We're here! And the trip didn't kill us!

We arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The trip went amazingly smoothly. Having had six months to mentally build it up into an impeding nightmare of epic proportions, I was very pleasantly surprised by how easy it turned out to be.

We started out on a flight from Edmonton to Seattle at 6:40 AM. The flight wasn't full, so they gave us an empty seat and we were able to put the baby's carseat in it so that I wouldn't have to hold him the entire time. The girls were psyched but tired. Dave and Olivia were sitting a few rows up, I was further back with William, and Isabella was right across the aisle from me. Both William and Isabella fell asleep minutes into the flight and stayed sleeping for the entire two hours. I took it as a good omen, and it was!

The only part of the trip that really sucked was the layover in Seattle. We had over six hours to kill there, and it was insanely boring. First we ate at Wendy's and watched planes take off for awhile, then we wondered around and browsed a few stores. We were thrilled to discover a kids' play area that was really cool, but even the coolest park ever isn't going to occupy a kid for six hours.


Olivia in the Seattle airport


The play park

When we finally boarded our flight to Korea, we were pleasantly surprised by two things -- first, how nice the plane was, and second, by the fact that the flight was only 11 hours long, not 15 like I had previously thought. Korean Air is an excellent airline, and I would not hesitate to fly with them again. We were given the bulkhead row, which has an attachment on the wall for putting up a baby bassinet. This was a real lifesaver for my arms, as I didn't have to hold the baby all the time. We all had individual TV screens on our seats, and there were tons and tons of shows and movies to watch on demand. Olivia watched High School Musical 2, and Bella watched Ratatouille and Shrek the Third. They had so much fun with their little TVs that we didn't even have to get anything out of the carry-on I had painstakingly packed with a million different things for them to play with.

Eleven hours is a pretty freaking long time, but it passed relatively quickly and pleasantly. We were all exhausted when we reached Seoul, and none of us were looking forward to boarding yet another flight. As it turned out, the last flight was the easiest of all because we were so tired we slept for almost the entire thing. We landed in Bangkok at around 1 AM, and after going through customs (a breeze) and retrieving our bags, we made our way outside, got into a shuttle van, and were at our hotel about five minutes later. The hotel was incredibly beautiful, and we were sorry we had such a short time to spend there.


The hotel


The pool at the hotel


Cuddling

We all bathed and showered before crashing, and we were awakened six hours later by a very peeved Isabella crying at the top of her lungs. It was highly annoying, and we were all very tired as well as starving. Not a nice awakening at all, and both Dave and I were thinking that right then we would have gladly traded Isabella for a cheese pizza.

We gathered up all of our many bags and carseats, and it was back to the airport for the final time. After checking in for our flight to Chiang Mai, we ate some delicious Thai food at a really cool food court (and paid $3 per can for Diet Pepsi!!). Our flight was an hour late, but it really didn't matter. The flight was only about an hour long, so it was nothing. We got the bulkhead row again, so we had a ton of legroom, and the customer service on Thai airways is excellent. We saw my parents waiting for us as we were standing around the baggage carousel, and there was a lot of excitement all around.

I can't believe we're here! This is going to be amazing.


The view from our balcony