Our Travels- Part 2

So we made it to England, and I already have so many thing to write about. But for this post I will finish telling the tale of our traveling adventures. As you all know, we made it to the SLC Airport without problems. Our first flight was to Atlanta. We had to switch our seats around so that the whole family could be together. We ended up in row 45, which was the very last row of seats. We had three together and one across the aisle. At first I was a little upset about being on the very last row, but it ended up turning out nicely. We didn't bother as many people that way, we were close to the bathrooms, and we were close to the flight attendant in the back who was willing to help us with whatever.

Our task for this flight was to keep the boys awake, so that they would be able to sleep during the other flight. This didn't prove to be hard. They were excited about the plane ride, plus we gave them suckers for take off. Clark did a great job entertaining them most of the way. They colored pictures, and had a few presents from Grandma Beckie to open, which they loved. Sammy was kind of fussy, because he was getting tired. In fact, he get got quite onery toward the end of the flight, but overall, he did okay. We got to Atlanta on time, which we were glad about, because our layover there was only an hour and a half. And, of course, being at the end of the plane, we were the last ones to get off. We landed at gate A17 and had to make our way to gate E4. They couldn't have been farther away from each other. So we rushed as fast as we could. I had to send the boys ahead of me, because I kept getting cramps in my side and couldn't go very fast. I know, I'm a wimp. What can you do? Anyway, we got to the gate and talked to the lady about getting our seats together. We had three together, but one was off in the back. By this time, the boys were restless, so we let them run around a bit. I'm sure everyone at that gate was dreading going on a plane with our family. The boys were a bit out of control, but we knew what we were doing. So, after talking some older gentleman into switching seats with one of us, we got four seats together. Three in the middle, and one across the aisle. It was a little hectic waiting to board the plane. I got Kimball in his jammies, and took him to the bathroom. When we got back, they had called for us to pre-board. So we hurried to get everything together. In the middle of doing so, our bag of almonds dumped all over the place, and the boys were not being cooperative. But, we finally gathered our things and got on the plane. The plane was quite nice. Clark and I got Sammy in his jammies, and we got the boys all settled in their spots on the plane. Our plane was to take off at 9:15pm, which it did. Before take-off, I gave Kimball and Sammy both a tablet of Benadryl in hopes that it would help them sleep. Sure enough, Sammy fell asleep before the plane even took off. Kimball wanted to hold out until dinner, but fell asleep right before it came about 45 minutes later.

The actual flight from Atlanta to London was pretty uneventful, which is I guess how you would want a flight to be. Sammy laid down on my lap and took up two seats on the plane. We put Kimball on the floor to lie down, which he was fine about. That left one seat for me and one seat across the aisle for Clark. The boys slept great. I, on the other hand, hardly slept at all. My legs were bothering me, so I tried to keep them up, but it wasn't easy with Sammy taking up most of the room. Clark slept okay for a while. We ended up trading seats half way through and I got a little more sleep once we did that. Kimball woke up for breakfast about 45 minutes to an hour before we landed. Sammy slept the entire time. We had to wake him up for the landing.

After we landed, we went to customs, which we were a little nervous about, but everything was fine. We got through customs and changed the little bit of cash that we had into pounds. We traded $234.00 and got 103 pounds. What a rip-off. We headed to the baggage claim and got all ten pieces of our checked on luggage. It took a while, but we got them all. We loaded them onto two small carts and made our way to the Rental Car Agency. That was not the easiest task, because there were the two of us, pushing two overloaded carts, and the stroller loaded with the kids and most of our carry-ons. But we managed. We got to the Rental Car place and they got us a van, which fit everything we had.

Now the tricky part was yet to come. Driving on the other side of the road. Clark had me do it since I'd done it once before when I visited London. I did okay. There could have been a few minor accidents. It's really hard to look to the left for on-coming cars, especially at a round-about, which they have everywhere. Our first stop was at a gas station. The van we have uses diesel gas, which the rental place didn't have, so it was on a quarter of a tank. For all of you out there who complain about the price of gas in the US, be grateful you don't have to fill up here. We filled up the tank completely, and it cost us 60 pounds, which is $120.00. I'm still in shock that we spent that much money on gas. I told Clark at this rate we're going to have to walk everywhere, or we'll have to take out a loan, just to pay to drive our car.

After getting gas, we headed to the town of Bracknell which is just west of London. We found Bracknell just fine, but once we got into to the town, we drove around for about 45 minutes trying to figure out where we were and where our house was. I can't tell you how many round-abouts we went around. We finally found a gas station and stopped and asked for directions. I guess we should have done that first, because we found our house right after that. We rolled into our driveway at about 2 or 2:30pm, which would be 7 am in Utah. We had left our Utah house at 10am the day before, so it ended up being a nearly 24 hour trip. It was all pretty crazy, but actually pretty good. We are all safe and happy to be here.

I have so much more to say about things here, but I'll post again later. It's nearly 3am here and I should try to get back to sleep. Sammy and I both woke up an hour or two ago. Jet lag.

Pictures will be coming as soon as we get a real internet connection at the house. Right now I'm using the connection from Clark's phone.

So our first adventure has come to an end. But many more are yet to come, and you will all be so lucky to hear to about them.