O' Canada

On October 19th Ryan dropped Meg, Brayden and Sydney off at the international airport in Manila for the long journey back to Canada. The flight from Manila to Vancouver was 12 hours, very long, and quite the experience! The kids were extreamly well behaved except for the fact that they only slept for around 4 of those 12 hours! Thankfully while they were awake they were quiet and stayed in their seats so we weren't too much of a bother to the other people on the flight. At the end of the flight the real challenge started. I had to get the kids and I through customs, get our luggage and meet my sister in the waiting area. The customs line went rather quickly and with Sydney strapped into the stoller my only concern was keeping Brayden reasonably close to me. After a couple of suspisious questions from the lady at customs wondering why we travelling without Ryan we were on our way to the next challenge; luggage. Ryan had put a clip on the luggage so all I had to do was clip them together and it would be like one large piece. Unfortunately the clip didn't make it and so I struggled to handle the stroller, our 2 carry one pieces and 2 big pieces with Brayden. Finally we got it worked out so that Brayden, with much difficulty on the carpet, pushed Syd in the stroller while I carried the carry on and other luggages. This seemed to working fine for us until I hurried ahead a bit to get into the line out of the luggage claim. I heard laughing and when I looked back I found Brayden slowly pushing the stroller with his pants around his ankles! The belt on his pants had become loose and couldn't hold up his pants any longer, he looked so funny standing there in his underwear taking these mini steps so he wouldn't trip on the pants bunched up at his ankles. Finally we were able to spot Kait in the crowds of people in the waiting area. This also proved to be a bit of a challenge for me as I was expecting to find it easy to find a little white girl in a crowd. Unfortunately I forgot that I wasn't in the Philippines anymore and finding a white girl in a crowd wasn't as easy. We then made our way to the domestic departures to check in for our connecting flight to Calgary when Kait made the comment how we wouldn't have a problem fitting all our luggage into her car, well it dawned on me that I had forgot to claim our carseat when collecting the rest of my luggage!!!! SO, back to the luggage claim I went.... Finally at 9pm we arrived safely to Calgary. From start to finish the journey took us about 26 hours so were all exhausted and very excited to see a bed. The kids were amazing for me and on their best behavior the entire trip!