The Big Day

A few more days passed with last minute activities, more good-byes to good friends, and one last trip to the Hutte in our old village.   Some people arrived on their horses and Genevieve got to ride one for a short walk around the Hutte.  She was very excited about that!

The morning of the big day, meaning the day we were to fly out of Germany to move back to the states, Brian took Drew, Isaac, and Genevieve to a bakery one last time.

The day was an eventful and wee bit stressful one, but nothing too major happened.  Little things like not having the cash for the cat on hand and me having to run to an ATM while Brian helped check in most of our 26 bags kept us moving and busy.  Right before going through security, we found a family bathroom and Brian and I tried to give the cat her anxiety medicine for the flight.  It was a pill, however, and getting a cat to swallow a pill is way more difficult than getting a dog to do it.  I've never done this before, and both Brian and I got bit trying to get it down her throat.  She's never actually drawn blood on anyone before so this was out of character.  She was highly stressed out before we even started, so it really wasn't her fault.  I remembered a syringe that was in her carrier, and Brian ended up breaking open the pill, dissolving it in water, and squirting it into her mouth while I held her.  It was an experience, but all was well after that with her.  It was a really long trip for her to be stuck in the carrier with no food, water, or litter box so she was rightly stressed for several days after.

As we were going through security, they pulled my purse out and I thought, "Oh no, what did I forget to take out of there?"  WHen they told me I had a knife in there, I was at first shocked, but I quickly remembered a few days before when Genevieve slipped her pocket knife into my purse before running off to play at the playground.  It happened to be her second pocket knife after losing the first on and just buying a new one a couple of months before at a German shop.  We took a picture of it before it was confiscated, and I sent it to my friends in Germany asking if one of them could stop by that shop and buy another one.  My heart was truly hurting for her.  She had no idea that they'd confiscate it.  I guess she hadn't been paying attention when the same thing happened to her dad previously.

Brian is taking the picture and was sitting next to Hannah.

Bobby wanted to sit with his sisters, so I sat across the aisle from them in case he changed his mind later which he did.  He's getting braver about sitting away from me lately, but it never lasts the whole length of any event.  He always changes his mind in the middle.  I switched with Genevieve when he did.

These two were on the other side of dad, across the aisle.

He did take a nap though before Genevieve and I switched places.

It was a looong day due to the time change we added six hours to our day, and it was after 9pm when we got to the hotel rooms in Baltimore, and after 10pm when we were all tucked in.  We'd had no dinner really, but the airplane gave us lots of food throughout the flight.  Most of us were okay and the little, pickier guys ate up my snacks for their dinner so we could just get to bed.

Our luggage

The whole process of getting our 26 bags, 2 booster seats, 1 car seat, and 1 freaked out cat in a carrier to and from the airport in a shuttle bus not much bigger than our van was exhausting.  BUT WE DID IT, and we are so thankful it is OVER!