Ya know, last time we came to the States for 6 months, we found out 10 days before we left for the US that we would be moving upon our return. We hastily packed our apartment for a move, and had to shut it down for a 6 month absence. At that time I was about 23 weeks pregnant and AB was about 20 months old. It was stressful; we arrived to the US pretty drained. This time in effort to have a more smooth end to our last month, we "planned" things out to have adequate time for everything we needed to do…haha haha. The month preceding our return to the States was easily the most stressful month of my entire life, and that includes when I was in graduate school and the birth of my 3 children - two of which where in a foreign country. By the time we landed in the US, Luke and I had changed beds 13 times, I had contracted a parasite, a nasty breast infection, had my first ever cold sore and I started being revisited by my old friend - stress induced stomach aches. This is a detailed story, but I want to write it down so that I have a record of all of the details. You really do not have to read it...
February 12th - the whole family loaded onto a slow train to visit our old city. Every single time we have ridden a slow train, one of us has gotten sick. This time was no exception. LB caught himself something nasty with a fever. However the trip to see our friends in our old city was awesome. I cannot believe how much the place has grown up and how good it was to see our old friends. We even go to see our little dog Toby.
After returning we discovered a special provision for those with soon to be expired visas. It was a long shot and it could potentially backfire, but KB, AB and DB all applied for a "stay permit." If the government did not grant it, they would have to leave for Korea on the day their visas expired. I already had a trip planned out of the country for a conference
February 20th - (By the way we are moving to a new city when we go back overseas) We headed to the airport to fly to potential new city #1. We almost missed the flight. There was an extra security check we had not counted on for a domestic flight, and with 3 kids and all of our stuff it took longer than we had planned. Basically we ran like crazy people through the airport to catch that flight. The next day my poor legs were sore from the 100 yard sprint while carrying LB and pushing AB in the stroller, good grief. Nevertheless we made the flight, whew.
We stayed in a nice hotel, met super nice people, ate nice breakfasts but Luke did not sleep at all. That kind of stunk, but it really just makes the story even better.
February 22nd - We rode with our friends to the airport and unfortunately something happened along the way, and we missed the check-in time by 2 minutes. 28 minutes later we watched our plane take off without us. The airline wanted us to wait a day to catch the flight the next day, but that was just not going to work, so we flew standby to a close city and took the speed train 2 hours to our potential city #2. We arrived to our hotel at 11:30pm to find out I had booked the room for March 22nd and not February 22nd. Way to go Leslie. Thankfully they had a spare room.
We were supposed to be in city #2 for 2 days, but gee whiz, that place was huge so we extended our time there. It was okay though because in was a very well located hotel and it had a swimming pool and some super cool water fountains that entertained our kids for a long time.
Check out the name of the store behind me.
February 25th - We took the speed train back to our city.
February 27th - LB and I flew to Indonesia the day our visas expired. We left the country not knowing if we would be let back in. Worst case, LB and I wait out the rest of our time in a different country then KB, AB and DB meet us in Korea on our way back to the US. All of this not knowing was a little stressful. I started getting stress tummy aches for the first time in 10 years.
LB and I boarded the first of 2 planes to Indonesia. LB made lots of friends on the plane. He was held by 6 different people and they took care of him while I visited the ladies' room. We arrived to our layover in a super large airport. It is one of those airports that you have to literally leave the airport to switch between domestic and international. I checked back in and noticed my boarding pass said 4:20. I was unsure if it was the boarding time or departure time, but it did not matter to me since my watch said 3:00 and could take my time. LB and I found a overpriced pizza place. I ordered, paid, nursed LB and fed him baby food. They brought me the pizza, and after my first slice I looked at my watch. I though "wow time is going by very slowly, it is still 3:00…it is STILL 3:00!!!!" I looked at my phone and it said 4:17pm. I frantically asked the waitress, what time is it?!!! She said 4:20. My watch battery had died.
I literally dropped my pizza, wrapped my left arm around LB and picked up our bags with my right hand and took off running. The waitress yelled at me that I forgot my pizza, but did not even take the time to look back to see if I left anything on the table because I was sprinting. As I was sprinting, it occurred to me that it was the second time in one week I was sprinting through the airport, and boy this was a long sprint. I has to slow down to breathe twice. I kept thinking, I WILL NOT miss a flight again this week, and 10 seconds too late is still missing the flight and that I can breathe on the plane.
I finally arrived at the desk and wheezed out - Is the plane still here? Reply: Which plane? Me: the plane to Jakarta? Her: yeah, it is just now boarding…awkward pause. Me: thanks.
At this time I was about to collapse, and I stumbled over to the boarding gate and dropped everything except for LB who was seriously freaked out by the sprint. The super nice attendants noticed me and let me cut in front of everyone because Asian airlines are awesome and give priority to all families with small children. When I boarded the bus to take us out to the plane, all of the seats were taken by men. Culturally they are supposed to get up for anyone carrying a baby, and no one was volunteering, so I took matters into my own hands. I politely nudged (kicked) some random guy's foot and motioned to get behind me with my thumb. He looked shocked, but apparently it was funny because everyone starting laughing at him. Whatever, I was still sweating and out of breath from my sprint and was just happy to sit down.
Uneventfully I arrived in Jakarta 5-6 hours later to be met by my good friend Andi. I had been looking forward to seeing her for forever. She and I spent the next few days catching up, eating, shopping and sharing our struggles in living overseas. It was super refreshing.
Flaming pizza (the toppings are on the inside) with a rainbow crust.
A coffee roasting company and warehouse that houses more coffee than could ever imagine. It smelled so good. I mean, I was on Java island. I had to get in a little coffee.
March 3rd - Traveled with Andi to Jakarta.
March 4th - Attempted and failed to get a tourist visa back to my family. They told me to try Hong Kong, like it is no big deal to fly all over Asia to get a visa. I had a "wow, this is my life" moment. By the way, I am not as seasoned a traveler as other people, but in my experience Jakarta traffic takes the cake. It took almost 2 hours to go 5 miles and back.
March 5th - 7th - Attended homeschool conference.
March 7th - Flew to Bangkok
March 8th - Went to embassy to apply for tourist visa at which time I found out they no longer had single day processing. This was a Friday, so it looked like I was going to be in Bangkok for a few days. About 2 hours after the embassy it became apparent I picked up a parasite in Indonesia, and I also had a breast infection. Thankfully Bangkok is the place to be if you are in need of medical care, and I saw my doctor that night. My doctor took a culture and told me it would be ready Monday evening.
March 10th - Picked up our visas, but I decided to wait to fly back on Wednesday since the cultures of my infection would not be ready yet.
March 11th - It looked like I was getting my first ever cold sore, and I had a follow-up appointment for my infection. My doctor said my infection was resistant to my first antibiotic, so she switched my meds. I also showed her my cold sore. She said I needed to see a dermatologist, and she got on the phone to talk with him. I heard her speak Thai, Thai, Thai, Herpes, Thai, Thai. KB will not let me forget that I got the Herpes while in Thailand. The doctor asked me, have you had any stress recently?
The dermatologist was super amused with my horror over having the Herpes (I realize Herpes does not need a "the," but it is my sincere hope that if I give it the respect it deserves it will only happen once). I cried out "did my husband give this to me?" He laughed at me, literally laughed. He said I have probably had it for a long time, but I have been married almost 9 years which is a almost a long time. So now KB and I joke about who it originated with - "The Herpes." I also think calling it a "cold sore" or a "fever blister" is just denial about what it really is because I neither had a cold or a fever and I still got the Herpes outbreak.
I was not supposed to be gone this long, and I only packed 5 days of clothes. I washed LB's and my clothes out in the sink every single night. I got pretty efficient towards the end.
March 12th - I few back to my family
March 18th - We all flew to Korea and stayed the night in a airport hotel
March 19th - We arrive in DFW at where KB got detained for saying what we do overseas. What is going on in the US?
All in all I changed beds 13 different times in a month. I got 1 parasite, 1 breast infection and 1 cold sore. I sprinted in two different airports and on a different occasion missed a flight. I booked a hotel for the wrong month and started doing middle-of-the-night feedings again with LB.
Ya know what though? I am grateful. I can see God's hand in missing flights, delayed visas and ineffective medications. Also, now that I am not in the middle of it, it is one great story, and if you actually read this whole thing, I probably owe you a Starbucks : )
By the way, I am terrible and sloppy at writing. Let me know if you see any typos.
