Korea here we come

Tony & Michele came up to spend the last two night with us.  It was  so nice of them to come help us get ready to go.  We got to have one last double date with them.  We went to the Cheese Cake Factory.  YUMM.  We have some of the Best Friends Ever!!!  Love you guys.

The kids wanted to go swimming.  They spent 6 1/2 hours in the water.  They did stop for a little Wendy's and right back in the water they went.   I was happy they could get some energy out.  Heaven knows they are going to need it with this long flight.

Michele thought this room was hilarious.  She wanted to take a picture because she had never seen so much stuff.  Yes, indeed All of this stuff is coming with us to Korea.  CRAZY!!!  Can you see the kids?

We had a suitcase die.  Nothing Duck Tape couldn't hold until we purchase a new one. Lucky for us Costco had some on sale.  Yeah!!! 

10 check in bags and 10 carry-ons.  Three carts later we have our luggage loaded.

It's 10:00pm and Bastianclan is ready to go!!!! Can you even see Kayden behind that cart?

We had to wait in line from 10pm-1:30am What did the kids do?  Played card games, colored, played with some toys, read, watched a movie. They really were pretty good.  It's a long time to wait.

Here is Kayden all snuggled with our luggage working on an activity book.  Oh the joys of waiting.  We love the Army "Hurray up and wait".  

Our kids did a fabulous job on this huge flight.  This is how they spent half there time.  Watching movies, cartoons, eating snacks, and drinking lots of yummyness.  The food on the plane was really good.  We packed a lot of food too but we really didn't need it the plane kept the kids fully entertained and tummies full.  

Jer and I got to sit together.  I love having older kids.  It's nice when they get to sit together watching movies and Jer and I got to play games and read our books.  AWESOME!!!  Older kids rock!!!  So much better then our trip to Hawaii when we had little kids and a baby!!!

This is how the kids spent the other half of the flight.  Can I just say how much my kids and I love these pillow pets?  Thank Heaven for snuggly pillows.  and how cute are they all snuggled together???? 

This was a lot of fun they kept showing us the GPS and how far we have come and how far we still have to go.  We made our first stop in Japan,  I do not have any pictures because pictures are prohibited.  SAD :-(   They had us all leave the plane.  We went into a locked little room with two bathrooms.  There were not enough seats for everyone.  It was kind of crazy.  Not at all what I was thinking.  I thought we would get to try some Japanese food.  Then I realized we were at the Air Force field not the international airport.  Bummer!!!  The reason they had us in a locked room was because they didn't want us going through customs.  We waited in this little room for about 2 hours.  Then they let us go back on the plane ready for our final destination Seoul Korea.   It took 2 hours to fly from Japan to Korea.  We landed at Osan Airbase around 3pm. They put us in another room and we waited for about 30 minutes they briefed us and told us how to fill out our papers and called us out a couple at a time to go through Customs.  This was fun...  We've never had to stand in line and show our passports and have our index fingerprints recorded.  We had to get rid of a couple things they wouldn't allow in country.  Beef Jerky and Nuts, which was sad because all 5 of us had some.  So we just threw them in the Garbage.  No big D.  After that they let us go into another large room and get our luggage.  But there was no organization to the luggage it was just all over this room.  It took us about 20 minutes to find all our luggage.  It was kind of crazy!!!!  We then had to go through customs again with our luggage.   Then they put us in lines to go to the busses.  It was soooo cold when we left the building.  We didn't have coats just jackets.  So that was poor planning on our part.  

We waited on this bus for over an hour. We were like are we ever going to leave.  So the kids had fun playing games, and watching movies.  Chandler was sitting with a couple Soldiers way in the back of the bus.  He didn't want to sit with us.  He and the soldiers had a great time.  I kind of felt bad for them... Chandler is his mother's son.  He introduced himself and asked all kinds of questions.  I offered to switch seats with them but they didn't want too.  It was Chandler VS 4 soldiers. AWESOME!!!!  

WE finally made it to our hotel.  I thought we would get to go up to our room and finally sleep.  NOPE they put us in another  room.  Oh yes they did.  I was like holy cow.  We are all extremely tired and hungry.  Lets sum up our day. Waited at the airport from 10pm-boarded the plane at 6:30am 8 1/2 hours waiting.  We flew to Japan 10 hours, waited for 2 hours, flew to Korea 2 hours, waited for 3 hours, drove on the bus for 1 hour, and now we are waiting to be released so we can go to our hotel.  They finally let us go at 8:30pm all the restaurants close at 9pm.  Jer and I were rockstars.  Jer checked into our hotel  I grabbed the bellhop and headed out to get all our luggage.  Jer caught up with us he and the bell hop took our luggage up to our room I took the kids downstairs to get subway We all crawled in bed literally and slept probably the hardest we have ever slept.  Oh how we love our beds!!! 

We finally made it!!!!  Seoul Korea

Here is our home for the next couple days.  Dragon Hill Lodge.  We are sooo tired.

All that flying and sitting made me retain water.  I had to take a picture of how swollen my legs were.  They hurt so bad.  It took about a week for the swelling to go down.  Good thing I had cute toe nails.  :-)