Our first trip back to America

It's 4:53 AM in Florida but we are all awake since body clock time is 9:53 AM!  We survived our first flight going west from London as a family of 5 and in economy no less!!! ( no more funded business class  tickets for us, much to Lauren's dismay!).  I would definitely say it was a success, albeit a 14+ hour journey.  We left our house around 8:40 AM to catch the train to the airport which was better than anticipated.  The girls were great with handling their suitcases, and all the train stations had lifts to use, which is very helpful with luggage.  The tricky part is getting off the train; when you have 4 rolling suitcases and a stroller, that gap between the train and the platform most definitely must be "minded"! People are so helpful!!  Clapham junction's gaps are almost big enough for a kid to fall in.  The train from Clapham Junction to Gatwick was cool because it had tables, and it was only 25 minutes.

We were all checked into out flight about an hour and 20 minutes before departure time, and security was quick.  Alison was happy because she got the cozy spot on the plane in the seat beside the window, Lauren was happy to have her own TV, and Drew was happy to be with Daddy.  The kids did not sleep until Drew fell asleep as soon as we parked at the gate, so he got about a 10 minute nap on daddy's shoulder until we got to customs.  I think brad and I each slept about 3 minutes before we were awaken for some emergency from the kids.  The kids were great on the flight and ate every snack I brought!!! (2sandwiches, 4 cheese sticks, 6 apples, 4 boxes of raisins, craisins, 3 ziplocs bags of grapes, 3 bags of crisps, 3 Rice Krispie treats, 2 breadsticks and cheese, 2 bags of mini rice cakes, 2 Apple fruit snacks, 1 bag of pretzels and 3 mini packages of chocolate buttons!). Next flight I am going to investigate the kids meals, but I am not sure they will be allergy friendly.

Drew watched bubble guppies about 4 times, and the girls watched paddington.  And the girls had an adventure "brushing their teeth" in the toilet.  They were in there for quite a bit, so I went back to check on them to find several people in the queue and hearing all sorts of noise, and a couple people said " someone's having a great time in there!"

We had quite the adventure with renting a van.  We no longer have auto insurance since we don't have a car, so we had to pay for insurance, and we couldn't bring the booster seats since it was one more thing to manage on the train so thank goodness they didn't charge us for the three seats we got!  Brad upgraded to a sienna, but they realized after we had loaded all the suitcases and were buckling Drew's seat in that the plates were expired so we had to wait until they found another one.  It doesn't take nearly as much time to load and unload 8 bags, though!!  It's amazing the amount of stuff you travel with when you are driving vs flying.  Drew was so happy to be riding in a car!  Brad almost started driving on the other side of the road!

The place we are staying is less than 10 minutes drive from the airport, so,we checked in and found McDonald's (old McDonald's according to Drew!) because we told Alison we would get mcdonalds for dinner and she was really excited for that!!  Then we ordered pizza for everyone over 5.  By the time we got into our place, it was 6 PM here, 11 pm London time.  Drew was asleep by 7, Ali around 7:30 and Lauren by 9.   I went to the grocery to buy breakfast stuff and a few snacks, and groceries are expensive here!!!

We are looking forward to seeing mum mum this morning, and nana and papa on Tuesday.  They had to delay their trip a couple of days because nana hasn't been feeling well and is going to the doctor on Monday.  And I am sure we will be making our first of many trips to Target today, especially since Lauren has no shoes other than converse!  (I made her a packing list but didn't double check to make sure she packed everything on the list.)