Operation Family Hug Collection Part 1

Dear Kiddos, 

There has been a break in posts because we've been on a mission: a mission to collect hugs from family members. This mission has actually taken almost 3 months and I'm just catching everyone up. So May 10th we packed our bags and headed for Chicago. We actually got our COVID tests that morning because we needed negative tests to board our flight to our next destination...but more on that later. 

Southwest Free 2 Checked Bags FTW! 

This flight went by so quickly. After a few shows, we were there. 

Hailey, you were so tired from the excitement that you fell asleep in the car on the way to grandma and grandpa's house. 

I don't know how you managed to sleep with one foot propped up....but you did. 

Hug 1: Grandma and (hugs not pictured) Grandpa. 

Grandma even gave each of you her own clip on earrings from when she was a little girl like you two. 

And of course, we raided their amazing games closet and brought out all of your favorite games. 

Grandpa even took us to his community garden plot and we helped mark it with strings. It was very weird for their growing season to start when ours has already been going for at least a couple of months. 

We also noticed that there were dandelion seeds everywhere and you all were very excited to pick and blow them away. Usually in Texas there's always an argument that develops over who gets to blow the 1 dandelion that we find, but there was no need because they were everywhere. Hailey you probably got the most excited about them. 

One morning we went on a walk in the nature preserve and we saw even more there! 

Hug 3: Great grandma. Great grandma came over for lunch one day and we were able to get hugs from her. We enjoyed see her and completing a few simple puzzles with her that afternoon. 

On our last day, we got more hugs from another set of great grandparents. Nathan, you had expressed interest in fishing, so they invited us over to do so. 

A few blue gills were caught... 

Daddy was in charge of hooking on the bait and removing the fish from the hooks. 

We took a quick paddleboat ride around the lake. 

And Nathan's ride was super short, because you heard the fishing rods calling out to you. Good thing you listened because you ended up catching a huge bass! 

Meanwhile, Hailey, you were content with playing in the sand and when Daddy  brought over a fish to show you, you did not want to get friendly with it at all! 

                                              

Great-grandpa even took some time to give Nathan a few fishing tips. 

Hannah, you helped reel a fish in after Daddy caught it. It was pretty exciting and you were so proud of yourself! 

After 2 hours of fishing, you three did not get enough and fished some more inside. 

On our last day, we also visited the garden plot again and helped plant some peas. 

Grandpa's garden plot is right next to an amazing playground. There was something for all of you to play with and for the most part, there weren't too many kids around (since they were in school). You all didn't mind visiting it two days in a row. 

Hug # 6 was from Uncle Timmy. He came over to visit one day for dinner and stayed for a bit to play some Jackbox games. After he left, I tried to convince you all to go to sleep early since we had another flight to catch at midnight. You all tried for about an hour and by the time you came down, it was time for us to go. Hailey, you actually ended up taking a long nap in the afternoon, (which worked out well because we didn't have any melt-downs at the airport.) 

Grandpa dropped us off at the airport around 10:20 and we were like the last ones from our flight to arrive. We were whisked through security and then ended up at the terminal to wait for about 30 minutes. The vibe for this flight was entirely different from the vibe that we had on our domestic flight. People were super cautious, some people were dress in PPE from head to toe. Lots of people had both face masks and shields and there were a few people like us, who just had our masks. We were told that our flight was full and it looked that way at the terminal because there was so many people. 

We were in boarding group 3 and when we got on, I was expecting a lot more people to board after us, but the plane never filled in much and before we knew it, the pilot was announcing that the flight attendants should prepare for take off. Our Southwest flight was completely full. Our Eva flight to Taipei was full at 50% capacity. There was a random guy who was stuck next to us (which I thought was unecessary) but we were able to spread out a bit and sleep for a good 6-8 hours on our almost 15 hour flight. 

I absolutely love flying EVA because even in a pandemic, they passed out little toys for the kids.

As soon as we were in the air, they fed us a meal. Everyone was saying that they were pretty hungry, so we all had a meal at like 1:30 in the morning. Good thing we did, because they didn't feed us again until it was the equivalent of lunch time the next day. Usually there are lots of meals and snacks, but I guess due to COVID, the meals got scaled down a bit. 

My biggest fear during the flight was that we would make the news headlines because Hailey, you would refuse to wear your face mask and because of that, the plane would have to turn around and we would get kicked off the plane. So, I brought a billion different face masks, put buttons on headbands and hats (because you always complain about your ears hurting) and prayed a lot. 

For the most part, you did pretty good with the face mask thing, except for when you were sleeping. You are small enough to lay down on the seat with your legs partly on my lap. When you would refuse to wear the mask to sleep, I was able to lift the arm rest to about a 45 degree angle and drape a light blanket over it to create a little tent for you to sleep. Sometimes you would wake up and complain about the tent covering you, but once you fell asleep, I draped it back on. If I learned any lesson through 3 kids, there's no negotiating with a sleepy toddler. 

When you guys woke back up, you all watched a few movies, played a few games on your tablets and ate another meal. After they collected our plates, it was basically time to land. We made it! 

When we deplaned, everyone was given a ticket (transfers got one ticket and arrivals got a different one.) We were then directed towards a line to buy new SIM cards for our cell phones. During our 15 day quarantine, the Taiwanese government would use our cell phone to track us and make sure we are staying put. They take it very serious here. After we got our SIM cards, we had to get in another line to fill out our digital quarantine form (which I thought I had done on-line) but there was one that I missed...the details are now fuzzy because I hadn't gotten much sleep on the flight and I basically just went into remote control mode and just did what the people at the airport told me I had to do. We eventually made it through that line and then had to get in line to get through customs. After that was finished, we proceeded to go pick up our luggage (which was already sitting on the side, which shows just how slow a family of 5 can move) and called our driver to let him know that we were ready to be picked up. I say "our driver" like we have an official driver, but our landlord was nice enough to arrange for someone to come pick us up and we didn't have to take 2 taxis (because most taxis only carry 4 people) 

We arrived at our apartment at around 9:30 in the morning and we didn't go out the door for 15 days. I'll write about that experience on the next post. 

Until then, 

Love, 

Mommy