A Night at the Airport

Ever wonder how to move a family of 6 almost 6000 miles? Answer: Amazing friends and a lot of answered prayers.

In order to fly to South Korea, we had to first fly from San Antonio to Seattle.  Our flight from San Antonio was on Alaskan Airline and it departed at 7:00 PM; super fun time to drag 4 kids on a 4 hours flight.  Our amazing neighbor's, Cole Helm and Chris and Krista DeGuelle helped cart our 24 bags of luggage to the airport.

We left at 4:30 PM. I have to admit, my biggest worry was how on earth we were going to be able to move the luggage around the airports.  With a little faith and answered prayers, we had angels with us every step of the way!

Each of us (including little Monster) had two carry-ons.  In addition to everyone having a rolling luggage, we also had two violins, one huge backpack with our life in it, a diaper bag, and two small carry-on personal bags. Oh ya: can't travel without a stroller, carseat for the baby and a booster seat!  With me pushing the stroller, that left little A to pull a roller, Big Sis to pull two rollers with the small carry on resting on the roller and a violin on her back, and M&M had two rollers and a violin on her back also.  That left Kevin with everything else - luckily he's buff and it was easy for him (yes this is Kevin writing this part). We had a lot of funny looks, especially from the person that initially checked all our bags. Total count: two large check-on bags per person- making a total of 12 large check-ons, 6 small carry-ons, 2 violins, 2 personal bags, 1 backpack, 1 diaper bag, 2 carseats, and a stroller and a partridge in a pear tree.

Chris and Cole brought all our luggage into the main doors close to where we needed to check in for ticketing.  From there Kevin, Big Sis and M&M took the 12 large bags over to ticketing to check them on the plane.

The flight on Alaskan was about 4 hours.  It was a nice flight without any issues.  Little Monster was tired because it was his bedtime, and since we thankfully had a seat for him, he slept in his carseat.  The airline had free movies via their flight app.  I downloaded the app on my iPad and Kevin's iPad, and Kevin's phone and the girls were able to watch Storks.  They also had their Kindles and their own headphones, so they kept themselves entertained playing games and watching movies until they were too tired and all fell asleep.

When it was time to get off the flight, we had the issue that Big Sis and M&M couldn't roll two suitcases down the small aisle, so Kevin took one roller and went first with the intention of returning to grab more luggage.  I was cleaning up our rather large mess and the kids were trying to get the luggage down.  Some time went by and Kevin was not returning, instead all the flight attendants asked if they could take some luggage off for me. Where did he go? The four flight attendants helped me and the kids get everything off the flight.  When I got off, Kevin was standing there fuming mad.  Apparently it's against TSA policy that once you pass the plane door you are not allowed to return on. He asked to get back on, but they wouldn't let him due to him being a security threat.

So now came angel #3. One of the pilots was a retired Air Force pilot, she heard Kevin was active duty, and offered to help with all the luggage and kids. She lead our family to the USO and even carried some of our luggage the entire way too.  I am ever grateful for her help.  Our kids were super tired as it was now after 11:30 PM San Antonio time.

We got our carry-on luggage checked into the USO luggage hold, and I went to the USO "Family Area" and found a vacant crib and laid little Monster down.  Yet another answered prayer happened as he laid down eyes open looking around, but he never made a peep.  He took in his surroundings, found them satisfactory, then closed his eyes and slept soundly all that night.  Kevin took the girls to the USO dinning and got them all hot dogs, sandwiches and cupcakes, a perfect midnight snack.  I need to mention here, that the USO is volunteer ran, and everything is free for service members - such a blessing.  I am so grateful for the volunteers and for the amazing accommodations of the Seattle USO!!

M&M and little A got PJ's on and brushed their teeth while I turned the very last available couch into a bed for four.  They came right in and went right to sleep.  Big Sis went and helped Kevin get the 12 mammoth check-ons. Angel #4 came in the form of Skycap!  Randomly there was a guy walking around with a huge cart and when Kevin came down to baggage claim he discovered that the Seattle luggage carts could really only accommodate 3 bags: no way he could transport 4 on his own.  The Skycap angel loaded them all on and walked the luggage all the way to USO and Kevin was able to check all those bags into the USO luggage hold.  Kevin finally got to our little couch around 11:30 Seattle time, 2.5 hours after we had landed.  Kevin grabbed a pillow and some blankets and laid down on the floor for atlas an hour of sleep.

I didn't get much sleep that night.  I was worried that little Monster would wake up and wake the other two babies in the room.  I was also worried that we would miss our check-in time, since we were super confused about when we needed to go down and get our tickets.  There was a briefing at 1:00 AM, so I went to get more information.  Kevin and I found out that as a family of six, we had seats already together for us, so we didn't need to go down to get our tickets until 3:30.


So grateful for this as I was finally able to sleep for 2 hours!  We woke up at 3:00, took showers, got the kids changed, then lastly work up little Monster and put him in his stroller.  Our next angel was the USO volunteer at the luggage hold.  Kevin had already asked a handful of people what the skycap number was and not a single person knew the number.  This volunteer knew the number and called skycap to come get our check-on mammoths!  Skycap loaded everything, and then we walked  to ticketing. As a family you don't have to check in until 4am so the mammoth line to go through security was already past. We checked right in, loaded off our 12 boulders, and got our tickets in no time.

We made our way through security, with three bags flagged.  We had to wait for each bag to be opened and hand checked.  Kevin also had to do a pat down for the second time; he looks so suspicious.  All our luggage was cleared and we were finally good to go to our gate!  We found our gate, found a restaurant for breakfast, ate, and then took a nap!