Anchorage to Cairo

Our first plane departed Anchorage at about 9:30 pm and arrived in Minneapolis at 5:45 am local time. Henry and Nathan were excited to finally be on our way to Egypt. Below is a picture of Henry and Joe getting ready for take off:

The boys did great, but it still seemed like a very long 5 hour layover in Minneapolis. Probably because we only got a few hours sleep. We had some adventures like getting stuck in the train that goes between terminals at the airport. We were only riding it for fun. Good thing we didn't have a tight connection. :)

Nathan and Henry rode on a motorcycle video game through Hong Kong:

Then we took a 2.5 hour flight to New York JFK airport. I must say that this airport sucks! It makes other airports seem like spa resorts. Within a couple hours of landing we got the darlings nestled down in beds of two chairs pushed together in the Delta lounge, and they slept for about 2 hours! When we got there the lounge was empty and gradually it began to fill up. We got lots of dirty looks from people about taking up so many chairs, but they obviously didn't know the rule: Never, never wake a sleeping overtired child. Here is Nathan getting some Z's:

And Henry:

The misery of the long day set in once our flight from JFK to Cairo was delayed. And when a flight is delayed for maintenance, that is not good. It ended up that our flight was almost 4 hours late, and we didn't leave New York until about 1:30 am. Here is Henry and Joe worn out at JFK:

Then our luck turned, and we all slept the entire 10.5 hour flight to Cairo! I only woke up to hear the pilot announcing our decent. (The secret pill Joe and I took is Lunesta.) We arrived at about 6 pm local time. All of our thousand bags, boxes and carseats made it, and we only had one box checked by Egyptian customs agents. Our box of junk was not of interest to them so we passed on through with the rest. Ha, ha! Suckers!

Last Days

Now I can hardly remember what we did during the last few days in Anchorage. Based on pictures, I know for sure we went to the Natural History Museum and a playground. We also shared Pizza Night with Carrie, Brook, Finn & Reid and had a yummy lunch with Rob, Amy, Robyn and Nolan! The extra days in Alaska were good for us since we got to have more time with friends and rest up a bit for the long flights.

Here are some pictures from the Natural History Museum. Nathan posed as a native Alaskan dinosaur:

Me in front of a short-faced bear skeleton:

Nathan next to and wearing a saber-toothed cat head:

Digging for dinosaurs:

Hanging out (literally) on our last day in Anchorage:

Vacationing in Anchorage

Our second reservation for Monday was cancelled. Now the earliest we can leave Anchorage is Sunday night, and we will be avoiding Europe altogether this time. Our new route is Anchorage to Minneapolis to New York JFK to Cairo. The flights are not as good as the original ones, but this way we can avoid the volcano zone.

With all of our moving chores done, we have been hitting the town. On Saturday we went downtown to the Kids' Fair in the morning and had dinner with our friends Amy, Rob, Nolan and Robyn in the evening. On Sunday we swam in the pool in the morning and enjoyed Taco Night with the Predegers. See photo below of Henry, Finn, Reid and Nathan in costume.

On Monday morning we visited a new hangout, Arctic Playgroundz. Henry (dragon) and Nathan (gorilla) really enjoyed putting on costumes. You can see an unknown child trying to horn in on our photo below.

In the afternoon I took them to Bouncin' Bears and then to the Dimond Mall. We rode cars, did arcade games, rode escalators and got photos in one of those booths. I wore them down! Then we topped it off with dinner at Don Jose's restaurant, and we met Don Jose! Henry and Nathan were very impressed by him.

Today we took the boys to Arctic Gymnastics for some hard core exercise. We ran, balanced, jumped on trampolines, did obstacle courses, and jumped into pits of soft foam. Then we went to Alyeska for their fourth ski lessons. They did great and both spent their lessons going up and down the Chair 3 lift and runs. Below is a picture of them getting shuttled from the daylodge to the lift. By the end of the lesson, Henry was skiing without Edgie Wedgies! Both kids were very tired and slept the whole way home where we picked up Moose's Tooth pizza.

After relaxing and watching the Cinderella movie, Henry applied a healthy amount of "medicine" (body lotion) to his forehead. That tiny scratch should heal in no time!

We found out that we have to move hotels tomorrow since ours is full for the next few days. So we will spend some time relocating all our stuff (junk) tomorrow.

Ready, Set, Wait

Day one of our adventure was not what I expected. We woke up, got all our last minute gear packed, ate breakfast and had most of our bags and boxes moved into a truck to go to the airport when we got a call... It turned out that our flight to London was cancelled due to a volcano eruption in Iceland! What is it with our family and volcanoes? Thank goodness we found out before we were stranded in Seattle. The next available date for our flights is Monday, so we checked back into our hotel room and got a rental car. It was really difficult to break the news to Nate and Henry that we were not getting on the plane today because they have been looking forward to it for so long. What they got out of the conversation was that a volcano exploded and broke our airplane. Well, close enough.

Since the sun was shining and we had new snow on the ground, we decided to take Henry and Nathan to Alyeska for skiing lessons. This was their third lesson and they did great! They can stop and make turns. Henry even rode on the ski lift! The picture below is Henry skiing down the 'advanced' bunny hill.

While I am disappointed that our trip is delayed, we will try to make the best of the situation and have some fun. Four days isn't that long anyway, right?