We are finally on our way. I’ll have a post later with some photos from our pack out, but in the meantime, it’s time to comment on a very obvious reality – it’s pretty hard to travel with lots of bags, especially when a baby is involved.
We are passing through Houston for some consultations that DiploMom has before heading to Guatemala City. After our apartment was packed out, we had 3 large duffel bags, 3 large rolling suitcases, 2 backpacks and a car seat. We arranged for taxi service the night before we left, specifically requesting a van due to the large amount of luggage.
We were set and waiting at 9:00 a.m. sharp for the taxi. At 9:10, still no taxi. Long story short – after several angry phone calls to the company and much confusion over where the cab was, we ended up in another taxi that came to the Oakwood for someone else and that person cancelled, so we ended up with him and were finally on our way by 9:40.
Needless to say this made for a stressful start to the process, not to mention a very sweaty one, given loading bags and installing the car seat. We had a great driver and everything fit great in the van. After cooling down on the ride to the airport, it was time to get sweaty again unloading everything and getting it inside the terminal.
I was quite pleased to finally get all six bags checked in so we could make our way to security.

Yep, that’s the car seat on my back.

After the hecticness of getting to the airport and getting checked in, we were grateful for small blessings. The line at security wasn’t too bad, but we were kindly moved up to the expedited line by a worker who I imagine took sympathy on us given DiploTot and her Quasimodo father.
We finally got to the gate with just enough time to grab some lunch before the plane started boarding. We weren’t quite sure how DiploTot would manage on the flight, but she was a champ, even sleeping for about 45 minutes.

We were very grateful that the flight was only about 3 hours and that the flight to Guatemala City will essentially be the same. We became friends with another couple at the Oakwood who have a child the same age as DiploTot and they just moved to Cambodia. That meant a 15 hour flight from D.C. to Seoul, where they stayed the night and then flew 5.5 hours to Phnom Penh. Whew!