We Made It!!! (barely)

Matt with all our junk

Well we made it to Korea, but not without a few obstacles. Matt and I had a lot of luggage when we flew from Houston to SLC for Christmas, but then after making a haul for Christmas, we had even more luggage to deal with. Lucky for us Matt's parents bought us larger luggage for Christmas and Matt's company had us fly First Class (including Lincoln....YES!), so between all of us we were allowed nine 70 lb bags. We almost met our quota. Add on top of that our dog in a huge kennel. It was ridiculous, although after checking in and having our load reduced to only Lincoln and a couple of carry-ons it wasn't so bad.

I imagined that we wouldn't see that pile of luggage again until we arrived at our new homeland, but it wasn't meant to be. Our flight from SLC to Seattle was great. We boarded our next flight which went to Japan quite easily, but then we had to wait an hour for some people that had a delayed connecting flight (I guess they do that for international flights). After waiting forever and then finally pulling away from the gate, the captain realized that there was something wrong with the starter, so we pulled back into the gate. They swapped out the starter which took another hour but after swapping it, they realized it was not the starter but something with the gears below so they had to remove the starter and fix the real problem which they said would take another hour and a half. With a 3.5 hour delay, we were definitely going to miss our connection in Tokyo for Korea. What was going to happen to Lucy??? We couldn't let her out of her kennel in Japan cause they require different immunizations. They finally decided to have everyone swap planes and have all the baggage moved. Matt decided that we better try and stay in Seattle which was a little more dog-friendly. Delta was quite accommodating. They got us a hotel where Lucy could stay as well, and switched our flight to the next day, free of charge. So we got all our millions of pieces of baggage, plus Lucy and managed somehow between the two of us to get on a shuttle that took us to our hotel. We were a total freak show. I pushed a cart of luggage and had Lincoln sitting on top. Matt pushed a cart and then pulled some luggage behind him. The huge mishap wasn't all bad. It was good to get Lucy out for a little rest from the kennel, and we were able to see Matt's childhood buddy, James, who now lives in Seattle.

The family at the hotel. Lucy is sporting her little doggy jacket to keep her warm on the plane.

By some miracle we made it back to the airport the next day with all our junk and made it onto our flight to Tokyo. Other than me filling a barf bag nearly full with everything I had eaten all day just an hour before we landed in Tokyo, the rest of the trip went smoothly. I thought we were a freak show in Seattle, but when we landed in Korea with all our junk, our dog and a cute white baby with big blue eyes, we really were a freak show. A semi-circle formed around us and people just gawked as we waited for Lucy to clear customs. So funny! Definitely a memory- making experience.

We are now in our lovely apartment. I have lots more to say about Korea, and church in our little branch here, and an apartment tour, but you'll have to wait till later. I'll give you a little preview of the view from the window in our family room: