The Trip part 1

I'm writing on the first plane of our trip. It's an ERJ, three seats wide. I had to ask to find out, and the stewardess pointed out to me that it is a small plane. I suppose that in her line of work you do a lot of pointing out of obvious things. Horyon and Quinten are across the aisle to my right, and Maxine is in front of me. Probably my last opportunity to write during this journey. I suspect that if the kids sleep on the next flight, I will, too.

Quinten is doing fine with the pressure changes. A little babbling and munching on some grapes seemed to equalize his pressure. Hopefully it will be as easy coming down. He is currently bouncing around between Horyon and the bulkhead, standing on the seat, exploring the seat tray, doing his little scientist thing. But boy oh boy does he want to move around. We are really hoping that he sleeps through the first part of the next flight. We are scheduled to leave Chicago at 1 a.m. They will very likely be asleep at that time, so the only question is will they stay that way?

Maxine is doing great. She has a new princess sticker book and a journal with seven little colored pens attached. She is drawing pictures and supplementing them with stickers while enjoying some bubble gum purchased just today.

Speaking of today, it has already been a long day. After Quinten woke up, Horyon and I drove back to the house in Lawrence for what may be the last time. (We are putting it up for sale, and hope that it will be sold long before we return.) We loaded up our shipping bags (four bags at 80 lbs each, for a total of 320 lbs) and took them to the UPS store, then drove back to the house. We picked up a few key items which we had forgotten Saturday, like my carry-on backpack. This was a big deal because it contained both Maxine's pillow pet and her polar bear. These items would be sorely missed, as would my ancient (six-year-old) 60 Gigabyte MP3 player, my super big bottle of store-brand pain reliever that is cheaper than Tylenol, my comb, and my software CDs, without which my next computer would be missing lots of important stuff.

So we loaded up the van, dropped some stuff off with a couple of friends, dropped by Hancock Fabrics to say goodbye and make sure Horyon's W-2 gets sent to the right place, spent our last gift card (at TJ Max), and had lunch at a Chinese buffet that has a really good selection of California rolls and a make-your-own noodle soup buffet, as well as crab rangoon, General Tsao's Chicken, and a few other Chinese buffet yummies. We are seriously going to miss our Chinese buffets in Korea.

Then back to Leavenworth for showers, last-minute packing, and other stuff.

We are beginning our descent, so I have to stop for a bit.