We flew away

Our journey to Paraguay began at 3am.  We all slept in the same room so when the alarm went off we all woke up, including the baby. We quickly got ready and then with the gracious help from Scott's parents, we loaded all our checked bags into their car while we took our carry-ons and ourselves to the shuttle. Upon arriving at the airport, we were able to procure two luggage trolleys and then load up all our bags. We found a check in kiosk to begin the process. Next came the fight through the crowd to get to the counter to weigh the bags and get those towards the plane. Who would have thought 4:20am was going to be crowded at an airport? After weighing the bags we learned we had 3 overweight bags, but we were able to rearrange some stuff so only one bag was overweight.

Well there it all is!

Once our checked bags were gone we then had to say good-bye to our last set of family members. Tears were shed by all. Down we went to security and that was relatively pain free and quick. We made it to our human transporter just in time to get to the D Terminal and luckily our gate was right in front of us as we got off because they were already boarding. We quickly jumped ahead of the line (one of the few benefits of traveling with a one year old!), checked the stroller and got on the plane. This was Mackenzie's first time in her own seat so we got her car seat loaded on and let her play for a little before strapping her in. She started to fall asleep about 10 minutes into the flight but only slept for about 30 minutes. We also tried to sleep.

Our little flyer is all set to go!

After a quick two hours and forty minutes in the air we landed in Houston. We made our way to the United Club Lounge to use our one time use club passes. Totally worth it! They had a family room with a little table and large play cube which Mackenzie loved. The best part was that we were the only people in the family room! We definitely took advantage of the free food as well.

The Houston United Club Lounge play cube!

The next flight was about four hours to Panama. Again Mackenzie fell asleep pretty quickly but only slept about 45 minutes.

Flying into Panama with two tired travelers.

She thinks standing is how to travel in this seat.

Parenting win! We brought a scarf to cover her while 
sleeping but this only worked for a little while.

The view into Panama. Ships waiting to get through the canal.

Our layover in Panama was about an hour, just enough time to change clothes, get some real food and let Mackenzie "walk" around. She was getting pretty crabby but then again so were we. We boarded our last flight and waited on the tarmac because of the luggage loading. We finally took off about half an hour later than the scheduled departure time. This was our longest flight, approximately 6 hours. It was another struggle with the baby kind of sleeping and us taking turns snoozing while the other watched her. The last two hours seemed to drag on. She would get fussy so we'd put her in her seat then she'd fall asleep but soon after would jerk her legs and start to cry. She would do that 5-6 times before we decided to get her out and hold her thinking it would be better. She would either sleep restlessly for a few more minutes in our arms or just wake up and decide to play. It was exhausting! She finally fell asleep about 30 minutes before we landed when we put her in the baby carrier and was out all through landing and deboarding.

So happy to not be traveling anymore!

When we arrived in Paraguay we were met by an entourage of embassy folks. I was so grateful to see people waiting for us that I almost cried from exhaustion and fatigue but I was able to hold it together. We got through customs quickly then waited for our bags for about 40 minutes. Eventually everything arrived safely and they whisked us away to our new home. Paraguay is very lax on child car seats so Mackenzie just sat in the car without her seat (she did wake up once we were going through customs). It was surprisingly chilly when we landed (about 7 C/45 F) which was definitely colder than we anticipated. After a brief tour of our house we said goodnight to our new friends and promptly put the little one to bed who slept hard all night. We followed suit after some quick showers.

Our new home is a little more than twice the size of our last place. It also has way more closet space which is great. I'm glad our sponsors recommended we pack bed sheets, towels, bath mat, Tupperware, kitchen knives, and hamper bag in our luggage because we've already put them to use. They had sheets for our bed when we arrived but they weren't too comfortable, same with the towels. It's the little home comforts you don't think about until you're not at home. It'll be about 3 weeks until our air shipment arrives and we can't wait to have some of those things again, like Mackenzie's changing pad and better pillows. All in all though, things are looking good!

Making quick work of learning her new environment.