Whew!

What a wild experience traveling with 2 adults, 4 kids, and 2 dogs.

We left Alaska and headed to Indiana to see family and friends!

We were so excited to see the sunshine and feel the green grass. Our pups were in love with the space to run.

I headed to Walnut Grove Elementary to see lots of great past colleagues and my WG teacher bestie.

We got to spend a ton time with our long time best friends.

We got to celebrate my dad’s 67th birthday.

We got to see another great family that we love dearly. We enjoyed a great meal together, the kids and husbands played soccer and Ultimate Frisbee, two of our boys played dinos, and we enjoyed sitting and catching up with each other.

We got to spend time with both sides of our families.

They got a chance to shoot the BB gun again.

We had some fun at the horse track with lots of family and friends.

We got to see another great family while in Indy.

We had a French braiding tutorial session before heading out.

We had a fantastic time in Indy with family and friends. It was awesome seeing familiar faces and jumping right into conversations like we never left.

And then the travel fun began…

First, it started at Indianapolis International Airport, and their faces say it all. American Airlines was not the friendliest and not helpful at all. Steven did his due diligence with every step of the process to ensure minimal hiccups. When we arrived at the airport, American Airlines told us they don’t ship dogs even though we had them booked through American Airlines. After several incompetent people later, we found out the dogs needed to be taken to cargo, which is not at the main airport. Steven got the dogs over to the cargo, but then they required their separate paperwork even though we had airline paperwork. Hours of phone calls later, that was taken care of. They then told us they couldn’t get the dogs to the final destination, which was Bartlimore, because the cargo would close before our flight arrived even though the dogs were on our booking and they knew all this information. Steven asked if they could at least get them to Charlotte, our layover, and then we could problem solve from there. They charged an astronomical amount, compared to the other airlines, for an hour flight with zero confirmation and assurance that other airlines give when flying your pet. We will definitely be avoiding AA in the future.

So we all made it to Charlotte. Steven got off the plane to figure out where our dogs even were and to pick up a rental car so he could drive the dogs from Charlotte to Baltimore. The kids and I got on our flight from Charlotte to Baltimore, which was delayed an hour for maintenance issues. American Airlines strikes again.

We all made it to Baltimore safely and got a good night’s sleep then headed out for the next leg of travel. Baltimore to Ramstein AFB.

We checked out at noon and headed to the airport. Got to the airport and the flight was delayed by 4 hours. The dogs, which was a much better experience, could not be checked in until 9pm.

So, Steven graciously stayed with the dogs at the airport while the kids and I went to watch Lilo and Stich. It was a great movie, by the way. After the movie, we went to the Nike store and Lego Store, then picked up dinner to take back to Steven.