Getting here

What a day! Or maybe days? We're still figuring this time thing out.

On Friday at noon, we were excited to get the news that the boys and I had our tickets booked to travel with Nathan. We woke up early Saturday morning and finished packing all of our stuff for the trip. Thanks to Amy and Kevin for watching the boys and carrying bags to help us get on our way! We ended up bringing 7 suitcases, 2 car seats, a crib, double stroller and 4 carry on bags...wow! We definitely packed with the idea that we'd be living out of these suitcases for the next few months.

Nathan went to pick up Auggie and we loaded up (and barely fit!) in a minivan to Dulles. Checking in Auggie turned out to be a major ordeal. Nathan had all paperwork neatly organized, so that helped a ton. One great development of the trip was that the price quoted to Nathan of $630 to put Auggie in cargo changed to $250 when we got there - that was nice! So we said our goodbyes to Auggie and headed for our gate. At this point we were all in great spirits with tons of energy. Please see above picture of Wilson helping out!

See you in Japan, Auggie!

Nathan's active duty military status got us on board first so we had time to settle in with all of our stuff up before everyone else boarded the full flight. We had 3 seats together in a center aisle and Nathan traded someone to get the seat in the aisle right behind us. Our flight was Dulles to Tokyo nonstop which takes about 14 hours. We were pretty upset to be delayed on the tarmac for almost 2 hours. The boys were being pretty good, but the idea of adding any time to a 14 hours flight was a little infuriating. The rest of the flight consisted of movies (Lady and the Tramp played over and over for the boys - they loved it. Every time a dog was on the screen Leo said dog which turned from really cute to not after about 5 minutes.), running up and down the aisles, screaming, sleeping (Leo not so much and Wilson taking over 2 seats to do it.), the boys flirting with the stewardesses (every time one of them walked by Wilson called her beautiful and Leo was just up most of the time so they all got to know him, ugh) airplane food, airplane bathrooms...you get the idea. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful. One weird thing was that it was always light outside. We flew a route that took us across Alaska. It was fun watching the tracker information on the plane flying over the Bering Strait and the International Date Line.

After our long flight, we had to pick up Auggie and take her through customs to the next flight. She seemed in okay spirits, and we were happy to see they had refreshed her food and water. We had a personal attendant from United in Tokyo to help us through, but the delay of the first flight made us miss our connecting flight to Fukuoka. After some murmurs that we might have to wait until the next day to get another connecting flight, they got us on another flight leaving 2 hours later. We were relieved.

The boys exhausted during our layover in Tokyo. Yes, the mountain of baggage behind them is all ours.

The next flight was only 2 hours and we all passed out so it seemed very short. Nathan's sponsor was there to pick us up with a huge van. The drive looked beautiful, so we were sad to have to do it in the dark. We dropped off Auggie at the vet for the beginning of her 3-6 month quarantine, checked into the lodge and crashed. We're all pretty messed up with our sleep, but right now it's 8 am and we're excited to go walk around the base a little today. The Navy Lodge in Sasebo, our home for the next 45 days or whenever we find a place to live, seems nice. We have a little kitchenette, dining room and a tiny den for the boys to sleep by the front door.

Auggie is demonstrating how we all feel after the long trip out here!