Real Time - the Travel

First things first. If you are wondering what the Caspersons are up to in Taiwan RIGHT NOW, here's the math: add two hours to Utah time and then flip the time of day. Right now in Taiwan it's 5:30 Friday morning. Our Utah peeps are enjoying their Thursday afternoon at 3:30 about now. And perhaps wondering if we made it, if we survived the journey, and how on earth things are going.

The morning of our journey. The car is loaded and we are HEADING OUT.

We DID make it! I may have been the most impatient traveler for the almost 13 hour flight from San Francisco to Taipei. The kids were AMAZING. Of course, it helped that they could watch movies to their hearts' delight. All the flicks were free. It was completely opium for the masses. So between us all, we saw Inside Out, Into the Woods, a documentary about American Ballet Theater (wonder who watched that!?) Home, Monsters, a Tinker Bell flick, Interstellar, Rush Hour, and two others I didn't bother remembering names for since they were so obviously kid oriented.

This was the tiny SLC-SanFran stretch

The kids junked out. And while they did, Q found open floor space in front of the folks sitting on the exit row over the wing and likely impressed him with his flexibility. He was very zen. He just stretched and meditated for the first 7 hours! I assumed when the kids had overdosed on watching that they would have the standard melt-downs we enjoy at home. BUT after they gorged on movies, they slept! Veeve took the floor in front of the row where they all were sitting. Big Bro and Weese shared the space of the 3 seats they sprawled across. I hadn't brought much productive to do on the plane assuming I would be trouble-shooting. So after I junked with the kids (and really liked Inside Out, BTW, and really thought Into the Woods was flatter than watching the taping of the Broadway show) I slept a few hours too. Stew, who for his size had the easiest time getting comfy, I pulled onto my stomach and took 2 seats to lay across and put my head in Q's lap.

SLC-SF - Cuties with Art

Other blessings of the plane ride included sitting in front of a kind gentleman who owns an English Cram school right by the Taipei 101 building. He was an artist and came quite prepared for the ride. I don't know how the conversation began, but the next thing I knew, Q had engaged him, and Veeve got hooked up with a child-size T-shirt stretched across a frame to color. That was hours of contented pleasure for her, and what a cool souvenir! All the kids did a bit in their Usborne sticker and coloring books too.

Oh, but back to blessings. We sat at the back of the 747 and happily discovered that our meal experimentation (we ordered Asian vegetarian as well as GF - shout out to mom) resulted in our getting food first! Because they otherwise started from the front of the plane, the 2 meals that we didn't go creative with came almost an hour after we had YUMMY Indian sag paneer and tofu massala, and a chicken breast with steamed veggies. MMmm-boy! Breakfast was served towards the end of the flight, and was similarly early and delicious, and then because the stewardesses didn't remember an hour later that they had delivered 4 breakfasts to our two rows, gave us another 3 meals.

Another great blessing: Rachel. I know we haven't been here for more than 24 hours, though we have been traveling for more than that, but having her with us has not only been fun, but so stress-relieving! As Q and I scrambled to figure out where to find our luggage, we could have her hunker down with the exhausted kids. When I was chasing Stew and Q was impressing airport personnel with with flexibility, someone had an eye on the kids. We didn't all have to hit the bathroom because parents were going with little people. So despite how crazy a 22 hour travel day with 4 kids COULD be, it has been RELAXING. My neck, which had gone out and has felt awful for days, is actually on the mend AFTER all that!

And I keep mentioning cute Q and his stretching willy-nilly, which he did and was SO adorable at!

Q leads in guided yoga stretching in SLC.

But he is another huge blessing too! He was the only one who did NOT sleep on the plane. That meant by the time we hit the sack in our first digs (at 6 am Utah time the next day) he had been up for MORE than 24 hours. He was very protective of MY body, so I didn't do a whole lot of luggage wrangling, and as I mentioned, he let me sleep using his leg as a pillow. So I am grateful for his strength, but I am grateful for HIM too. He hit a convenience store as we got kids ready for bed to score us clean water. He said he could understand MOST of the Chinese as he adventured out alone. And he has such a charming way with the locals too. His teasing, "big brother" attitude disarmed and charmed our hosts and all he had to say was, "Hi. I'm Quent."

Q parks in front of his adoring yoga fans....

The kids practice their squat-waiting.

Finally, we were met at the airport by the wife of an investigator's ex-boyfriend (who happened to be the investigator of the roommate of one of MY ex-boyfriends). Whoa. She brought a friend, and the two of them hauled all of us and our things to our destination, saving us not only the money of wrangling 2 cabs, but the hassle and uncertainty of doing so. AND they brought a pre-payed sim card for Q's phone and helped us figure out getting one for MY smart phone. (That's right folks. I have a smart phone.) It was so wonderful to arrive to friendly faces!

But those did abound. Q said the kids got lots of smiles as we waited in the immigration line. (ANOTHER blessing of traveling with little ones: expedited, priority lines.)

Happy to be in Taiwan. Delighted to be OFF the airplane. Except Stew. He's just exhausted.