The beginning of the little adventure....

We are home....  Think the boys are still a bit jet lagged, given that they slept for 13 and a half hours last night, and 17 hours the night before....

Ready to go!!!

Think I will start at the beginning of the trip.  So Saturday 25th August, Paul and I got out of bed at 5am, packed what was left into the car, then woke the boys and put them in the car, hoping they would sleep all the way to Heathrow.  Naturally they didn't.  Got to the airport parking, got them dressed, went and checked in.  Went through security, my bag got searched, as I had forgotten to take my iPad out.  Had to show my letter for my needles, no problems.  We then went and found the Delta Sky lounge.  Had some breakfast.  Oliver played the Playstation whilst Isaac bounced off the walls, till we gave him the iPod.  We let Seb out of his buggy, he was very interested in the computers, as usual.  Not sure how many he broke....Flight began boarding, so we left the lounge to walk down to the departure gate, right at the other end of the terminal.

Isaac enjoying his flight

We had 5 seats pretty close together on the plane.  They were the lovely huge lay flat seats.  Got settled in, the boys were great during take off, and once in the air, they made full use of the multimedia and watched Cars 2, followed by more Disney programs (they are already well brain washed).  They weren’t that interested in their meals, they preferred the snacky foods, but our meal (all 4 courses of it) was lovely.  We landed in Atlanta at 2.30pm local time, 7.30pm UK time.  By now the boys were starting to wilt.  Had to wait at immigration for a good 20 minutes, given our lay over time was only 1 hour 45 minutes, I was starting to get a bit antsy.  Got through with no problems, then I headed to the carousel to pick up luggage while paul took the boys on a toilet stop.  By the time he had returned I had all the luggage, so we headed to the luggage drop off point, then on to our gate with about an hour to spare.  Atlanta airport is HUGE!!!! And very nice, as airports go.

We boarded the next plane to Greenville.  A much smaller plane, and we managed to sit together.  Paul held Seb through all the flights, as he was just too wriggly on me.  Isaac slept through all of this plane journey, which was a good thing as by now it was 9pm UK time.  We arrived in Greenville-Spartenburg airport, again a nice but much smaller airport.  Picked up our bags, and called the rental car company to come and collect us and take us to our car.  We went and waited outside, thats when the heat hit us.  Man it was hot!!!! They came quicker than anticipated, as there was another gentleman on our flight who was on his look and see from Germany.  Got to the car rental place, ended up with a Ford Flex, a 5/7 seater mini van with plenty of space for all of us plus our luggage. They also provided us with a Sat Nav. 

Bit blurry, but this is how we felt by this time

We headed for the hotel down I85, what a huge road, at least 4 lanes wide on both sides.  The directions and sat nav to the hotel were good.  Once we turned off the I85 onto the Woodruff Road, the consumerism was blatant and everywhere.  Shops and restaurants as wide as the eye could see, and if there wasn’t a shop in view, there was an advertisement board or poster.  Turned off Woodruff towards our hotel, which was just on the outskirts of an area that was being redeveloped.  Checked in, had a complimentary bag of goodies waiting for us from the relocation company (hello Wine....) got to the suite, let the boys have computer time while we unpacked.  By now it was 7pm local time, and we were getting hungry.  We decided to walk to one of the nearby restaurant to get some dinner.  The boys, however, were too tired for a sit down meal, so we ate as much as we could.  I should mention, the food was lovely, and HUGE portion sizes.  The service was fab, as to be expected.  We were offered boxes, if we wanted to take it home, which we declined.

Got the boys back to the hotel, put them straight down to bed.  Oliver and Isaac both had double beds and Seb had a metal cot on wheels.  The only way to describe it is like something out of a Romanian orphanage.  Paul and I had a quick glass of wine, then crashed ourselves, very tired, but very happy to finally be in the good old U S of A....