Week in Review

WOW! The last week has been amazing! I've had some trouble getting pictures to post, so let me just tell you how we've spent the last week, and later I'll try again with the pictures. Blogging takes a lot longer on this side of the world.

We left Memphis on Saturday, and the kids were such troopers! Our families were granted boarding passes, so they were able to see us off at the gate. What a treat! When we flew into LA late Saturday night, our plane was late, so we hustled to pick up our luggage to transfer to an international flight. We waited a while, picked up two of our action packers, and then we waited some more. Finally, we asked about the luggage and were told that the "oversized" baggage came into a different place! So Aaron went to find the rest of our luggage, and our wonderful kids loaded up with their backpacks and luggage carriers. When Aaron returned, we began our wagon train of Choates through the LA airport: Aaron in the lead pushing two action packers and some carry-ons, followed by Benjamin pushing another two action packers. Olivia and Sarah (carrying Katherine) came next, and I brought up the rear pushing the last of the luggage. We filed through the buildings until we finally found the Air Pacific counter.

Here's where we began to see the Lord work in even more small miracles! Eleven of our twelve locks had broken on the action packers, but we only had an hour until our plan was to leave. So we hurriedly checked in, where we were informed that our luggage was quite overweight. Thankfully, the sweet lady at the counter waived our fee (maybe it was the tired looks on our faces - our bodies thought it was 12:30 a.m.), and pointed us in the right direction. We were at her mercy for our seats on the 10 1/2 hour flight to Fiji, but we didn't pause to look at our seating assignments, we just waded through security and ran as fast as we could to our gate. No time to buy new locks, either! We arrived at the gate as they were boarding, so we all quickly filed through the restrooms and loaded the plane. Imagine our amazement when we found our seats and discovered that the Lord had provided a bulkhead row for the girls with the boys only a section over and behind us! Katherine got her own little basinet and slept beautifully on the majority of the plane flight.

To be continued...