Travel day!

I had been anticipating (in a fearful way) this day from the time we found out we were moving to Okinawa (especially since we had also just found out that I was pregnant). Without going into too much detail, I need to quickly recount the drama of getting tickets all together (for my own record and memory, so feel free to skip over this first paragraph if you don't care :) We found out mid way through my pregnancy that Rowan would have to have his 8 week checkup and get medically cleared before we could fly to Japan. At that point, they changed Grant's orders so he could arrive in July instead of June and we hoped Rowan came on time so we could make it all work. When Rowan was 4 days late, I got a little nervous, but luckily we were fast with the paperwork, got his passport, and turned everything in as early as possible. However, as we learn time and time again being in the military, people don't always do their jobs as well as you'd hope. To make matters more complicated, Okinawa and Camp Pendleton work hours do not overlap at all, so communication between the two was tricky. PSD submitted a form incorrectly, it was changed and sent again, but not through the correct system, but Okinawa wouldn't return emails so we had no idea what was going on. Grant had a flight out on Wednesday night at 9pm, so we were desperate to hear back to try to get us flights before then. Miraculously, the lady in Okinawa finally replied on Wednesday morning, with the necessary paperwork to get Rowan and I a flight. So, we went in to Camp Pendleton to try to make things happen. Grant was told, "Because of the furlough and our other work load, getting your family together on a flight tonight is not mission critical, and we don't have time for it." Talk about awesome customer service :) They said they could get us all together, but not until the 14th, which was way too late for Grant to arrive. So...someone finally suggested that Grant call his detailer to get his orders changed to say that we could purchase our own flights and get reimbursed. Luckily, the detailer was very kind and quick and granted the request and then we went on and bought $3800 worth of plane tickets to fly out together the next day :) There was a lot of other drama and headache, but that was the gist of what happened.

We woke up at 2:30 am, I fed Rowan and we hit the road to the airport at 3:10am. Grant dropped Rowan and I off at the terminal with the luggage and then went to return the rental car. When I thought about potentially flying alone, of course I was nervous about a baby and 24 hours of traveling, but managing the luggage, etc freaked me out just as much. I was so glad to have Grant there for that. We had the stroller and 2 full carts of suitcases!

Our first flight was from SD to San Fran and was just barely over an hour. I nursed Rowan on the way up and the way down, and he slept the entire rest of the flight. Glad we got to start the day off on the right foot, it was perfect ;) He did however leak poop out of his diaper (which is only like the third time this has ever happened-good timing, haha) right before we boarded, but wasn't too hard to manage, just almost humorous.

Our layover in SF was about 3 hours. We got some breakfast, I fed Rowan and we hung out a little until we boarded the plane. I was just glad this layover wasn't any longer since we had a 12-hour flight to Osaka ahead of us.

When we sat down on the plane, our flight attendant came over and said he wanted to meet "mini me." He had seen Grant walking around with him in the airport and thought they looked just alike ;) He told me that it must be pretty amazing to have my two favorite men in the world look exactly alike, haha. He was very kind and assured us that babies cry and it's a part of life, and Rowan is his own person and if he felt like crying then that is what he was going to do, etc :) He said generally people are very kind about it as long as you don't just sit there and let them yell and not try to do anything about it.

 In the last couple of days Rowan decided that he hates being in his carseat (not cool). So, Cordy enjoyed his own seat while we held Rowan. It worked out pretty well though. We didn't mind snuggling him :) It was nice to have an extra seat just to put stuff, etc.

Overall, Rowan did great. He ate well, took a few good long naps on our laps, etc. However, Grant did do a lot of standing and bouncing with him...but at least he wasn't screaming :) We had a lot of people compliment us and him at the end of the flight on how well we all handled the long flight so that was encouraging.

When we arrived in Osaka there was no doubt we were in another country! We could feel the humidity as we walked off the plane and the airport had very poor A/C. Only some signs were in English and it was hard to find people who spoke English to answer our questions. Rowan screamed all of the way through getting our passports stamped and customs and finally fell asleep when we were done with that. I would say that was probably the most stressful part of the travel day for me. However, going through security to get to our gate for our flight to Okinawa was the easiest thing ever. It took like 3 seconds, got to leave Rowan asleep in his carseat, etc. That was a good different from an American airport.

He wrapped his legs around his alligator for his entire nap...just thought it was pretty cute.

This was our flight to Okinawa! Luckily it cycled through several screens, one of which was in English :) I thought many times that I was grateful to speak English. What would someone traveling from another country do?! Can't imagine.

The final leg of our flights! We were fortunate enough to all get to sit together on all 3 flights despite buying our tickets the day before. That was definitely a blessing. So glad we had 3 seats too!

 As we exited the plane in Okinawa, we were overcome with humid air. I hadn't felt that since Kentucky...but it seemed much worse. I convinced myself it was just because we were in the tunnel between the plane and the airport that it felt that bad...but I soon realized, it really felt that gross outside :) However, the Okinawa airport was pretty cool in that it had orchids EVERYWHERE! There were even some fake trees surrounded by real orchids, pretty crazy. Maybe the humidity makes it easy to keep them alive here...I might have to try!

Our sponsor, Adam, picked us up from the airport and drove us to our on-base hotel for the night. I won't lie. I cried when we were finally all up here and sat down for the first time. I had been awake for almost 30 hours, I had just had 24 hours of travel time with a 2-month old, we arrived at night so instead of seeing beautiful greenery and ocean, all I could see were weird ugly buildings with Japanese writing, and I wasn't sure how I felt about living across the world in a foreign country. I'm glad that admist all of that, I was still rational enough to even say to Grant that I knew it was going to get better and I knew that once we got through this first little bit I was really going to love it here. We finally went to sleep and woke up to this beautiful sunrise. The sight of this made me know for sure that things were going to get better...

 And in case you didn't believe me on the humidity thing...this is us emptying our dehumidifier after running for less than 12 hours! We get multiple gallons of water out of the air everyday...it's actually sort of amazing :) So grateful our hotel has a dehumidifier and A/C!

Well we are off to look for a house and a car this afternoon and take our driver's tests tomorrow...guess it's time to make this place our home :)