We Made It!

Jack's room

It only took us about 26 hours - 3 flights and 30mins driving but we made it and we are here . Our room for this week is 111 and then next week we are moving into the apartment. Jack has his own room with his own bathroom and a queen size bed so he is very comfortable.

The first flight from Canberra to Sydney was easy and it was so great to have the Nan R and Grandma to feed Jack toast and change his nappy whilst mum calmed her nerves and Stuart checked in over 100kgs of luggage. Jack really enjoyed the first flight and thought the plane was fun. He sat on mum's knee all of the way, he fell asleep as the wheels of the plane hit the run way at Sydney airport.

We then had to find out gate in Sydney and we only had about 30mins to wait after going through immigration (which took about an hour) until they started boarding the families onto the SYD to LAX 14 hour flight. We sat next to another family who had a baby, Alexander who was 6 months old. Jack and Alexander had matching bassinets and they were very comfortable sleeping in those.

Both Jack and Alexander enjoyed the flight and played the portable DVD, ate snacks, read books and sang songs. Niether Jack or Alexander cried once! Jack had a 1 hour afternoon sleep just as our lunch arrived (that was nice of him) and he went to bed at about 8.30 Australian EST time which is his usual bed time. Stuart and I had about 2 hours sleep until we were all woken up by the captain as we were only a couple of hours out and they were serving breakfast. Jack also woke up and had breakfast which he thought was very funny.

We landed in LAX on time but our next flight was only 2 hours away and LAX is a HUGE airport. We also had to go through immigration and customs. We also had to collect out luggage to check into the next flight. The stupid pram was the last thing to come off the plane so we were last in line. Immigration was happy but we were stopped at customs and Stuart had to be interviewed!!! They questioned his letter from work which said he was going to work for 90 days (paid by Australia) and made it very clear that there were no extensions. I literally told them that I didn't want to stay any longer anyway and I was already feeling homesick.

So when we finally got through we were told we were probably too late to check our bags in and we probably wouldn't make our flight but WE RAN. We pushed past people at security and we told them to call ahead and HOLD THE PLANE. They were kind enough to let us take the pram on the plane too which made the running faster.

Finally we boarded our Los Angeles to Washington flight (5.5 hours) and Jack fell asleep before take off and although he didn't have a bassinett on this flight - he had his own seat in between Stuart and I so he laid out. Stuart and I also had about 3 hours sleep. Jack slept the whole way until an hour before landing.

Landing in Dulles was a good feeling but we were a little disapointed when THEY LOST OUR BAG! Because we were late checking in they lost the suit case with all of the laptops (3 total) in it.
But we have found our bag this morning and drove to the airport to pick it up.

We also had issues to hire cars and credit cards but they are all fixed now - calm - relax.

We are all sorted now, the weather is lovely, the hotel is beautiful and we all had a good sleep last night. Jack woke up for games between 1 and 2 am but other than that we slept in until 9.30 (went to sleep at 10) and had a delicious - complementary buffet breakfast.

Looking forward to a good weekend of exploring before Stuart goes to work on Monday and also looking forward to hearing your comments so we know you are all good too.