Christmas in England part 1: Getting there

This is part 1 of the trip, but if you scroll down, I have already posted them all. I decided to post them in reverse order so that they can all be read in order. There are a million pictures and a million details, so reader beware! I also made my blog temporarily public so that all family members and friends of my parents could read the posts. Sorry for clogging your mini feed!

I was pretty dang stressed about this flight. Although, I stress over everything. So there's nothing new there. But we left on the morning of the 21st, and there was supposed to be a huge storm on the evening of the 20th. Just our luck! Jessica and Marshall slept over the night before and there was all kinds of drama trying to get me a prescription I had to take to England. We had to be up at 5am, and it was 11:45 and we were still waiting at the pharmacy for it. So I was high-strung at that point.

We got a few hours of sleep, threw some clothes (pajamas) on, then trudged uphill, in the snow to the trax station. We luckily live very close to the trax, but we live downhill. We had so much luggage and there was snow on the ground and it was freezing and pitch black outside and we sore and cold and sweating and grumpy by the time we got to the station. But we gulped down some muffins and diet coke and took the 10 minute ride to the airport.

We were worried about the holiday rush, but there was almost no one in the airport. We checked our bags (all under 50 pounds! horrah!) and made it through security in a matter of minutes. Then we had two hours to kill, haha. But better safe than sorry! We finally boarded, took off on time, and made it to our first destination: Phoenix. Yes, we had to fly south to Phoenix before we could start heading east.

Here's our first plane picture. So fresh-faced and energized! It slowly goes down-hill from here.

Going off 3 hours of sleep, I thought I'd be able to sleep on the plane. But I suck at sleeping.The flight went quick, and we had a nice, long layover in Phoenix. We boarded our slightly longer flight to Philadelphia. Nathan and I played this game on my iPad where you solve riddles pretty much the whole flight. Thank goodness for technology. Jessica read an entire 500 page book. She's insane.

Our layover in Philadelphia was not even an hour and we knew we'd be cutting it close. We got to the airport and the heat must have been blasting. The airport was a million degrees.  And we had to run, literally run, from one end of the giant airport to the other with heavy bags. I was drenched in sweat. And I already felt super gross from traveling all day. Jessica almost peed her pants. It was rough. We met up with the Crosby's at this point. We had just finished our run, and a very adorable 5-year-old wanted to be held. I was exhausted, but dang she's so cute!

(Ps. This is what Ava said when I showed her this picture, "OH. MY GOSH. That picture is SO cute! I look the cutest, but you guys look fabulous!")

Our plane was already boarding by the time we got to our gate. So we ran to the bathroom and got in line. We had a sweeeet set up on this plane. It was one of the huge planes with a set of two seats on each side and 4-seats in the middle. All 8 of us were in the middle. The 4 Crosby's in one row of 4, and Jessi, Marshall, Nathan, and I in the row right behind them. It was a party!

 

This was a long flight, but it actually went really quick. We got served some dinner, which actually wasn't gross, and we had those little TVs and they had tons of free movies and TV shows. Again, tried to sleep and had to no luck. I think Ava and Blake are the only ones who slept. We got to watch the most beautiful sunrise as we started to land. We landed at 8am England time and 1am our time. Customs was a breeze (there was no one in line!) and our bags were already there when we got to baggage claim. We were exhausted and felt disgusting, but I can't believe how easy the trip went! No problems at all!

My mom, dad, and brother greeted us in the waiting area and led us to a 17-passenger van! My dad rented it for the whole two weeks so that we could always travel all together. With all our luggage, we barely fit! We had been traveling for over 20 hours at this point, but that hour and half drive to my parents house from the airport was the longest part of the trip! We were so exhausted and felt so disgusting and were starving but all food sounded gross. Halfway through, we stopped at McDonald's and that helped a little, but that drive home felt longer than the whole day of flying on an airplane, haha!

By the time we got home, we'd been awake for 24 hours. But we decided to stay awake! We knew the easiest way to adjust would be to not go to sleep until that night. So we explored the house, took a swim in the lovely indoor pool, hung out, showered, finally all gave in for a quick 1-hour nap, watched some TV, and ate some food. Then we finally feel asleep. Some of us for 13 hours. Some of us for over 20. But that's a different story.