Journey to a new world

Ok, so here's a quick (kinda) recap of our last few days in Arizona and our journey to Dominica.

...Wow, my brain is so fried and time is so messed up that I'm forgetting what day we did what, I'll do the best I can. Christmas, we spent a nice quiet morning with just us three (no furniture or decorations, but we had each other, and that's the most important thing). Then shortly thereafter we made a mad dash of packing things up and moving them all to our storage unit. At this point, there were still about 3-4 boxes worth of stuff that we had to go through and re-pack and box up. There was a going away party for us in Queen Creek with just our immediate family and then the next day we finalized packing, threw the remaining boxes into storage, and went to the airport.

We arrived at the airport at around 9pm Wednesday night (29th) our flight left on time at 11:50p MST and we arrived in Philadelphia on time around 6:00am ET we had to hurry to reach the next gate as our connecting flight was scheduled to leave near 7:30am. We boarded on time and 2hrs later we almost took off... But, alas, there was a mechanical problem which had us waiting another full hour. During the 3hr delay we were on the "active" runway (not moving at all) so they told us to all stay buckled in and not to get up. They were scolding people who were using the bathroom, it was ridiculous! At one point they finally came around and offered people water but when they got to me there was only like 1oz left in the bottle, the flight attendant apologized, went and got another full one, and then just passed me by, even though I was lifting my near empty cup and calling his attention. That was it. Poor Sadie had eaten through her snacks and her water and milk at this point (since it was supposed to only be a 3hr flight and she was real good at sleeping when the plane was in motion) so I did feel bad for the people around us as she got a little fussy.  We finally took off, Sadie fell asleep, and we soon arrived in San Juan (around 3pm local time).

At this point our next connecting flight had already taken off so we spent another 4hrs arguing with US Airways about paying for room and board and for another flight (Dominica's Melville Hall Airport doesn't have runway lights as planes only land during the day). They finally booked us on a plane to Antigua and paid for a hotel there and then scheduled another flight to Dominica the next day.

Sadie slept in my arms while we waited for the plane and continued to sleep as we boarded and flew to Antigua (this was the first real sleep she had in over 36hrs, poor little thing). US Airways had claimed they had no way to pay for a taxi to the hotel so we had to pay $50 to get there (they had failed to tell us the hotel was on the opposite side of the island). We finally got to the hotel around 11pm and proceeded to sleep for only about 6hrs while Sadie slept strapped into her stroller.  The next morning we hurried to the airport and got on a very crowded plane to Dominica. We arrived at about 11am but no one from Ross University was there to pick us up because Lincoln had not been able to get a hold of anyone the night before (or morning of, he had been given 3 numbers, none of them even had a voicemail and the internet wasn't working at the hotel so there was no way to email anyone).  Waiting became a familiar pastime as Lincoln searched for a phone to contact Ross. He finally did and we ended up arriving at the school about 2p. Our landlord was very quick to pick us up and graciously (after dropping our stuff off at the apartment and giving us a cell phone) took us around to set up a bank account and go grocery shopping.

42hrs after arriving at the Phoenix airport, 22hrs delayed from our original schedule, 16hrs of sleep between the 3 of us, and we were finally at our new home!

Now, after having been here a week
(and now that my computer is working)
I can say that we have adjusted very well.
There are some amazing people here to help
when needed and the weather has been gorgeous! I only wish that we could guarantee these temperatures and rain patterns year round, it really has been fun. Sadie loves the rain, she gets mad when I try to cover the stroller or make her come inside. She's so fascinated by everything. The ocean water is warm and after only a couple trips, Sadie is loving the beach.

 

That's enough rambling and ranting for now I think. Make sure you take time to check out the many pictures and videos that I recently posted.  Well, good night all! I realize that the time posted probably shows 7:30p but it's still on Arizona time and in reality it's already 10:30pm out here. Until the next adventure update!