Day 1, or "The Longest Day"

Finally, after a long month of goodbyes, visiting, laughter, tears, good food, not-so-good food, friends, and family, we were ready to leave for St Louis, ship the truck, and hop a plane to Deutschland. We left early Monday morning and drove all day to get to STL. Wyatt was grumpy and whined almost the entire trip... it was his awful slow, tired whine for which there is no known cure. We tried feeding him, which led to us seeing Bobbi McCaughey and a septuplet at a Burger King in Des Moines (which I thought was cool but Tom did not). It ended up being just another draining day.

On the left is the previously mentioned "celebrity".
I believe she ate a Whopper.

Tuesday was supposed to be the day when Tom completed the shipping process for the truck and we went to the City Museum (http://www.citymuseum.org/site/, how fun does it look?). Sadly, the City Museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and Tom was missing one lone (yet vital) piece of paperwork for the truck... so Tuesday ended up being the day we all sat in the hotel room trying not to kill each other as Tom tried to get that document and the kids bounced off the walls.

Baggage much?

Finally, Wednesday, the BIG day, arrived. Tom left early to ship the truck, got back quickly, and we were all actually ready to load our 14 bags, six backpacks, four kids,and two adults onto the shuttle almost an hour early. We checked in and it took less than 45 minutes! As we waited, we got several compliments on our kids' excellent behavior while they waited for that much stuff to be processed. I imagine airport personnel must see some dreadful things. I wondered if anyone would be giving us anything but dirty looks by the time we got off the plane in Frankfurt. Security was also quite decent-- it really helps not to have to take off and put on four pairs of shoes. The first flight, to Washington Dulles, was fast and uneventful. A quick dinner of Auntie Anne's Pretzels (yum) and Wendy's (ew) and we were ready to board! We trooped onto the plane, got the kids settled in, and tried to keep the kids quiet for the next 45 minutes... until they told us that we'd be disembarking because of a mechanical problem. Le sigh. So back out to the terminal, walk to the other end of the terminal, and waaaait for the announcement that we could board the plane. (Side note: I don't fly that much, but even I am savvy enough to know that unpacking all your things and getting really comfy on an aircraft that is sitting motionless is a bad plan. Note to other flyers who were more inconvenienced than me.)

Trying to keep the kids quiet yet entertained was no easy task at that point. They'd been cooped up all day, and wanted to run around. I don't care for that, so trying to get them to sit reasonably quietly and entertain themselves was fuel for the headache that was threatening to make my skull explode. Norah in particular (to no one's surprise) was particularly difficult to contain. Incidents included loudly claiming that "Jacob keeps farting", doing a dance in front of an older gentleman that included Shakira-esque butt wiggling, and a game of pretend that involved her hopping up onto a seat and pretending to pee, wiping and all, in front of the same older gentleman (who had to have wondered what kind of degenerate things we allow our children to watch). Brynn and Norah also had to be reminded repeatedly that asking loudly "What stinks in here? What smells like poop? Why does it smell like onions?" is almost always inappropriate, especially when on a small aircraft or entering a bathroom stall just vacated by a stranger.

Finally, flight 952 boarded and took off. Tom sat with Wyatt and I had the privilege of sitting by Norah, while Jacob and Brynn sat in the middle of the plane. Brynn fell asleep almost immediately, and Jacob was occupied by the new Kindle Fire for hours until I finally told him to get some sleep. There were nine channels to choose from, each with either one movie or four sitcom episodes. These played on repeat for the entire 8 hour flight. Since they were offered in English, French, German, and Spanish, I was able to watch "The Lion King" as well as an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" in German. I could hear that Wyatt was cranky over on the other side of the plane, but thank goodness white noise on planes is so atrocious because I could barely hear him. At any rate, the flight was fairly empty and I was surrounded by many snoring passengers so it couldn't have been too bad. Neither Tom or I got any sleep, but even though it was 10am local time it was only 3am for us. So, you know, we were still chipper.

Sleepy Traveler.

By the time we landed, all four kids were finally passed out... to the point where no one wanted to wake up!  As we waiting to leave the plane, a passing woman said, "Have these kids been here the whole trip?" And I said, "well, I didn't pick them up halfway" (ha ha, tired humor). Point was, she was impressed with how pleasant and quiet my kids were. I have to say, they really did well. We got off the plane and proceeded to walk at least 87 miles through the Frankfurt Airport, which is huge and has many areas that look exactly the same. You know how when cartoon characters run through houses and the background just repeats and repeats? That's what this was like. Then locating baggage, military check in (where one last time I was complimented on the excellent, obedient, and quiet nature of my children-- who did in fact sit in a row waiting for us to be ready to leave), finding the people bringing us to Kaiserslautern (who made me walk PAST the Starbucks without stopping)... driving an hour to Kaiserslautern, trying to get an impression of Germany while trying to stay awake in the vehicle, arriving, more checking in, lunch at the nasty PX food court (but impressed by the niceness of the PX mall itself), finally finding our temporary housing... whew. I think we finally got here at about 2pm. It was not a moment too soon, as I was super crabby, kind of smelly, and had not been more than ten feet from my family in four days. Tom had to leave again for more in-processing, and I proceeded to try and scrub all the travel filth off me and the kids. And then pass out completely for several hours.

Now we're all up at 2am, because we're just completely time-confused. But the temporary quarters is really, really nice. It's new, spacious, and has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus full kitchen, dining area, and living room. And five TVs. (??) Essentially it's an apartment... only we have to follow the rules and let housekeeping in each day, so I'll do my best coping with that ;).


I'm not sure what tomorrow holds... at the very least there's a playground right behind the building so the kids can finally run around again. If they're not sleeping because they were up all night...

       

Ducklings, on the go! Many smiles from fellow passengers,
and one man who guaranteed me I was earning a good spot in heaven.