Our Travels to Italy...

Wow, what a long journey to get to our Sicilian Home away from Home.  We left Wednesday around 10:30am from our house.  We went down to get Jake's parents to take us to the airport.  We arrived at the airport a little too early in our haste to not be late, so we went and got some lunch and got to spend a little more time with the Williams before we headed out.  Once at the airport, we checked our bags, went through security and started our trip across the ocean!  The kids were so excited to ride on an airplane.  They did fantastic even though they were quite nervous.  Owen seemed to be the most concerned, but did wonderful.  The flight from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake City was uneventful, thankfully.  The kids loved it, even through the worried looks.

We got to Salt Lake City and had a few hours to spend.  We got to go to the Delta Sky Lounge and have snacks, drinks and played the tablets for a while.  After a while I decided to take the kids out on a walk to get some energy out in anticipation for our LONG flight.  We got to go find our big airplane and watched them load the airplane with the food and the baggage compartment belly was open too.  The kids thought that was cool, but not quite as cool as the elevator and the escalators.

Finally it was our turn to get on the airplane again.  On we went with no problem.  The kids were so excited to have their own TV right in front of them, they couldn't decide what to watch out of the million videos they had available, or if they should play the tablets, or if they should color, or what.  We had plenty to do.  After our snacks, dinner and a few more hours of play, it was time to "sleep".  The kids did okay, after a minor meltdown from not wanting to sleep with her legs bent, they all fell asleep. Lydia was basically taking her seat and mine,Owen was doing the same to Jake, Anthony was on the floor and Jenna had the 2 seats they were in.  Even with all of that, they sure didn't sleep very well.  I know I didn't, nor did Jake.  Oh well, we can always sleep later, right?

After that flight, we landed in Paris.  Oh boy, now the fun starts.  I felt like I poked out like a sore thumb.  taking 4 kids and all our stuff through the airport was quite an experience.  I was exhausted so it all seemed to overload my senses.  We had to wait for a while in this airport too, but the kids once again did fantastic.  We got on our last flight and Owen had had it.  He was so exhausted.  He fell asleep after take-off and he and Jake took a little snooze.  This was only a 2 hour flight and it seemed to fly by after our previous long flight.  Once we touched down we were so excited to finally be in Italy!

We got picked up from the airport from a guy who we had leased our car from and he took us to get our car.  We spent quite a while there learning the ins and outs of the car.  Once that was taken care of, we got some fuel and got lost a few times before we finally got to our hotel.  We needed to eat so we went to a local outdoor mall type place and found a pay by weight pizzeria.  It was different, but YUM!  It was quite the experience to have someone who didn't speak English for the first time, but we got our food and paid so it was all good!  We were all so tired, so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.