Photos

Here's some nice photos from today:

Eating pizza for dinner.

Everyone enjoyed the pizza.

Delicious!

Lin's wrapping paper for a present for her host family.

Patty and my Mom spending quality time together (the kitchen is being remodeled).

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh..... Sleep!

After 62 hours on airplanes or in airports, I really needed some rest on an actual bed. The kids, of course, were up bouncing around the house at 6:30am, but they had the good sense to wait until at least 7:00am before waking me up. We had cereal for breakfast and then the kids relaxed for a bit before we went to Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Allow the grass is green and the sky is sunny, the air is still quite cold, and so we walked around Valders to a chorus of "Now mahk!"'s (Very cold!). We also stopped by Valders Middle School to take care of Erng's school lunches.

At Piggly Wiggly, Erng and Jane bought little lemon-shaped bottles of lemon juice, mistakenly thinking that they could drink them! Hahah! We also got some pizzas, soda, and of course, ice cream sandwiches. For lunch the kids ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apples. They really enjoyed using the apple corer/slicer, calling it a "hi-so cutter".

Now the kids are busy wrapping gifts. They've got a lot of gifts to wrap so they've been at it for over an hour. Lin is a very good artist so she's drawing very nice pictures of the Brill family on each gift. Erng already gave my mom and dad their presents. She gave my mom some buttons and she gave my dad a "pa-khao-mah", which is a large sheet of fabric that men wrap around their waists after taking a shower.

We're here!

It only took 64 hours, but we've finally arrived in Chicago. I will post more about that tomorrow, but right now, I need a nap!

The kids have all showered and changed into their pj's, and now they are busy doing their blogs. It was a LONG journey to get here, but we've finally made it!

Konichiwa Japan!

After waiting 22 hours in Bangkok for the flight to Japan, we finally boarded the airplane and we arrived at Narita airport around 6am, where we quickly learned that our connecting flight was...... delayed.. ack!

So now we have to wait another seven hours before we can get on another airplane for our 20+ hour flight to Chicago. The kids are handling it like real troopers though. They've found free internet connections and so they are updating their blogs and playing on Facebook. Nothing is open right now, so we can't find anything to eat, but hopefully something will open in the next hour or two.

Fern on the airport shuttle

Lin on the shuttle

Erng and Jane looking around at all the airplanes

Jean's not quite awake yet

Well, at least Narita Airport is such an interesting place to be. The kids will have LOTS of things to do here! :-P

Hour 22

After 22 hours in a Bangkok airport, we are finally at our gate and getting ready to depart. If all goes well (knock on wood!), we will arrive in Chicago on April 4th at 8:40am. Wish us luck!

The Looooooooooooong Goodbye

You know, when I wrote that last blog entry, I thought to myself, "I probably shouldn't say that the trip preparations were 'Easy' because I might jinx it." But then I thought to myself, "George, you're a man of logic and reason, you shouldn't let foolish superstitions dictate your actions."

Well,.... jinx! :-P

Things got off to a good start. All the kids arrived on time, and we had our bags quickly organized and lined up like ducks in a row. Patty interviewed the kids on video to get their pre-trip thoughts and emotions. Then we went over a few last minute details and the parents made their good-byes. We were ready to go!

Here's the students and their families:

Jean

Jane

Lin

Fern

Erng

First in line! Whoot!

So we were all set and ready to leave Thailand for our great American adventure. The Japan Airlines staff opened their counters and the kids eagerly got out their passports. But the airline staff made no move to call us forward. They just sat at their desks. We waited for a while until a woman came to tell us the flight might be delayed. Since we only had a two-hour layover in Japan and their passport control is notoriously slow, I sat the kids down and talked to them about the possibility that we might need to run through Narita airport to make our connecting flight, so sightseeing tours of Japanese airports might not be possible today.

Then some staff came out with hurriedly printed posters to announce the flight delay time. "Ten o'clock", I read. Oh well... that's not so bad... "PM" Huh? Wait, what?

Yep, you heard that right. Our flight was delayed FOURTEEN HOURS! Guess we won't be making our connecting flight :-P. So now we're sitting here in wonderful Suvarnabhumi Airport on Hour 13 of our (hopefully only) 54 hour odyssey to America, and let me tell you, after the first ten hours or so, the cold floors and overpriced restaurants still haven't lost their native charm!

America, here we come! Er... not quite. :-P

Early Birds at the Airport

Dealing with the airport taxi mafia is one of my least favorite things about living over here, so I'm very happy that we now have a nice, convenient airport rail-link that goes from the BTS Skytrain Phaya Thai stop all the way out to the airport.

Unfortunately, it only runs until midnight and we needed to be at the airport at least 3 hours before our 8:00am flight, so we hopped on the last train and arrived at the airport around 1:00am. Patty quickly settled in for a nap (the woman literally cannot function without her beauty rest, haha!).

I found an electrical outlet so I could charge my phone and now I'm updating this blog at around 2:00am local time. We'll be ready to greet the kids when they arrive around 4:30am. Compared to last year's hectic last-minute dash to the airport, this year's trip is starting off really well. So I guess Patty's been a good influence on me! :-) We had all our bags packed since Saturday, and so today all we had to do was exchange a bit more money into dollars and go to Makro to buy some snacks. Easy!

Whew! Of course, I won't rest easy until all the kids are safely tucked into their sleeping bags in Valders, but in spite of some considerable drama booking the plane tickets, I'm feeling really good about this trip. We've got a lot of really cool activities and adventures planned for the kids this year, so I think they will have lots of fun!

The only problem I have right now, is deciding when it is safe to wake up Patty! Haha!