ok...i'm going to have to go a little bit out of order. i'm having a hard time finding converter plugs for my hard drive...which is where all my pics from our adventure are. so....i'll tell ya about our trip to bahrain and then we'll go back to where we left off in florida once i can get my hard drive plugged in. ;)
so...on the wonderful evening of june 15th...oh hell...who am i kidding, it was night!...we took 2 taxis and drug all our kids and junk to the airport. i managed to get nearly all the pieces of luggage on two trolleys. we headed to check in and security advised us that we were going to have to send all of our luggage through the security screening before we would be allowed to enter the airport. Gotta love the navy! So...we took out computers, took off shoes, loaded 16 pieces of luggage on the conveyor belt and shoved it ALL through, including the kids...well...they just got pushed through the metal detector. ;) then...i ran to the other end and tried to catch it all and put it back on the trolley, put all our shoes back on and head over to the ticket counter before aaaaallll the people behind us lost their minds. ;) finally...SUCCESS!!! we were checked in and ready to go...but now we have to wait 3 hours. we had to check in at 9 but our flight didn't leave until midnight. the kids managed to hang in there with minimal complaining. they were real troopers that night.
After boarding the flight...we headed east...way east. apparently our flight went toward greenland...but i wouldn't know i was too busy drooling on myself! ha ha ha. i did see a lovely sunrise though...and then i went back to drooling on myself and possibly others nearby. we made 3 stops before finally arriving in bahrain.
bahrain...is...HOT!!!!!! Holy crap the heat. we are forever grateful for our friend tom. he met our sponsor at the air terminal so they could help us get to our hotel. we landed at nearly 8am bahrain time in what i can only call oppressive heat. come to find out...it was almost 117* with 80% humidity that day. welcome to bahrain!!! tom quickly took us up to his office so we could get some water...much needed water...and try to deter the onset of heat stroke which was totally expected. by the time we reached our hotel room nearly 2 hours later, we were about 10lbs lighter each as well as 2 suitcases lighter. WHAT?? apparently the 2 HOT PINK suitcases were left at the terminal during the whole passport/customs/visa portion of the program. whoops! not to worry...no one wanted to claim two suitcases full of pink girlie clothes. so tom took jason back to the terminal so he could grab kinsey's suitcases. she was just thrilled she wasn't gonna have to run around naked. :)
the first and second days we pretty much walked around in a fog. we didn't know where we were...what we were doing...or why everything smelled like curry! our hotel room seemed as if it just couldn't get cool enough and what the hell time is it anyway???
so here's a couple of quick pics from the phone...i will continue my story tomorrow. it's just so darn entertaining i can't keep it to myself. ;)
(pics: me and the girls and jason and the girls right before we got on the plane...at 11:30 at night, A: sunrise in the atlantic ocean some where, B: some crazy clouds i saw...the light spots were sunshine shining through between the clouds. i thought it was beautiful...but then again i was a bit sleep deprived and delirious at that point. C: apparently that was mount vesuvius in italy...our second stop of the day(s), Another shot of the girls...about 15 hours into the trip. i made them ride in their pjs so they could sleep, E: view from our hotel room in bahrain)
