Let's see....where do I even begin, as I try to recount this most memorable trip back to our lovely home here in Malaysia?!?!? Well, with the wonderful storms that OK had been experiencing, we thought we should move up our departure date from Muskogee a day earlier since all weather forecasts indicated below freezing temperatures with some sort of precipitation. We didn't rearrange our flight schedule (which now in hindsight might have been the better thing to do!), but we did decide to go ahead and drive up to Tulsa a day earlier before all the yucky stuff hit and so that we didn't have to get up at 4am and leave while it was -1 outside! So we checked into an airport hotel and settled in for the evening, thinking this was going to work out better anyhow, since we wouldn't have to get the boys up too early for our 7:55am flight to Houston. And yes, even though it was very cold out, Tulsa didn't get much, if any, precipitation at all, so as you can imagine we were very perplexed when Andrew receives a message from our airline indicating that our flight out of Tulsa HAD BEEN CANCELLED! So, Andrew gets up around 5am to find this message (30 minutes before we were set to receive a wake-up call) and then heads up to the front desk to check the monitors. Yes it was true, OUR flight.... and only ONE other Southwest flight into Houston....had been cancelled. Okay, what do we do now?? We are obviously missing our connecting flight in Houston to Tokyo, where we only had a less than 2 hour layover on the original schedule anyhow... So of course, Andrew gets on the phone with the airline to discuss our options. It starts to get even better.........we can get on a number of flights to Houston of course, but the next 4 open seats onto Singapore aren't until Saturday...hello, it's Thursday at this point folks! So we can go onto Houston, stay there for a couple of days, trying for some standby flights in the meantime....stay here in Tulsa and just try leaving again on Saturday (who knows what the weather is going to be doing then) or another option was to fly into Newark and try to get on an Asia bound flight, potentially on Friday (yes, that is what we want to do....go to the Northeast when there are winter storms brewing everywhere!)....so what do we do? We sit and discuss our options a bit..... and then Andrew decides he is going to try calling the airlines again and JUST CHECK to make sure these are our only options. Well, low and behold, a savior appears...in the form of a Continental airlines representative..... who says she can get us on a 1:30pm flight to Houston and a connecting flight to Tokyo the next morning, Friday, at 10:45am. YES MA'AM, WE'LL TAKE IT! Yes, this does mean an overnight stay in Houston now, but we are getting closer to getting home at least!
Sooo, we take our time getting checked-out, head over to the airport, get checked in with ALL our luggage (did I mention the 6 large 50 lb bags we were hauling around in all this too!!) grab our lunch and get ready to board our plane. This actually was really nice because we took our time and never rushed one bit. We got to Houston with no problems.....got all our luggage again and waited for the hotel shuttle. Luckily they had a shuttle service so we could just turn over all bags to him and not worry about them again until we got into our room. We originally thought we were somehow going to have to get ourselves and all the luggage on the airport tram over to the hotel, thank goodness that didn't happen! Because of our delays, we actually got to catch the National Championship, so we were pleased about that part! So the next morning, we loaded 'em up again....oh, don't let me forget to mention this was the first time we've all had to share one hotel room with only one baby bed....we weren't used to that and from our 2 very long nights....neither were the boys! Anyhow, we made it to the airport and our flight was on time.....that is until we get to the gate and have to wait to board an hour after we were originally scheduled to!! Then once we were actually allowed to board, it was another hour before we actually took off. So yes, as you might have guessed, we are now very, very close to missing our connecting flight in Tokyo to Singapore. Well, what can we do about it at this point. It now looks like there is the possibility that we may be checking into yet another hotel in Toyko?!?! During the nearly 14 hour flight, I won't even begin to talk about how the boys behaved.....can we really blame them though?!? Well yes, Evan screaming at the top of his lungs about 6 times all while everyone else is trying to sleep....even that was over the top for him! That was lots of fun! And yes, Cooper had a couple of mid-flight meltdowns, but the trip would not have been complete without them!! OHHH BUT CONTINUE READING, IT GETS EVEN BETTER!! So it looks like we might have made up just enough time in-flight to MAYBE catch our next flight....if we can get through security fast enought. But after we disembark and head toward security, Andrew sees alot of people stopping off getting information from what looks to be airline reps, so he stops to check it out and finds out that the airline HAS ALREADY REBOOKED us on another flight on a different airline (Singapore airlines as opposed to Continental) that leaves in about 2 1/2 hours!! Whoa....that kind of thing would never happen in the US!! We'd have to talk to somebody who would have to talk to somebody else who would then TRY to get us on another flight!! Needless to say, we were ecstatic and now only 6 hours away from our final destination...woo hoo!!
Once we get through security, Andrew says he is going to check out the duty free while me and the boys go and grab some McDonalds (poor boys, they seem to live on chicken nuggets when we travel since the airline meals are always so appetizing, especially on these Asian bound flight - noodles and rice is all you ever get!) and that we will meet up at the gate. Well, 7:00 is rolling around when we are set to board at 7:30 and Andrew is no where to be found! I can't call him because my cell phone doesn't work for some reason and I have no idea where to go to start looking for him. I start to panic and then ask if the gate can page him for me....this is the only thing I could come up with...and this is when they tell me "Ohhh Thompson, yes check for husband at service desk around the corner near the next gate". I get over there...relieved to have at least found Andrew...to then find out they are having some sort of seating issues or something. So as she is sitting there trying to ticket us for this new flight, the minutes are ticking away and everyone has boarded by this point. We finally get the boarding passes and get on the flight as they are telling us they might not have gotten all our luggage on the plane! GREAT!! That is fine, at this point we wouldn't expect any less...we'll just figure it out when we land. At least we are on the flight and going to Singapore (oh one other tidbit...when we missed out 1st flight in Tulsa and thus put us a day behind, we also had to call and cancel our hotel room in Singapore and rebook for the following night, in which they had the audacity to tell us they would have to charge us another $150 to make the change...GREAT!). SO, HERE'S THE CHERRY ON TOP....all is good and the boys have actually been pretty decent during this flight. They get on, get settled and fall asleep rather quickly...which is good because it's late and everyone is sleeping. So all the cabin lights are out and it's rather dark. Cooper wakes up about 4 hours later and is in a decent mood, but wants snacks (of course) and to get out of his car seat for a bit. Let me not forget to mention that the only seats they could get us on were 2 of the middle 4 seats - 2 on one row for Andrew and Evan and 2 on the row behind for Cooper and myself. So we are hanging out and the flight attendant comes by with water and apple juice, so I decide that it will be okay for Coop to have some juice. We sit and watch a bit of some show - the Michael Jackson documentary, I think it was - when all of a sudden Cooper makes this gagging motion! UH-OH! So he spits up a bit on me and I then quickly set him back in his seat and look for the barf bag! Well, I find it but CANNOT for the life of me get the darn thing opened (remember it is pitch dark and we are in the middle seats) and Cooper is spewing EVERYWHERE!! He does it about 3 more time...luckily, it wasn't the projectile type or else we would have had an even bigger mess, but it was all over him, his carseat, me and who knows what else! So I get Andrew up and try to hand him Cooper after I cleaned as much off of him as possible first...all the while, the 2 guys on either side are oblivious to what has just happened! I think because it was mainly apple juice that he threw up (he hadn't had much to eat all day long which was probably why it happened in the first place!) along with a few bits of the snacks I had just given him - colored gold fish and fruit juicys - it didn't smell as bad as it could have! So once I get him out, crawl over the guy on the aisle seat, we unbuckle his car seat and try to get it cleaned out after getting Coop out of his clothes! Luckily, I had packed plenty of extra clothing for the boys so he was covered..but I was totally out of luck! I have read so many articles that say to pack something for yourself and now I know why! Anyhow, thankfully we were on this very wonderful Asian airline because the flight attendants were so very helpful (I'm not sure what we would have gotten had it been a Continental flight - probably some disgusted looks and grunts is about it), getting wet wash cloths and towels to clean out the seat and Cooper and finding bags to put all the smelly clothes and dirty rags in. I am also so grateful we were at the very back (I mean next to last row) so that we didn't have the whole plane puking by looking or smelling it! Once we got it all cleaned up (including myself), we only had about an hour and a half left in the flight, so it wasn't SO bad! We made it through and thoroughly thanked the flight crew for all their help on our way out! YES, we finally made it!
I hadn't meant to include that last part in such detail, but as you can imagine, it is still such a vivid memory to this day and now I don't think I'll ever forget it...nor will Cooper!
So the last item of business was our luggage. Once we make it through immigration, I immediately go look for the lost & found counter to inquire about our bags. As it is completely dead in the airport since it's now about 1am, there is no one around to help me. As I'm waiting to find someone, I notice that one of our bags is on the belt....hallelujiah! At least one made it....and then I see a 2nd....and 3rd....and 4th....and well you get the picture...ALL OUR LUGGAGE MADE IT!! God must have known we needed to catch at least one break on this trip! All I can say is maybe the way everything went down was just the way it was supposed to be! If we'd been on our original flight, the whole Cooper ordeal could have gone down much differently or who knows what else!! Anyhow, just saying glad we made it safe and sound and that was all that really mattered!!
BUT WAIT....it wasn't over just yet! We then make it over to the hotel with all our luggage to find out that the front desk doesn't have our new reservation!! Luckily, they aren't booked so they can get us in a room, but she spends about 30 minutes trying to find the original reservation where we had already paid one price for the room. She is trying to charge us the cancellation fee for the first room and a full rate...I don't think so, we already paid for it, lady!! I leave Andrew to get it worked out, and about an hour later we are finally in our room!
Henry picks us up the next morning, an easy drive to Melaka and we are home and getting settled back into our home by 3pm. AHHHHH, WE ARE FINALLY HOME!! As excited as I am about moving back to the states sometime soon, please don't let it be in the next couple of months....I don't think I could take another trip like this one so soon!!
And I leave you with a couple of pictures I took of the boys in the Tulsa airport before the start of our "interesting" journey! Guess we were too busy trying to find a way to get home that I didn't get any other mid-journey photos! Probably best I didn't, you wouldn't have seen many smiles from any of us!!! :-)
