Land Down Under Trip: Day 17

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Today we begin the journey back to Guam.  In January after returning to Minot from our winter vacation ((2 boys throwing up and Mason and I feeling queasy) I said we aren’t doing any more road trips or long trips this year.  Hahaha!  Since January we were fortunate enough to travel all around the US saying our goodbyes to family before moving to Guam.  We flew from Chicago to Japan to Guam (a LOT of flying and I was throwing up by the end of our first flight).  Then we seized this opportunity to take a family vacation before adding a baby into the mix.  So we headed from Guam to the Philippines to Australia to Nez Zealand and back (a LOT of flying and a ferry boat ride).  I got sick again on the ferry boat ride and hopefully will have successful flights back today to Guam.  I’m drugged.  I really try to not take any medications during pregnancy, but these meds are saving me!  And Mason.  Wow!  He’s an amazing husband. 

Anyways, our first flight from Sydney to Manila, Philippines was scheduled for 11:30 so we checked out of the hotel and left by 8am.  Banana Bread and cold pizza for breakfast for the win.  FOrtunatly the boys woke up in good spirits today.  Our hotel was fairly close to the airport, but as we were turning into the airport Mason remembered that we needed to fill up the rental car with gas (although I think it only needed a Liter or two).  Anyways, 40 minutes later after dealing with traffic and trying to locate a petrol station we were making it into the airport to drop off the rental car.  By 9:10am we’d made it to our check-in location which went much smoother than our last dealing with the Sydney Airport, but of course we were at the check-in counters furthest from where the car parking was.  I was getting in all my steps for the day by 9am.  Whew!  Dirty Laundry and two extra weeks of baby growth added some extra weight to the load. 

After checking in with Cebu Pacific we decided to grab some Subway sandwiches to throw in our bags for later since we’d depleted our snack supply (mostly) and there weren’t free meals/snacks on our 8.5 hour flight.  Fortunately security went fairly quickly, although my mind.was.blown. when I saw the container in front of ours come out of the security scanner with a LIGHTER in it.  Seriously???!!! Since we had some time before our flight was boarding we decided to check out the American Express Lounge. I may have commented on how it was out of our way, and I was not trying to birth this baby today, but we went and it was so nice.  Comfy chairs, clean bathrooms, and free drinks and food.  WE grabbed some apples and oranges to throw into our bag for the flight, the kids had some muffins and fruits, and Mason and I had a few snacks too.  Definitely not the worst place to spend an hour. 

I have to say, it is pretty nice that many places here have family bathrooms which make things easier when traveling.  Usually we try not to monopolize them, but it’s nice occasionally since most of the regular bathrooms don’t have changing tables.  As someone who’s traveled solo with both kids before it is a really nice option since there is room for luggage, kids, and all. 

I’m writing this on our flight, so hopefully the rest of the day will pass uneventfully. We’re a little concerned what the weather will be like trying to get into Guam, but first we have to survive our long flight.  We have about 6 hours left.  The boys have watched a movie, and Woodrow is happily playing with a cheap McDonalds toy that we acquired on our trip.  Theo’s plugged in, and Mason’s getting slammed in the face with Woodrow’s toy as he sips on a Coke.  Fortunately the boys have been really great travelers.  Hopefully they’ll both pass out at some point, since Woodrow gets a little temperamental when he’s hungry and tired.  We also lucked out that our flight is somewhat empty, so after some passenger rearranging I ended up with an empty seat next to me, which was a serious Godsend! 

Lol, update…Cebu Pacific…no free meals, snacks, or beverages, no in-flight entertainment, they did the duty free purchases service, they played two games where passengers could win a small baggie (you had to be first to know the acronyms LOL or JWU), but now the donation bag is going around…because my plane ticket didn’t cost enough…this is too funny.

 

So…back in Guam!  We made it.  Whew.  God was watching this trip because thankfully the 8.5 hour flight (almost 9 hours) ended up being tolerable.  It was the most partylike plane I’ve ever been on, but seriously 9 hours, 32 ounces of water for 4 people…I could have used some more water, like the free kind from the airline.   Anyways,  we arrived in Manila and had to get our baggage and transfer to a different terminal.  The process this time was more official/organized, but was still sketchy.  They loaded us onto a bus with some other people and took us across the airfield, through some city, and finally dropped us off at Terminal 2. For 8:00pm it was pretty crowded.  It took us an hour to get through the check-in line, then we had to go through customs and security again.  This time we knew there woudn’t be many food choices in the terminal, but we didn’t have many choices.  There also ended up not being any ATMs in the terminal, so we had a few pesos left, but not much.  Mason scouted for food, and we ended up spending our last pesos on a bag of Sour Cream and Onion chips, 1 bottle of orange juice, and 6 bottles of water-we were thirsty and don’t trust the tap water in the Philippines.

The boys were pretty exhausted at this point, we all were, but they did pretty well for being dragged all through the airport with having very little food or drink all day.  Thankfully we had our subs on the plane and our apples from the AMEX lounge.   The flight from Manila to Guam was not my favorite.  I was feeling pretty dizzy and tired before getting on this flight, so I popped another Zofran and prayed for the best.  Theo fell asleep before we even took off, although this was after a meltdown about not sitting next to Mason or the window.  The plane was on the ground an additional 45 minutes waiting to take-off which DID.NOT aid in the situation, as it was midnight on the Australia time zone at this time.  Woodrow got the window seat for the beginning of this flight and had a blast spotting airplanes.  Once we took off Woodrow fell asleep fairly quickly for a bit.  Theo woke up not to long into the flight, actually right after we got food and was freaking out. 

Sometimes when Theo wakes up from a deep sleep he’s very confused and so he was shaking while I tried to determine if he was just coming out of a deep sleep or something else was wrong with him.  He cried and fussed for a bit, and eventually (of course when the drink cart was right next to us) told me he had to go to the bathroom…unfortuanaly though I had asked him a few times he had an accident.  I threw the boys pjs in my backpack for this trek in case of accidents or just wanting to change, so we made our way to the bathroom so he could get cleaned up or changed.  When we got back to our seats he played on the ipad while I gobbled down some rice and rolls from the meal, and then Woodrow woke up.  He also doesn’t wake-up well from a deep sleep especially when he wants to still be sleeping.  I swear time stopped on this flight. 

Woodrow spent the last two hours of the flight, asleep on me, us moving uncomfortably in different positions, waking up and screaming, and then falling asleep again.  We’d all hit a wall.  At one point Woodrow was asleep on me, I was in pain, Theo had fallen back asleep, I’m bawling and I just turn to Mason and say, “I need to get off this bleepin’ plane NOW.”  We landed a little after 4am Guam time, but had to wait 90 minutes for our baggage!  It was raining…seriously Guam?!  Theo fell asleep on the floor waiting for our baggage, but Woodrow had pepped up and there were some K-9 dogs training with this unit in the baggage area.  They actually ended up asking Mason if they could plant some drugs on him as part of a training exercise.  Woodrow loved the dogs being so close. 

We reached home around 6:15am, the kids were great about putting on pjs and going straight to bed even with their plane naps, and I passed out so fast! Such a great trip and so glad to be home!