Every story has a beginning. For the purposes of this story we'll start with the day our house was packed up. I'm feeling a bit removed, but I'll do my best. It was a Friday morning. I put Collin on the bus to school and took Brady and Cait to Target to get some last minute supplies. Certain things I knew we would need almost immediately. For instance, diapers and cat litter.
Collin had a class picnic so I took the other two and we went to see him at school. This also kept us out of the way of the movers. After the picnic I took all 3 kiddos and spent the afternoon with a friend and her boys. By the time the movers left and we headed for the beach, I was exhausted.
It was nice to visit the beach before heading off to England, but it would have been even nicer to sleep in my own bed for a few more nights. Saturday, we hit the sand in the morning and by mid day realised that Collin had pink eye (for the second time in 2 weeks). By the time bed time rolled around we were all exhausted. Collin was upset that the kitchen was in the bedroom and afraid someone could walk right in the door and see us. Sigh. Everyone finally fell asleep and I was woken by the neighbour's party around midnight. I let it go since no one else seemed bothered, but when they got louder and woke Brady up at 1:30am, I called the front desk and had them put an end to it.
Sunday, we headed back to the house before checking in to the hotel. The cat was staying at the house until the day we got on the plane. Sunday night I was completely depleted. I took Brady to get some dinner and pick up some things from the grocery store. Unfortunately, due to my fragile mental state, I ended up in a screaming match with the manager of the local supermarket. What happened next is too embarrassing to post publicly, so we'll just let that one go. Oye.
Monday I had to drive to Annapolis to have the cat's paperwork sealed by the USDA. Moments before I had to leave, I realised that some of the paperwork was not filled out by the vet. Ran over there, had them fill in the blanks and then hit the road. When I got there, the person in charge of checking the paper work found discrepancies in the dates for Zoe's rabies shot. UGH! Luckily, I had a copy of the cat's records that showed the correct dates and we were able to fix it relatively easily.
We realised over the weekend that there was no way all of our luggage, cat and family would fit in the rental car we had, so we had to drive to the airport car rental to swap it out for a bigger vehicle. That was fun. Though in the end we all fit.
Thursday we picked up the cat, and headed to the airport. Of course, driving anywhere near DC at any time of day or night is a total crap shoot. It took longer than expected, but we had built in the extra time. Luckily, the staff at the airport was super helpful and let us remain parked near the bag check until we were able to check everything except for the car seats and the cat. The cat had to go to Cargo.
Off to cargo we go. We arrive to find out the reservation for the cat was processed improperly. He was supposed to be booked on to continental cargo, but was booked on United cargo. They are merging so it was a mess. An hour later we are heading to drop off the rental car and get through security. We made it to the gate with about 15 minutes to spare.
Our flight was supposed to leave at 10:16pm. Not sure when it actually left. At this point my kids were over tired and Cait's eye's were looking suspicious. The plane finally took off and Brady fell asleep fairly quickly. It took Collin a lot longer, but he did fall in and out of sleep most of the night. Cait was a bit trickier. She would fall asleep in one of our arms and then try to roll over, waking herself up, and screaming. We would stand in the aisle, rock her back down and wait for it to happen again. I think her longest stretch was an hour. Not only that, but her eyes were starting to ooze pretty badly. Poor thing was a mess. I have never been happier to land on the ground as I was that morning.
Our taxi left because the flight arrived late. We had to wait an hour for another one. UGH. Tired, hungry and now a toddler with pink eye... not fun people, not fun at all. The taxi comes and is a large van that will fit all of us and the Cat. Amen for that. An hour and a half later we arrive at our temporary housing. A two bedroom flat on the second floor. Our sponsor and his family were there to greet us. Sadly, we were in no shape for company. I felt somewhat crazed from the exhaustion and Cait being sick and not knowing where to go or what to do. Not to mention we hadn't eaten in a while. The rest of that day is kind of a blur.
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