When we came up with this plan, we knew we needed help. So we talked to our families. Seth's mom, Janis, volunteered to join us for the first month in Israel and my mom, Dianne, said she would come for the second month in Israel or to travel Europe with us. So on the night before we left, Seth's parents arrived. Allen came to say goodbye and drive our car to Utah, and Janis to join us on the plane. We had a nice dinner with them the night before we left.
Many friends asked me if I was scared or intimidate to go. The answer was Yes and Yes, but I got to the point of being so sick of packing and preparing and anticipating that I just wanted to GO!
Finally the day came, we worked to the last second. Phew, we made it out the door. We fought traffic to the airport- led by our trusty driver - Tyler. Jake didn't last long.
Don't they look excited?
The kids watched some movies on the plane and then crashed at about 10 p.m. We put Sam on the floor at our feet. Seth at his own two seats, and Ellie laid down on hers and Sam's seat. I had Jake and Jayne curled up on their seats and their heads on my lap. So it was a long flight threw the night. And after a 9 1/2 hour flight we made it to Amsterdam. We had plans to go out and about, but when we got their we were all too tired. We put Seth bed in room at the Airport Yotel (single beds you can rent out. I told Ellie they looked like little alien pods.) But he check out and felt a bit better after resting. The rest of us wandered the airport, fell asleep on the benches and ate - for our 8 hour layover. If I were to do it again, I would do it differently, but I was too much in a fog to take on anything more than survival.
Luckliy, the Amsterdam airport is awesome. It had all sorts of cool things. A library, a computer lab, a playground, and a mall. So between naps, we would venture out to see the different things. But when the time came to catch our flight to Israel, we were happy to go.
The kids as we were waiting to go through security for our flight to Israel.
It was only a 4 hour flight to Tel Aviv, but I was so tired I just remember trying to keep Jake from climbing up and down the seats and driving the rest of the plan crazy. I was in and out of sleep. Sam had a total melt down from exhaustion, Jake wouldn't go to sleep. In the end, somehow he stopped moving because when we touched down in Tel Aviv, I woke up and he was asleep in my lap.
It was 2:30 a.m. when we arrived. For some reason this picture was blurry, thank goodness, because we weren't looking so hot.
So the amazing part of the trip was that we got our rental car at the airport (at 3 a.m.). All our phones had died or had no service, and we had no GPS- and with only a written address in our hand we drove to Jerusalem (about 45 minutes) and then found our house. We only had to ask two people along the way how to get there. And now after driving in during the daytime and the little windy roads, it really was amazing we found this place (at 5:30 a.m.)! No wonder we feel messed up. :) But we made it.
No comments:
Post a Comment