we're home

We've been home for a few days now...

The journey home was very long and tiring, but we made it. The bus ride was fine because the boys were in their car seats. The long flight was terrible. The boys slept about the 1st hour and last 2-3 hours. The flight was completely full, so Jared was on our lap the whole time. At one point in the middle of the flight, Jared finally went to sleep. About 30 minutes later, Nathan decided he had to go to the bathroom. I carefully slid out from underneath Jared, and we climbed over him and Alex. We made it back in without waking Jared. Then 5 minutes later, Nathan said he had to go again. You don't mess around when kids say they have to go... so we went again. This time on the way back, Jared woke up screaming and wouldn't go back to sleep. Sigh.

We took turns holding him at the back of the plane.

The next flight from LA to Chicago was great. The boys slept the whole way, and they slept half of the last flight. Our one problem on the last flight was the landing. Nathan had to go to the bathroom again, but we couldn't get up because we were getting ready to land. He couldn't wait, so he went #2 in his pants...

We made it safely home though. Alex's parents were there to pick us up. And because we had to deal with Nathan's issues, all of our bags were waiting for us on a big cart. The baggage guy wheeled our luggage directly out to the car for us. That was nice. Six weeks worth of stuff is hard to cart around.

We hate traveling with little kids.

We did notice that the smaller the plane, the MORE leg room we had. For the long flight, the seats were so close together that we couldn't bend over to reach anything on the floor, unless we went down sideways. With kids, things are always on the floor, so that was a big problem. One other complaint: I know we didn't pay full fare for Jared (only 10%), but doesn't he still need food and drink? To most of the flight attendants, Jared was basically invisible, as they generally ignored our request for another drink.

Anyway, I'm done complaining. We're just glad to be home safe and sound. After being up for nearly 36 hours, it was nice to sleep. Now we just have to get back to a normal sleep schedule (waking up before 11:00am!).