We made it!!!

After what seemed like LOTS of travel, we made it! Gracias a Dios (thanks be to God) all of our flights were on time and all of our luggage made it (we think... the only things we don't have right now are Essie's carseat and Rebekah's booster, b/c I forgot to get them when we arrived in San Pedro Sula. We are sending someone to the airport in San Pedro to get them and put them on a bus for us).

Here is the itinerary that saved us $900... that $900 seemed to get smaller and smaller, the longer the flights dragged out, but other than the length of our travel time, all went well.

11:30am - Arrive at the airport in Tulsa, get checked in and go to our gate,

• 2:05pm - Board our plane (we were A49-A51 for you Southwest junkies--not a bad place in line...) and leave for Houston Hobby,
• Sit on the plane for about 30 min, move forward for better seats (again, for the Southwest junkies) and then we take off again and head for New Orleans....





• Again, sit on the plane for about 30mins, keep our good seats, and take off again for Ft. Lauderdale (FLL).




• 8:30pm - arrive at FLL, deplane, stack our 4 large duffels (49lbs, 51lbs, 50.5lbs, 49lbs) and our two smaller rollerbags (35lbs, 33lbs), 3 carry-ons, DVD player, stuffed monkey and stuffed puppy on a slightly-too-small luggage cart and take a shuttle over to a different terminal for our international flight.



• By the time we arrived at terminal 4 and were checking in at the Spirit counter, Rebekah was exhausted and resorted to kicking and screaming about something and when we put her in her stroller to try to calm her down, she got that much louder... I was checking our 200+ lbs of luggage and mama was holding Essie, so it was a bit stressful. :)
• The nice thing was that almost no one flys at 11pm, so the airport was not busy and it was easy going through security at FLL. So we arrived at our gate with about an hour to spare before boarding our final leg of the flight.
• 10:55pm - we board the flight (we got in on a special deal and sat in the Big Front Seats--Spirit's version of first class, but without the hot washcloths). Rebekah fell asleep on my lap almost as soon as we were in the air and mama and Essie were two rows back and got some rest on the 2hr, 20min flight to San Pedro Sula.
• After a few time changes, we arrived in Honduras just before midnight, got through immigration quickly and got all our bags without any problems. Except we forgot about the carseat and booster seat b/c we were so ready to get out of there and get to a bed...
• Our good friend Kelley picked us up with her brother-in-law and took us to their house to spend the night (end of travel: 1am or so)

All in all, I think the $900 extra on Continental would have taken us to Houston and then direct to San Pedro, saving us about 6-7 hours of travel time... we were debating on the value of that by the time we arrived in Honduras.

Anyway, we had pancakes in the morning, courtesy of the friends we stayed with, and then drove about 3hrs to La Ceiba. I got to drive part of the way and had fun weaving in and out of traffic (there is much more "freedom" when you drive in Honduras, than in the states).

We are now resting and settling in at Kelley and Abner's house. They have been very gracious and we are looking forward to our time here as a family. Thank the Lord for a safe trip!