Our Glorious Trip, Part 2

Let me preface this post by telling you that it does get better...it's just not going to happen on this day.

After our fun C-17 ride, we headed to the terminal. What else would Abby want to do a mere 5 hours after her bedtime?
They took us to the pax terminal to determine how to get ALL of us to Customs & Immigration...18 people (plus a few stragglers not with our lovely group) and no way to transport us all there. There was a long wait and it was determined that they would call a guy in to drive another van. That way, it wouldn't take 3+ hours to get us all to the Department of Japan (DOJ) to get our passports taken care of.

Meanwhile, Amanda is on the phone trying to get us a place to stay. She had already secured a $300 a night hotel, but was still working on base lodging. Kadena is in the process of renovating a large portion of their billeting, so we were out of luck...wait, they could get us ONE room. Hmmm. I have never been very good at math, but one room was sounding pretty scary to me. The beauty is that we were all so tired at this point, WE DIDN'T CARE!

As for the DOJ, we didn't take care of our passports that night (oh yes, another fun story about this later on)! Since we were going to get onto a plane the next day on our merry way to Guam, AND we were staying on base, they let us leave. We called 14 taxis for all our crap & headed over to lodging. Amanda went in to secure our room while we snuck(!) all of our belongings & 50 kids over to wait outside the building. It was fun. So, we're waiting & a guy from the lodging office walks up...he has to let us into the room. They were so full, there were no more plastic keys. Needless to say, I think he figured out what we were doing. Bless his heart, he apologized for having to put us all in one room and gave us extra blankets.

How many pack 'n plays? 5
How many beds? 1
How many couches? 1
Where did Abby sleep? On the floor in front of the door
Where did Mommy sleep? Right beside her

Okay, so Bekah was asleep like lightening. I was so proud. Then, she woke up. She was the first baby up, but went right back to sleep after I fed her. After that, the night went downhill quickly. One of the kids started screaming & didn't stop. I felt so sick for her mother. The poor things had to go outside because of how loud and inconsolable she was. I couldn't sleep anyway, so didn't really affect me. My daughter who was laying right in front of the door was oblivious to it all. Didn't budge every time someone walked over her head to get out the door. Gotta love a good sleeper!

I was ready to go home at this point. After no sleep & all the kids and craziness...I couldn't emotionally handle it. Then, I showered. I felt much better & we headed out for lunch, optimistic that we would be on one of the 2 planes headed to Guam later in the day.

Part of the freak show lodging room...really no pictures can do it justice!

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment, where you can laugh & heckle us...

Bloggy love,