Greetings from Salatiga, Indonesia! Our family, along with ALL of our luggage made it all the way here. We are currently unpacking and setting up our house that, by the way, we get to live in for an ENTIRE year. As soon as we get our house set up and the internet cooperates with us I'll post a video tour so you can see what our home looks like.
How did flying 1/2 way across the world with 2 kids and most of your possessions go, you may ask? It went surprisingly well.
Our trip began at 3 am in Idaho and ended at 1:30 am the next day in Jakarta. I think Mike and I got a total of 2 1/2 hours of sleep the night before we began. With us, we had a total of 9 checked bags, all of which came in between 49 and 50 pounds. Success! For carry ons we had 4 roller bags, 2 computer bags, 1 camera bag/backpack, and 1 tiny child sized roller backpack.
Our routing was Boise-Denver on a 737 (4 hour layover), Denver-Narita on a 787 (3 hour layover), Narita-Jakarta on a 767.
The first 2 legs of our trip went great. Our kids have quite a few air miles under their belts and probably know how to navigate TSA security lines better than most adults. They also were able and willing to each carry one bag for us.
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We were super excited to get the opportunity to fly on the new Boeing 787! The plane was so new, it still had the "new airplane" smell. The inflight entertainment system was cutting edge and we never heard a single complaint from either child the entire 11 1/2 hour flight. Macie watched a couple of movies and fell asleep for the rest of the flight, Colton on the other hand was having so much fun he didn't fall asleep until 1 hour prior to landing.
The trip got "interesting" once we landed in Narita. We had to shake Colton awake; he was now delirious and unable to carry his bag for us. In Narita once you disembark the plane you have to go through security again. Poor Colton was so tired he was sobbing, and we had to keep encouraging him to stand up and move. We made it through and once we arrived at the gate, he crashed again. When it was time to board the plane to Jakarta we had to shake him awake again. In Narita it is tricky to board the plane because they don't have jetways at every gate. To board our plane we were loaded onto a bus that drove us to the plane on the tarmac, where we then walked up a stairway. To a 767! Those are some big steep stairs for little ones (whom you cannot help because your arms are full of bags). We survived the whole process with no injuries to the little ones and boarded the plane. The second Colton sat in the seat, he was sleeping again. Crisis averted.
Once we landed in Jakarta, we were all fully awake again and the kids were able to carry their bags for us. Nice. I was a bit worried to go through customs, but I shouldn't have been. I've heard Indonesians are nice, but I had no idea how nice! The customs agent was the friendliest customs agent I have ever dealt with, he was nicer to us than our fellow American custom agents are.
After we cleared customs and picked up our luggage, our fellow MAF team member was there to pick us up outside of baggage claim. We were then driven out to a guest house in Jakarta to rest for a couple of days before we continued on to Salatiga.
I would have posted more photos, but our internet is slower than molasses in the winter.
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