We finally made it to Lagos! The flight left on time Sunday night from Houston and there was very little drama. I mean we had a ridiculous amount of bags (17 including the car seats) but it is pretty hard to have anything go wrong when you have business class seats on a direct flight! Really, the best part was the kids.
I actually chose this song (Big Jet Plane) not for the obvious plane reference but because the band is a brother-sister duo that is rare in rock and roll. Well there are a lot of creepy duos out there (dare I mention Atlantic Starr? Donnie and Marie?) but only a few that are actually cool (plus they're Aussies!). And my kids were soo cool on this trip! They were very excited about the flight and were actually doing a little "African" dance in the gate area that ended up in a chant of "Africa! Africa! Africa!". There were a surprising number of kids on the flight but like I said, it was business class. So you can imagine the look on people's faces when they board and see my kids rockin' these huge seats, personal DVDs, Nintendos, their own flight attendent bringing them juice. It's really over the top.
But selfishly, I love that they are finally big enough to look after themselves - and eachother. I loved our time in Melbourne but traveling with 2 kids under 3, even with business class seats was truly a marathon in patience (and serious packing skills!). By the time we got to LA, we were already exhausted with the biggest leg of the journey still ahead of us. This time, the kids had their own rolling bags - filled w their favorite items: teddies, blankies, Nintendo DS, portable DVD players, little crayons and stickers etc. (I held the few critical items as opposed to ALL the critical items; chargers, extra DS cartridges, epi pens and asthma meds, and even an extra set of clothes which used to be driven by having kids still in diapers but at this stage is really all about the fact that my kids are just spillers. Especially that cute curly topped one. We can't go anywhere without a monstrous juice disaster.)
But K really looked after C - helping him w the ear phones, the menu on the in-flight movie system, the straw on his juice box. I know part of it is her 7 year old Bossy-Boss-Miss-Know-it-All phase and she loves to be "in charge" but really it was very sweet! And the fact that I was actually able to watch a movie - almost uninterrupted, is just a miracle.
Here is a pic of the kids pre-flight:
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