WACAP picnic and dinner with the WRC

Saturday was our adoption agency's annual family day picnic. This is something I have wanted to attend for 8 years and this year when the opportunity arose I knew we were going. We were able to meet up with other members of Lily's travel group there plus people from our agency so it was really extra special.

John, Nancy and Karen with Ariana, Karens youngest daughter

The lady on the left is Elizabeth Rose. She made our referral call with Lily and recognised my voice before I had a chance to speak to her directly. That call was nearly 8 years ago!!! I love our agency. We are not just people to them we are families and they care.
Lunch

After lunch we headed to the centre of Seattle to spend the afternoon. We trolled through a crazy and fun joke store called Archie McPhee's. Honest to goodness I have never in my life seen such weird stuff. They had such a strange assortment of emergency undies and undies in a can that had I known what Sunday had in store for me I would have bought some! Once we left there we went to a park and walked around a bore witness to one of the most peculiar weddings I think I will ever see. It included swords and shields and lots of men in kilts. Nancy thought the groom was the father of the bride cos he was so old. Love is very odd you know. We went to the waters edge and gazed at the Space Needle and all the busy things that happen at a sea port. The girls played and played.

See, we really were in Seattle, that's the Space Needle

The growing group


We had dinner reservations at 5 at Noble Court, a Chinese restaurant of course and were meeting more of our travel group. Driving from the park to restaurant involved passing Bill Gates house. Did you know that when he built his house there was a large Cedar tree in the way and he had it moved 18 inches? No I didn't either. I also didn't know that it took him 5 years to build his amazing house and as a thank you to his neighbours for putting up with all the noise and mess, he paid off their mortgages. I know this now cos John and Nancy are amazing tour guides and they don't miss a fact! I also now know all about Katabatic winds (...LOL that one was for you Maddy!)
We arrived at the restaurant first and met up with more of our fabulous travel group. Now there were 6 kiddies and they were in heaven. They had their own table, all apart from Rosie who got hit by a shy spell. Seeing these girls together again after so many years was priceless. They are so big and so beautiful I haven't seen Laura Li since the day we left China. I've seen loads of photos but not seen her in person. I had never met any of the younger siblings and they had never met Rosie. Lots of catching up to be done and lots of fun to be had. We talked about what we remembered of each other in China and oddly enough everyone remembered me as the nervous one...bwa ha ha. They pegged me right. Some families couldn't make it and we missed them. Karen's oldest daughter, June, the one from our trip, was sick so she missed it all too which was a shame but Rosie and her little sis Ariana became fast friends.

can you tell how much fun they were having?

This one sadly came out blurry but I love it anyway. I call it, 6 kid pile up.

Maddy and her party piece...the skinned chicken. Makes me giggle to just look at it. She taught Lily how to do it too.

5 of the 6, having just a tiny bit of fun!
party hats or princess crowns?
The last time we were together none of us were this relaxed. We were all first time Mummy's
Some of the WRC.

After dinner we noticed a park right behind the restaurant so we let the kids run about for awhile so that we could chat some more. As all good things do, our time together had to come to an end and we said our good byes. We all drove away promising to see each other in China in 2013. I have suggested we all take the same flights, I think it would be brilliant but probably not at all feasible. Wouldn't the kids love it? The other passengers, well not so much.
When we got back to the house I had to pack and bath the kids. I had to leave the house at 3.30am. It was all over so very fast but worth it.

Thank you John, Nancy, Maddy and Sonja for having us. We enjoyed ourselves so much. I hope the cats have come out of hiding. Let us know when you are back this way, our door is always open.

Oh what a fabulous trip.

We had the most amazing time in Seattle with the most amazing and fun people. We stayed with a family that we travelled to China with in 2003 and have seen twice since then. The girls picked up as if they see each other every day of their lives and considering we were delayed in our travels by a few hours, and didn't arrived until 10.40 at night, that was a sight to behold.

They changed into their matching pajamas instantly and set about having a marathon sleepover. Lily and Sonja had a tent in their great room and Rosie slept upstairs with me. At midnight Rosie told me she couldn't sleep cos Lily was talking so loud. Yes, it was the truth and John has to get up at 4.30 to go to work. Thankfully she didn't disturb him.

The sleepover has begun. Are they not the cutest ever?

Bright and early the next morning we had breakfast and headed out to Mount Rainier. I think I was possibly more excited than the little kids about the prospect of this trip. Breathtaking scenery, mountains, snow and fantastic friends....heaven on earth. Nancy drove us up and up along windy roads with sheer drops on one side. I was glad she drove and not me. How can you not just breathe in the beauty of our planet and appreciate your life when visiting the Pacific Northwest. I think it is one of the most beautiful places on this earth.

This sign was nailed to our picnic bench. Bears are a novelty to us Floridians we only have to deal with alligators.

Enjoying a lovely lunch before going for a hikeMaddy, Sonja, Lily and Rose
Friends.
Nancy, Maddy and the 3 little ones

A view...something I NEVER take pictures of. My photos always have people in.

Snow bunny
Another one
the girls on our hike

the 3 muskateers

That evening we ate dinner at the house and finished it off with 'smores cooked over the fire pit. The girls entertained us by singing very loud songs....to ward off the bear that is known to wander in the woods behind the house.

It had to happen at some point

You are not expected to read about our day from Hell but it was part of the weekend and quite an adventure so I want to write it down for the girls......not that they will ever forget it.

This is the part of our trip that wasn't planned, it wasn't fun even though we tried to stay perky and it isn't something I ever want to do again.

The girls and I were listed for an 8.00am flight on Thursday. American Airlines (AA) doesn't fly directly to Seattle (Sea-Tac) so we had a layover in Dallas, Fort Worth (DFW). When you fly stand-by layovers are not something you want, E.V.E.R. they can really mess things up. The flight, if direct, is approx 5,5 hours so with baggage claim, check in etc etc it would be a long day under the best of circumstances. Our day was a total of 19 freaking hours. Yes, 19 hours long. We got bumped from so many flights and walked so many terminals it wasn't funny. Once we were finally strapped into our seats and heading for Dallas, 5 hours late, I questioned my sanity. At one point Lily said to me, "Maybe this is a sign". I answered her in a fakely chipper voice and said not to be silly and that we had started this whole reunion idea and that we were going to be there. HAH.

As we approached DFW the pilot said we were trying to beat a weather system there and would be in a holding pattern for a few minutes before we could land. A few short minutes later he came back on the P.A. system saying that the bad weather had beaten us there and that we were being redirected to Love Field where we would refuel and wait for clearance to head back to DFW. I can't tell you here exactly what I said in my head as it is really rude. We stayed at Love Field for 2 hours on the plane just killing time!

When we finally made it back to DFW Jacob's friend Jeff who also works for AA met us at the gate when we landed, ran and got the girls a bottle of water, told me he had listed us on the next flight out, told me he didn't think we had a cat in hells chance of getting on it and then proceeded to show us where the best restaurant in the terminal was after we were bumped. He then came back up to see us and told us our chances were good and if we needed anything we could ring him. He was fantastic, he has 4 yr old twins and knows exactly what we were going through. We made the flight. We would be arriving in Sea-Tac 7 hours late. Our friends were waiting. Jeff also gave me a tiny slip of paper that the employees print out of the computer all the time. It showed the flights for Sunday, all 15 of them and it showed every single one of them, full. Fuey, I would put that out of mind and enjoy the weekend.

The Eastcoast has been having really bad thunderstorms and they were messing everything up. Even though our flights were all listed as "open" as the weather changed and flights were cancelled more and more people were being backlogged, onto the very flights we were attempting to get on.

When we arrived at Sea-Tac we located the rental car and took off in the dark through the twisty lower mountain roads to our destination. I loved that part. No street lights, a place I have never been and windy roads that just disappear in front of your eyes. Thank goodness for GPS systems.We finally arrived at John and Nancy's at 10.24pm. and didn't even get lost.

At this point I had no idea that this day was going to be a piece of cake in comparison to our return voyage.

On Sunday, after the fantastic weekend you just read about, I set my alarm for 2.45am and got myself ready. At 3am I woke up the girls and we said goodbye to our lovely hosts. I drove the same windy roads back to the airport with nary a SNAFU and returned the car. As the kidlets were getting out a lady approached and asked if we enjoyed the car and before I could answer she gasped and asked if I had noticed this damage when I picked up the car on Thursday. Damage, what damage? You see I was so glad to have the car on Friday and finally be able to get where we were going that I just threw the kids in, buckled them up and jumped in the drivers seat. I took a few minutes to find the lights, wipers and set up my GPS and then we were gone. It was so dark in the car park that I had to use the light on my phone to find the light switch so even if I had looked for this damage I wouldn't have been able to see it anyway. The car remained parked all weekend until I drove it back to the airport on Sunday.

Miss Snippy Pants, with great drama, produces an accident/incident report and asks me to explain how it happened. I ever so politely told her I was not filling out that form since I had no idea. She said it may have already been reported and that she was just doing her job since she didn't know if the person who had it before me did it. I had no choice. Alrighty then Miss Snippy Pants since you are not being very friendly and since I DO NOT do mornings at a normal hour I guess we are going head to head on this. I placed the girls a safe distance away and I filled out her form but not before carefully scratching out the part where it states I know how it happened. Then I gave it back to her snippy little self, explained it's not always about doing your job but how you do your job and took the girls and I to the terminal. It was a sign.

The check in lines were bad, really bad but we trudged through. Finally after the usual security drama we were at our gate and saw ourselves listed as 17, 18 and 19 on the list. Say what? The furthest down a list that I have ever been, until this weekend is 4th. I knew we were not leaving Sea-Tac at 6.00am. Turned out we didn't get on the next 5 flights. We just kept hopping from gate to gate. Jacob and I were in constant contact and he told me to find a code sharing airline and ask to get zed listed. He didn't know what was involved but to just get on it. Yes siree.. We went to another carrier and talked to them, they sent us back to AA and then with the necessary forms in hand we went back to the other carrier (TOC). We shot through security, ran through the terminals and arrived at the gate just as they closed it up tight, as if that was a surprise.

So we rolled over to the next one and we made it. As we were boarding an older man boarded to, also flying stand by. He started chatting to the girls and kept touching Lily's head. I hate that. He noticed we were all in separate rows and offered to help with Lily. So not going to happen buddy! Now in this mans defense I am sure he was just a good old boy from the south but I am not turning my kidlet over to ANYONE. Thankfully the crew fixed it all before Mr. Touchy Feely could touch her hair again. During the flight he came up to me and gave me his phone number and offered us his house to stay in. Now I am sure he was being sweet and I was being sweet to, he even offered to ring my husband and speak with him. I thanked him profusely and explained that my husbands Uncle was going to meet us and take us to his house. (all lies)

We would be landing in Atlanta at 10pm. The girls were amazing this whole time. Every now and again one of us would get snippy, or down but it lasted minutes and then we were back to our usual selves. There is one problem with this Atlanta flight, there are no more connections that night and we need a place to stay. After we landed I rang Jacob and he told me to find and employee from TOC and ask them if they had a stress Hotel. They didn't. They did however offer us a voucher for a hotel, yeah no kidding pretty darned nice, huh, and gave us over night bags. You see our luggage had gone to Miami on that very first flight.

We made it to the airport and 11ish. I gave Rosie the room key and told her room 326. She kept trying and the door wouldn't open so finally I started slamming the card in the lock. Thankfully Lily noticed that it was the wrong room we should have been at 316...oops. By now the girls have been up for 20 hours and once we got in the room we got the giggles really bad. After a bath and a quick look through our over night bags we changed into our handy dandy sleepshirts. At midnight Lily decides she is hungry so I fed them right there in the bed. All I had were granola bars, raisins, chips, and some chewies. Nice dinner. Do I need to add that they loved it. With the detergent from the overnight bags I washed all our undies and then wrung them out them the best I could before realizing that heat dries things much faster so I ironed everyones knickers dry and Rosies socks. I was going to use the microwave but figured the way my luck was going I'd probably set them all on fire and then we'd have to fly home commando.I set the alarm for 4 hours later and went to sleep.

This morning I woke up, cursing life in general and jumped in the shower. No straightening brushes for my hair, no lovely moisturisers etc etc. I drank some God awful coffee and woke up the girls. They were not happy but got dressed in yesterdays clothes and their nicely pressed undies! We headed back to the terminal. It was Hell. The world and his brother was there and going through security. Once we were cleared I fed them some tasty airport treats and we walked to our gate chanting we're going home today. WRONG! Bumped off of another flight. I rang Jacob and told him I was renting a car and driving. The voice of reason said it was a very bad idea. After checking the flight status for todays flights with TOC Jacob told me to cancel myself from their list and head back to AA. We headed past the do not re-enter sign and crawled to AA's check in line. There was a small line so we checked in electronically and butter my buns and call me a biscuit, we got seat assignments. I swear we nearly started to cry. We knew we were going to have to run because we had to go back through security again. The line was even worse. It took 40 minutes. We got to the gate and boarded almost immediately. No sooner was her seatbelt fastened Rosie fell asleep and I woke her when we landed in Miami.

Lily on the other hand learnt how to blow bubbles with gum and spent the whole flight blowing them. It's a right of passage as I kid and after 34 hours of travel I found it really funny. It was funny watching her face, funny when she spat everywhere whilst blowing and funnier than anything ever before when her gum shot out of her mouth and into the aisle. Yes, I know it isn't funny but it was then.

Hubby met us at and said he had bad news. We had no luggage and both airlines were denying ever having it. Did we want to go home and he would work it out or did I want to deal with it now. Well, I thought now was a great time so off we went and whaddayaknow, our luggage was there. Some people do their jobs better than others. It took the lady I approached all of 2 seconds to find it for us. The guy Jacob used tried and tried.

I'm not flying again EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE. Yes, I know that's not true either.

I have a total of 19 boarding passes for our troubles, 19. Geesh that's alot.

Our lovely sleeping attire courtesy of TOC

One little hobo sleeping in the airport on a bench.
Another tiny hobo sleeping on an airport bench.

And finally I give you bubble girl in all her grossness. It's really loud because of aircraft noise. I frankly, was happy to hear that aircraft noise.

We have flown stand by for many years without anything like this ever happening. Sure we have all heard the horror stories but people are always more willing to share their horror stories than their happy ever after stories. The airlines were fabulous, all of this was not their fault at all. I mean lets face it, do they control the weather? No, they don't. Did they need to offer us a hotel voucher? Again, No, but they did. The price was right on these flights, if you get my drift. We were not missing school, an adoption, a funeral or anything, so there you have it. Now the time they put our plane out of service when we were flying to China to adopt Rosie and we had paid full price for all of our seats, well that was hairy but it didn't change anything, we were still powerless and they still offered us a solution and we made it on time and all is well.

I will do it again. Probably quite soon I am sure.