Getting to Korea November 18, 2011

Well, we made it! Of course in our family's fashion we had a stressful time getting to this point! We left our house yesterday morning at 7:45 am; plenty of time to get to the airport and have time to spare for a 12:50 flight normally. Apparently though, when you leave your car in long-term parking it is NOT enough time!

By the time we parked, got our millions of bags (ok-3 large totes of donations, 2 large suitcases, 1 duffle bag with care packages for a few holt babies, and 4 backpacks plus sweaters... see? it felt like a million!) onto the airport shuttle and then back off again 15 minutes later, onto 2 different luggage carts (which by the way cost $5 each at the SFO airport!), through ticketing (no overages-thankyouverymuch!), through security (through the family line thanks to a nice security man), all the way down to the last possible gate in the terminal...we had 15 minutes to wait for boarding!!! My internal stress level was pretty darn high until we hit the gate and then the nice man that checked our luggage let us go onto the plane 1st... yeah, i thought that was awesome until we didn't take off for another HOUR!

Ready to Go

All our 2 year old wanted to do was watch movies on the little tv in front of her & of course since we weren't in the air, she couldn't. She did great until take off and then she went into a wild, 2 year old, STUBBORN as an ox (I could totally have used a different phrase here) FULL on tantrum. For all of take off and maybe 15 minutes more after that she was gone. For those of you who have gotten to an experience a KatieJoy tantrum you feel my pain. This child screams at the top of her lungs like someone is torturing her, kicks and throws her whole 40 pound self all over the place. It.was.horrid. andohsoembarassing as the lady in front of me had clearly never had children and was fit to be tied that I couldn't make her stop. (Can I just say that I really really REALLY hope karma comes and gets that woman when she has kids???) I think I was bright red with embarrassment for the first 2 hours of the flight. KatieJoy finally conked from sheer exhaustion on me right after her tantrum and slept for maybe 1.5 hours (but I don't think it was even that long). The people around us were great except for cranky lady in front of me...the plane had 3 rows of 3... do the math-there's 4 of us! SO allen and I were constantly switching seats to try to reign in little miss & her big brother who literally played video games and watched a few movies for 10 hours of our 13 hour flight! 13 hours goes so slowly when trying to entertain a 2 year old who doesn't fit into earphones very well, wants to touch EV.ER.Y.thing, and can't use the controls on anything electronic. I think it's twice as long for mom and dad (& possibly triple for the lady in front of me- can you tell I'm holding a bit of animosity towards her?) KatieJoy slept maybe another hour towards the end of the flight but couldn't quite get comfortable and was not happy about that so the last 2 hours of the flight while Calen slept like an angel (THANK GOD) Allen and I kept handing KatieJoy back and forth to keep her from another meltdown. Finally we saw the lights of Korea below us. However, while we were sitting waiting for everyone else to get off the plane, KatieJoy decided it was a good time to get air sick and throw up every single thing she had eaten during the flight. Yup- that was great fun. Eeeeeeew.

(To be fair to my daughter, I should say for her 2 year old diva self she did excellent and really there is NO good way to be stuck on a plane for 13 hours. If she hadn't had the tantrum at the beginning of the flight, I think it wouldn't have seem so terrible).

We finally navigated our way through the airport, got through immigration after a few more paper fill outs as our flight attendants told us the wrong amount of slips to sign. Found all our luggage- HUGE YAY!!! Exchanged our money and found our van driver who took us into Seoul- which for those of you who don't know, is ANOTHER hour trip as least! KatieJoy finally fell asleep for good during the car ride and missed dinner- hence why she was up at 3 am here complaining that she wasn't tired any more and that she was "hooon-gry!"

Throughout the flight as I stressed out about our daughter, the lady in front of me and how many hours the screen in front of me said we still had to go, I reminded myself that I may NEVER see any of those people again (can you all pray that mean lady won't be on our returning flight please?) and that the trip is completely worth everything- including my horrid migraine I got after 2 hours of flying- because we are helping our children to know where they were born, who helped raise them before they were forever placed with us and we are making memories that I can turn into long old stories on our blog! ;-) Honestly, I know this is where we are meant to be this week and although I HATE the flight with a passion, I can't imagine not trying to bring our children here every few years to see their foster families- or our Korean families. And you know what convinced me of this fact? 2 things. The first was that I recently found out that we are the FIRST parents to bring a child back to Korea to see KatieJoy's foster family---they have fostered babies for over 20 years and we are the first! I made her a promise that we would be back to visit when we took KatieJoy from her arms and keeping that promise has clearly been something that needed to happen. And second, the look on Calen's face as we were driving through Seoul last night told me something- he knew where he was. He is as comfortable being in Korea as he is at home. This is only the second time he has been back here, but through our conversations about Korea and his memories, he knows this is a place that he can belong. And that is something that I hope both of my children will forever know.

Love,
~Mandy~

PS- thank you to all of you who have been praying for KatieJoy and I. We are feeling a TON better and thanks to antibiotics I do believe we are going to have a stellar 5 days here!