Up Up and Away...Almost

Well, here we go! It's D Day!

Almost.

How am I updating the blog you may ask when we should be way up in the air on our way to LA?

Great question....well to be honest, it has been a roller coaster of a morning!

First up, just so all the family out there don't start freaking out, we are all happy, healthy and together :)

After getting up at 4am (yawn) we scooted the girls to the Launceston Airport, waited in a ginormous line which took 45 mins and we were then told that our luggage would not be able to be put on directly to Calgary as we has not arrived in time. Alex politely told the gentlemen that yes we were here early enough but the line obviously made us late. Still it was not going to happen, so rather the freak out like people do on the TV show, we got over it.  We were told we would have to pick up our luggage and then make our way to International for booking in, customs etc.

Ok, not great news as we were low on time and high on little people to move, but we were pumped to get it done, so off we went.

After getting on the plane, the pilot informed us that we were running late due to baggage issues. 

Hmmm...ok still not brilliant, but we talked and did a chest bump to hype ourselves up, you know all that jazz, ready to meet the challenge of getting to our flight on time.

Alex did have the foresight to check with the Flight Attended (Michael, an angel from God I suspect, his name does suggest so!) who called ahead to try to help us out. He was dismayed to discover that our luggage was not booked in to go to LA but promised to help us pick it up, wrangle the kids and just be flat out amazing :)

SO after getting off the plane and hightailing it to book in, (I don't think Laura has ever run so fast) Michael leading me and the girls, Alex off to get the bags, we arrive at Qantas book in and are informed that the reason the luggage wasn't booked in properly was because we had failed to fill in an ESTA (which we knew nothing about) for our stop in LA. (ESTA for all you International Travelling Newbies like us is a special Visa Waiver and means we can go through the airport without a tonne of paperwork.) Although these only take ten minutes to fill in online (50 mins for five!) booking in was closing in 15 minutes and the ESTA site was on scheduled maintenance until 4pm Australian time.

Ok, seriously uncool!!!!! But we took a deep breath and .....

"Oh no, wait, don't you have an infant?"

Um yes, it's the squirming, stinky child in my arms (she had done a doozy just as we landed in Melbourne thanks Bec and Chris for the pizza tea last night).

"She isn't booked in on either of your next flights."

PAUSE   ..........................................................................................

The lady looked up and me and said "Please don't cry, we can fix it" :)

Good, that's all I want to hear at this point!

So, after biting the inside of my mouth and taking about 10 deep breaths I relaxed and thought....

GOD HAS THIS UNDER CONTROL and it's just like I tell my kids CHILLAX!

So after re booking our flights (turns our Miss E was booked in, I have no idea what was going on there!) we zip across to a great hotel and book in for the night. Our flight is re booked for tomorrow and this gives us time to do our ESTA, call our travel agent and get a little shut eye before the next adventure.

So I'm off for a nap, please pray if you do that sort of thing and hopefully the next time I post we will be in Canada :)