Travel hiccups

The trip back was pretty uneventful.  Judah was an excellent little traveler, slept a good portion of our long flight and he slept through every short flight.  Micah actually slept as well as Calvin and they both enjoyed the inflight entertainment.  PTL for that and their leap pad devices.

The only little hiccup was that our stroller didn’t make it to France or on to Turkey, but it eventually made its way to Antalya.  Marvin spoke to the people at the airport and arranged to pick it up when we flew out.  Little did we know that we would be pressed for time when we were to pick it up.

Our transportation was arranged for us based on who was flying back at certain times.  One of the people in our van to the airport, forgot  his computer, so the hotel called and our van turned around and went back to get it, we had already traveled about 15 minutes, so we added another 30 minutes on to our already pressed time schedule.  We had 1 hour and 20 minutes to get checked in and retrieve a stroller when the van left to begin with, now we had a whopping 50 minutes and a whole 20 minutes before people began boarding.

We knew the clock was ticking because getting through security with our boys and 5 bags is a show in itself.  So we just prayed we'd make our flight to Istanbul.

I made my appearance at the check in counter to prove I was flying that day, then explained I needed to get our stroller that was lost on an earlier flight.  In my haste and franticness I forgot all the paperwork to the retrieve the stroller, and I didn’t have my passport since Marvin was using it to check us in for our flight.

After talking to a sweet and very helpful lady in the lost baggage area, our stroller was nowhere to be seen.  I finally asked her if it would be anywhere else, and came to the point of accepting that I was never going to see our stroller again.  She then paused and told me to wait just a moment and went next door.

Where our stroller was sitting.  ALLEHULIA!!! I love the Turkish people, they are so helpful and go above and beyond to help guests in their country.

Remember the part about not having my passport, well I did have my driver’s liscence and they let me use that to verify that I was the owner.  I was carrying Judah in the sling and our stroller was in a bag which meant I had to carry it.  Seeing that it was going to be very difficult one of the guys said, I will help you and he carried it to Marvin outside of baggage claim.  We ran to security, where people knew a flight was waiting on us, and staff helped us get everything through security and helped us to our gate.  Even carried our stroller for us.  Amazing.

We’ve never cut it that close before.  We seriously didn’t think we were going to make that flight.

Other than that everything went smoothly, unless you count the giant Micah meltdown at Ataturk before our flight back to our country.  It was monumental but I guess we he needed to make up for the stellar trans-Atlantic flight.  :)

We did conclude that 5 bags, plus a car seat is probably our max flying with kids who can't pull their own bags.  It seriously makes us ponder what are the essential items we need to bring back.