And we're off!

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And we're off! Tuesday, August 30th was our flight from LAX to London Heathrow, and of course it coincided with one of the hottest days of the year. Scott took the kids out to the Santa Barbara Sea Center (again!) while I did a final pack. At 1pm we dragged all of our mountain of luggage down the stairs of Tom's apartment and all piled into his car. The double stroller and suitcase fitted into the trunk/boot, scott was the front passenger with his big backpack on his legs, and I sat between the kids in the back with my big backpack across my legs. A multitude of small carry on bags were scattered about. It was a little cramped but altogether do-able for the less than two hour journey to the airport. Everything went smoothly, and Los Angeles had predictably slow traffic on the 405, but we got there in good time and had chance to stop at Denny's for something to eat with Tom. From there it was a quick ten minute drive to airport drop off. We quickly loaded the kids into the stroller, counted up all of our bags, and said a speedy goodbye to Tom.

The check in desk was amazingly open and with no line. We posed for a quick photo before checking in our bags. From there we decided to head straight to the TSA lines as we'd heard it can take hours nowadays with all the terror alerts. As we approached the long zig zagging line, we were directed into a line for "special needs" thanks to our stroller, with only one group ahead of us. Amazing!

Once through TSA we decided to check out the shops and restaurants. There were surprisingly few of them so we ended up spending most of our time looking out the window watching planes land. At one point, Kyka and Jakey decided to line up some little round tables and hop from table to table like stepping stones. They were dancing around singing, "I'm a rock star!" They were being pretty loud and annoying but we didn't stop them as we figured it's better to get their wiggles out now before getting into the plane for ten plus hours!

The plane journey itself turned out to be much easier than we'd anticipated. They were excited to be on the plane and interested in everything. By the time the meals and drinks were cleared and the cabin lights were turned out, it was 11:30pm. Kyla fell asleep quickly and slept for most of the flight. Jake had a harder time falling asleep as he wanted to sleep face down on the seat like he does in bed but it didn't work. After much fidgeting but thankfully no crying, he fell asleep for the night too. Phew!

Once we landed at Heathrow we started on an epic journey to my brother's house in Surrey. The plan was to take a bus to Croydon and then a train to Whyteleafe where they'd meet us. Sounded simple, but the reality was quite different. First, the bus station ended up being a 30 minute trek from where we collected our bags which was tough with two littles and all of our stuff. When we found the bus we were told they don't take cash and we had to instead buy a pass, located back in the underground tube station. This took forever as we couldn't figure out where to buy it and people kept sending us on wild goose chases! We finally got onto the bus just before 5:00. It was a normal city bus so we ended up taking most of the luggage space! Jake soon fell asleep on Scott. Kyla was thrilled to be on a bus and was all smiles. This wore off after about 45 minutes though, and she was soon complaining it was too hot and that we were going too slowly, and that the woman who'd asked if she could "perch" on the end of our seat was squashing her. She was right on all accounts. It took a full 2.5 hours to get into Croydon, and it was starting to get dark. We gathered all of our baggage and trekked across the road to the train station. After a lot of miscommunication with a snippy lady at the station counter (how are we supposed to know what "tap in" means anyway?!) we found our train. It was packed! We decided that it was too risky to get on with all our stuff (pickpockets on the train in the Ukraine came to mind) and we decided to just try to call my parents to have them pick us up. On the way, we came across a taxi stand so decided to just hop in one and get there! As we pulled in, my brother and parents came out to meet us. We made it!!



***please scroll all the way down to see the rest of the pictures ***

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