Yay! We’re here and the best part is that we had no problems getting the dogs on board with us. Initially, they told us about the pet embargo for summer but when we asked them about sitting in with us it was a breeze. A huge sigh of relief came out of me, I was almost in tears… finally all the trouble the past couple weeks trying to get them ready to come here has finally come into fruition.

Kookiis and Vandy didn’t really like the little Sherpa bags, tight squeeze compared to the kennels. They were whinning a bit in the airport. They would calm down when we stuck our hands in the bag to pet them. I really didn’t like that we couldn’t take them out, because I knew that they would just lay on our laps quietly. But, I was still happy because we were all together on the plane. Once we got in the plane in LAX Kookiis was whinning up until we took off. Initially I thought she calmed down but when I reached in to pet here she was really tense and shivering, I think she was the entire flight. I couldn’t check on Vandy because we were all seated rows away from each other. We didn’t realize they seated us apart until it was too late.

The flight from LAX to ATL was a little over 4 hours, take off and landing was on time. When we got to ATL we had a short layover. Well it was supposed to be only 2 hours but it ended up to be 4. The worst part about it was that we boarded on time, but we had to sit on the plane for an extra 2 hours to wait for 26 late people who missed their flight to Munich. Arghh! Poor dogs. The good thing is that we finally sat next to each other, the kids were a row behind us. Finally we were off, the dogs started to calm down (thanks Benadryl), I think they slept a lot through the entire trip.

We landed over an hour late. The dogs were ready to get out, just like the trip from Japan to Los Angeles 3 years ago Kookiis couldn’t hold it any longer, she peed in her bag while we were waiting for the bags. Vandy was fine, she was able to hold it till we got to the hotel. Alex felt a little queezy when we landed, but shortly after we exited the airport he was fine.

Our sponsor, Sonya, is great. She was at the airport waiting for us and thankfully brought a van large enough to accomodate everyone and everything. She dropped us off at the hotel at 11am and came back for us at 3pm to check in on base and grab some food. The entire time we were with her we were all dragging ass. The kids and I slept in the van and also fell asleep on the couch while waiting for our turn at the IACS (check in place). I hope we weren’t snorring or drooling!

After she took us to a few check in spots I asked her if there was a McDonald’s close by. Yeah, yeah, we’re in Germamy why in the hell would I want Mickey D’s? Well, since we found out we were coming here I remembered that I really enjoyed the milkshakes from German McDonald’s, plus they have the McRib which they don’t serve in the the US. Any way, we wanted fast food so we could get back to the hotel and crash.

Got to the hotel around 7-ish, scarffed down food and went to sleep. Now I’m up at 3:30am checking email and writing this blog… for a whopping 179 euro internet fee for 7 days! I just hope we find a house soon!

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Meldeine Sipes