Seattle (Cue Ominous Music)

We flew to Seattle on July 4th with a scheduled flight to Misawa on July 5. We were so naive.

Look how happy they were. They had no idea what was in store for them over the next few days. None of us were prepared for the idiotic insanity poised to strike our traveling expectations.

We thought we would simply be able to enjoy the awesome Seattle view. . .

. . .  and fireworks show

Bright and early (4am actually isn't so bright) we hauled our 16 pieces of luggage to the airport to check in for our 8:30 flight.

We found some breakfast, got acquainted with some of our fellow travelers, watched airplanes out the window, had a few meltdowns and a few bathroom breaks, and finally boarded the plane. This was it! This was real! We were on our way to Japan! The plane was on the runway speeding up for takeoff, when suddenly . . . 

. . .  we were headed back to the terminal. Apparently, one of the engines couldn't get up to 100%, and they wanted to take a look at it before attempting to cross the Pacific (good idea). Meanwhile this happened:

At this point, we thought we would be getting back on the plane after a few hours, so we were pretty disappointed to be wasting nap time. We actually ended up waiting in the airport for another 6 hours before finally being sent to a hotel.

The next morning, 4am, we started it all over again. Unfortunately just as we got through security, we found out that the flight was actually NOT scheduled to leave at 8:30. They had made all of us come to the airport at 4am with all of our bags, even though the plane had not yet been fixed. They were now predicting a 3:00 departure time. However there was a lot of conflicting information. We had already checked out of the hotel and gone through security, so we figured we'd head to the terminal and see if we could get an update. Around noon they finally told us we would not be flying that day and sent us back to the hotel. At this point I decided I was not stepping into that airport again until we had a definite confirmation that the plane was fixed and scheduled for departure. Mr. F could haul those suitcases back to the airport at 4am by himself. 

Fortunately that evening the airline actually did tell us that we would not be flying on Tuesday. They were unable to fix the plane and were flying in a different plane from the East Coast. This meant we had a whole day to rest (with zero airports). We definitely took advantage of the relaxation time.

Finally on Wednesday we did it all again. By this time we were pretty much airport professionals. And the third time was the charm. Cheers erupted from our plane as we finally lifted off the ground. The kids did pretty well on the 9 hour flight. C and A slept for a good portion of the flight. Somehow S managed to stay awake the entire time. He sure was a tired boy when he finally fell asleep after being awake for almost 18 hours.

Finally, we made it to Japan. It wasn't easy getting here but we are starting to settle in and enjoy it.