Flying to Oz with a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old

This is our third family trip to visit John's family in Australia.  The first time Evan was just a baby, the second time Emma was just a baby, and now this time neither are babies anymore!  That meant that both kids had their own seat on the plane (and yes, we had to pay for them all in full, sigh), and that we no longer fit into the 3 seats near the window.  Rather, we got the four middle seats in the 747 airplane for our family of four.  However, let me back up a bit.

First we had to fly to Los Angeles before we boarded our 747 to Australia.  That flight was on a small Embraer regional jet, which only had 2 seats on either side of the aisle.  So on that flight we all sat in one row together, with each kid in the window seats. That was a relatively short flight, but it hit really bad turbulence just north of the Grand Canyon, which for me made it very nerve wracking!  I was sitting next to Evan, who had predicted our flight would be bumpy on our drive to the airport because the sky had clouds in it.  As we got jostled all about, I told him how he was right, to which he gave me his tongue in the side of his mouth cheeky smile of pride.  Still, my knuckles were white as I held onto my arm rest, trying to contain all of my fear internally (I was trembling inside!) in order to keep a pleasant relaxed and happy look on my face to keep him from being scared.  But don't get me wrong, clear air turbulence in a smaller jet like that can be fierce and this particular instance got as strong as moderate-to-severe.  In the worst of it, the left wing dropped down and we bobbled back and forth while the pilot (or perhaps autopilot) regained control and leveled it off again.  It really felt like the winds were trying to tear that plane apart.  

Anyway, we made it to L.A. and had a whopping 5 hours and 30 minutes to wait until our next flight. When we booked, we felt that this extra time would be a nice cushion in case our flight to L.A. was delayed (which it was last time).  However, this time, our flight was on time.  Nevertheless, we arrived in a regional jet terminal that you had to take a shuttle to get to the main terminal, and there was a very long line for that shuttle.  We waited quite awhile it seemed for a shuttle to come, and when it finally did, it filled up before we got on.  So we waited for the next one.  The shuttle ride was pretty cool, though, because we were out on the taxi way as big jets rolled past.  The kids loved that. Once we got to the main terminal, we had a bit of a walk over to the international terminal.  We luckily did not have to go through security again, but we took our time knowing we had plenty of time to burn.  When we arrived at the international terminal, it was full of glamor and glitz with fancy and expensive shops and big (and mean huge) screens showing various animated images and upcoming flight departure gate info.  However, that information only went out about 2 hours, so our flight info was still not displayed.  

We decided to first get some dinner and then saw a sign for a play area, which happened to be right near a food court area.  After eating, we headed to the play area and let the kids run loose. They had a ball chasing each other around and climbing on and sliding down various parts of the play area that they thought seemed like "slides".  I looked at my watch after some time had passed, thinking we certainly had spent at least half of our layover time already and was very displeased to see we still had almost 4 hours to go!  How could we only have spent 1.5 hours with all that we'd done!?  So, we let the kids run around for at least an hour. They got quite sweaty with all the running and playing they were doing.  

After that, we encouraged them to lay down and hoped they might catch a few hours of sleep before we had to catch the next flight.  Since the play area had some nice benches, we figured that was as good a spot as any.  Plus, most of the families there had left to catch their flights so it was fairly quiet.  It didn't take them too long to conk out...after all, neither had a nap that day and it was well past their bedtime by this point.  They didn't have any problem continuing their snooze when some loud kids came and played (and screamed!) after they'd fallen asleep. While the kids slept, John and I each took turns walking around to pass the time and find out where our gate was.  Turns out it was the closest gate to the food court, so not too far away! That worked out well because hauling two zombie-like kids was not easy and would have been really challenging otherwise (we opted not to bring a stroller, by the way). 

Emma woke up a bit better than Evan.  Evan was pretty whiney the whole time we boarded the plane. As soon as we got in our seats, he pretty much went right back to sleep, sleeping through the dinner service and everything.  Emma, however, got a second wind and stayed up with me and ate some dinner.  I wasn't sure if she'd go back to sleep after that, but she eventually did I think (I finally gave up and just put on my eye mask to go to sleep myself assuming she'd get the hint and fall asleep eventually).  

Just on board...with two sleepy kids!

As usual, I slept rough on the flight, but I did get at least 5 hours of sleep I'd guess.  I probably woke up 10 times during that period though to toss and turn and so forth.  The kids both woke up about 5 hours from Brisbane, because by this time it was well into the afternoon time in their body clocks.  They watched some movies and played some games (on the in seat entertainment and/or their tablets).  I even watched a movie, albeit what would have been a 2-hour movie took me over 3 hours to watch with all the stops and starts to tend to the kids.  Then it was breakfast time.  The meal times are challenging with Emma in her car seat, given the tray table doesn't fold open.  So we had to cram all four meals on 3 tray tables, but we made it work.  

As we started our decent into Brisbane, the kids were getting really excited.  They kept wanting to look out the window to see Australia.  They didn't have any issues with their ears this time (remember Evan's outburst last time?). We hit one "fun bump" as we flew through a towering cumulus cloud on our decent, to which many of the passengers made an audible "ahhh" sound.  I didn't mind that bump, because it was just an up and down rollercoaster kind of bump.  Luckily, this flight didn't have many bumps at all, and I was very thankful for that after the first flight we had on this trip! We touched down pretty hard, but we were all so excited and happy to have arrived.  

Yay, we made it!

We took our time getting to immigration, given we needed to stop at a restroom and get Emma changed and the like.  We figured we'd let the rush of people get through the line while we took our time.  However, I think several flights had arrived at the same time, because although we got through immigration pretty quickly, the customs line was insane!  It wrapped around all of the luggage carousels and then some!  We were pretty much at the very tail end as well, anticipating probably another hour's wait in that line.  However, this is where traveling with young kids can come in handy...you might get lucky enough to get the "pity pass" (which I believe we have had gotten in the past as well).  In other words, one of the customs officers approached us in the line, asked us a set of questions, and then stamped our cards and sent us through an open line that had no wait.  

As we came out to find Nanna and Janine and Eva, we suggested for Evan to look closely for Nanna and tell us when he saw her and make sure to give her a hug.  What he did was even better...he definitely was the first to spot her, and then he ran up full speed toward her and gave her a huge hug yelling out "Nannaaaaa!"  She loved it, and so did I.  I was so happy to see him so excited and happy, and we were all so glad our long day of traveling we nearly done.  (And that our traditional stop for Beefy's pies on the drive to Nanna's house was just around the corner!)

Next up...getting over the jet lag.