Coming HOME!

The last evening in our Saint Simons condo was bittersweet.  The Mr. had already left with most of our belongings crammed into the car helter skelter.  The car was so full that he couldn't see out the back windows, but we fit most of our stuff in!  We left a few big non-essential items behind, either donating them or giving them to friends.  I took the boys down the street to Dairy Queen for dinner, and of course, ice cream! :)  We had to celebrate the fact that we were going HOME the next day, even though SSI really had become home for us over those last 6 months.

I knew I'd miss that walk from the downtown area to our condo, so I snapped photos as we walked along.

We were without toys that last evening (other than a few that were safely packed in our carry on) so the boys had a ton of fun playing with measuring cups. It was SO NOISY, but fun!

Very late that evening, most likely into the wee hours of the next morning, all the cleaning and organizing and packing was finally taken care of. Here was the line of luggage that was going to be mine-all-mine to take care of the next day, ha ha!  There was our double stroller, 2 car seats in travel bags, 1 small suitcase, a backpack and my diaper bag.  And Little Brother was still crawling at this time too!

Earlier in the week I had tried out the Moby Wrap for Little Brother and it worked, but it was pretty comical too see how huge he looked in it. (Here's a tip for the Moby wrap:  make sure the wrap is spread knee to knee under their bottom and is very tight, you can carry a baby up to 35 lbs in this wrap if you wrap it properly! Knees above bottom is the rule of thumb for a proper carry.)

The morning of our trip home we woke up very, very early, got loaded into a taxi, got dropped off at the Brunswick airport, got through security (thankfully a nice older security guard helped me with the bags) and before we knew it, we were in the air on our first flight of the day.

Goodbye lovely marshes!  Saint Simons Island will always hold tight to a little piece of my heart.

Here is Little Mr. still sleepy eyed, but fairly cheerful while sitting on the floor enjoying a Curious George DVD.  Buckling the baby into the seat belt and putting the toddler on the floor is so much easier than trying to hold a baby for an entire flight while taking care of a toddler!

Here you can see Atlanta! We landed at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on time and unlike last time, I had a couple of hours before our next flight. The Atlanta airport is HUGE and basically is a combination of a mad house and a zoo.  There are 2 main terminals (domestic and international) and 7 or 8 concourses which together have 207 (or more) gates. In 2012 it held the world record for the busiest airport in the world!

My experience with this airport has been "interesting" to say the least.  My first experience in this airport (when I was traveling from the West coast to the East coast), is documented in this post.  Traveling East to West I had an even crazier experience.  When I arrived at the airport, my departure gate was announced and I took off for the gate.  Once again this involved a lot of walking, a train and a few elevator rides.  When I got to the gate about twenty five minutes later, I was told to turn around and go back because the gate had been changed, and I read the electronic sign which also confirmed this info.  So I back-tracked and basically ended up at the same gate I had just came from, which was supposed to be my new departure gate. When I arrived there, they apologized and told me that the information was wrong, and that the gate I had just come from was indeed the correct gate.  So I traveled my same steps one more time, going down the concourse, getting in line for an elevator, then finally onto an elevator, down a hallway, onto the train, off the train, down a hallway, eventually getting into another elevator which took me to the proper concourse, which of course then meant walking to almost the very end and finding the gate.  Phew!  We made it there with plenty of time to spare (about 30 minutes), but I am not fond of this airport AT ALL. Ha ha! There was just enough time for us to use the bathroom and get in line for pre-boarding.

When we were finally in the air for our second flight, I got Little Mr. to scoot over towards the window, and put Little Brother in the seat beside him, buckling him into the seat belt.  About 10 minutes later I looked over and he was asleep.  Beautiful!  It had been quite the morning and he was exhausted.

Thumbs up!

Later we were able to enjoy the beautiful sights out our window.  We were glad to have a window seat and we were sitting beside one of the nicest and most gracious women I have ever met.

Finally, we had reached the West Coast!  Look how beautiful Mount Rainier is!

Home Sweet Home!  Even though we don't live in Seattle, I started to tear up when I saw downtown Seattle, the waterfront, ferries and the Space Needle.  Oh it was going to be so nice to be home!

Originally we had planned to get on a bus at the Sea-Tac airport, take it to Bellingham (3 hr ride) and then rent a car in Bellingham to drive home, but instead, Grandma J picked us up and we were SO thankful!  It was so good to see her too!!!

We stopped for some groceries on the way home.  Thinking back on this now, I think I was crazy.  I couldn't have done it without her help, and  I guess I was running on adrenaline.

Home Sweet Home!  It was so good to be home!