Newton, AL to Sydney, Australia

Our travel day started with a drive to Fort Moore for a quick visit with Sarah, Joe, Elly, and Teddy. We spent about an hour there soaking up baby cuddles, getting some lunch, and listening to Elly's three color challenge.

After the stop, we continued the hour and a half to Atlanta. When we got parked and went in, we couldn't find American Airlines. Apparently, we needed to be in the domestic terminal and not international because our first stop was LAX. We had a bit of an annoying wait on the terminal shuttle bus, and a strangely long 15 minute drive to the domestic terminal. We raced through, dad's long legs getting him to the counter first, and got the bags checked. Luckily there was no line and no issues. We said our goodbyes and went through security.

Before we boarded our flight, we managed to get a couple drinks at Starbucks, and didn't have a very long wait. The flight to LAX was about four and a half hours. We had twin babies behind us which made for a loud flight, and one of them behind Allan kept kicking his seat, not ideal. I was also sat next to a rather large, man spreading guy. Good thing neither me or Allan are very big and I could scoot towards him.

Once we landed in LAX, we were disappointed to discover there were no airport lounges. No free food or drink in sight, we got a little something from KFC to share before we went to the gate to wait. Our layover was about four hours. Allan has a little massage in a massage chair and I did some reading.

Our flight from LAX to Sydney was fairly empty. The business class and premium economy were full, but the main cabin was pretty bare so we all spread out, many people having whole rows to themselves! Shortly after we were airborne, we had some dinner before we tried to get some sleep. Allan and I didn't have anyone in the middle of us, so I snuggled into the window and Allan lay across the seats. We managed to get some sleep, albeit broken.

In the morning about an hour and a half before we were due to arrive we got some breakfast. It was actually pretty decent as far as a plane breakfast goes with some fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, and a breakfast bar. After breakfast the pilot informed us that the airport was busy, so we hovered around for a bit before we could finally touch down in Sydney.

We got our bags, and I nervously went to declare my granola bars. I'd never had to declare anything in customs before! It was all fine though and the nice man checked our bags in the scanner, asked some questions, and let us carry on. We got our Opal travel cards, got the shuttle to domestic, and then we were on our way to Marg's sister's house to collect some keys.

It was a long couple days of travel, but could have been much worse!Read more