We Made It! (or Part 1)

We have just ended our first full day in Caracas. Here's a "brief" overview of the adventure up until yesterday's flight into Venezuela:
Monday morning, April 28th, we left Williamsburg in a 15 passenger van; 'we' includes 15 suitcases, 5 carry-ons and 5 'personal' bags.

My parents were supposedly entertained by my packing 'skills' which involved A LOT of "putting this in the red suitcase, that over there in the blue one, moving this back over here to the black carry-on, taking that out of the yellow one, putting this aside, moving that back over to the purple suitcase...no wait, purple suitcase is just for toiletries (not just mine...it's a small suitcase for those of you cracking jokes!), this over there in the green duffle, putting that back but taking this out, that fits better here in the black rolling suitcase but only if this gets moved over to the red bag, which leaves a lot more room for that and then this can go here but then that won't fit until this gets folded in thirds, that stuffed in there and this moved sideways which means putting that here in the pocket of the blue suitcase, this over there, moving that back over here, taking this out..."

So we get to the airport in Richmond...the greatest airport EVER! No lines, no people, just how travel should be. The kids are excited, Weston and Braedon are ANGELS, Jamison is charming every one he passes. We are early for our flight and have time to sit and relax before boarding.



Our flight takes off, Jamison falls asleep as we lift off...and doesn't wake until we land in Miami. Weston and Braedon keep themselves quietly entertained the whole flight. Kris and I even manage to take a nice little nap. About 2.5 hours later we land at...

Miami International Airport, what a crazy place!!!!!! We get our bags...all of them, LOVE THOSE SKYCAPS! Flag a Crowne Plaza mini bus and head to our hotel. Able to contact a dear high school friend, Malia Panos (Marco) and make plans to meet for dinner with her family.



Malia looks gorgeous as always! Her family is so beautiful, Greg and Malia have 3 boys and the youngest, a girl, has them all happily wrapped around her finger. We ate at a Cuban restaurant that was very good (except, of course, Braedon barely touches his food...must not have tasted like candy and cookies!) We got to visit for a while, but not long enough. I kept thinking "who would have guessed Malia's and my children would be running around together?" We are both enjoying being Wives and Mothers! Kris and Greg seemed to have hit it off too, and the kids wore themselves out running around the pool area, like I said, the visit was too short.




Kris took Weston and Braedon swimming, at about 10pm we climbed into bed, checked for bed bugs of course (see my April 9th post for an explanation) and had a great night's sleep...amazingly, Jamison slept through the night only waking at 5am for a bottle then falling back to sleep, YES!

Back to the Zoo that is Miami International Airport. Things start off well, Jamison again falls asleep at take-off. Weston and Braedon love me so much they keep themselves entertained and before we know it, the Captain announces the decent into Caracas...only 2.5 hours after take-off. Sure beats the 18+ hour trips I endured flying to South America with my Parents.

So obviously, we could never get away with having a completely uneventful trip to Caracas. Kris and I thought maybe we had been blessed up to this point after the trials we had endured just to get to the point where we actually were on our way to Caracas and it would be smooth sailing the whole way. As we smiled at each other across the row of seats that held our 3 boys (with seat belts securely fastened) we had no idea what was waiting for us once we stepped off the plane, or wasn't waiting for us actually...and it was downhill from there, but it all ends well so more about that in the next post! I must get to bed.