Waiting... so much waiting.

This morning we were supposed to leave on an early flight to Doha to catch a connection to Germany. We booked the tickets last August and I had it all planned out so that we would get to a hotel by naptime and we'd be all caught up on sleep in time to go to the Christmas market in the evening.

I should have been tipped off when on the way to the airport we were in the thickest fog I'd ever seen in my life. Our driver plowed on (safely) through and we made it to the airport with time to spare. The check in counters weren't open yet, but we figured maybe they stayed closed until 2am. 2:30 came and went, and finally a little before 3 someone made the announcement that our 4:45 flight was canceled. I was still pretty upbeat and positive at this point, even though the airline workers didn't seem to have any remedies for the situation. They told everyone to go sit down by the Krispy Kreme and they'd tell us when they figured out what to do. We patiently waited for awhile, and eventually Travis noticed a crowd gathering by the ticket counter so he went to check it out. When he came back he told us we'd been rebooked on the 10:35 flight to Doha. This didn't sound too bad... until he said the next flight to Germany from Doha didn't leave until the following day at 2 am. We didn't really have a choice so we settled into our Krispy Kreme chairs to wait for the ticket counter to open at 7. Travis and the girls napped and I kept an eye (sometimes just an ear) on our stuff.

Of course at 7 the lines to get checked in were huge. I'm not sure if it was because we are white, American, or the fact we had two little kids, but they let us check in through the business class line so we made it through fairly quickly. Unfortunately it may have been better to just wait to check in at the counter because the smoking lounge was next to our gate. Of course the door was open to the smoking lounge, which I think defeats the purpose of a smoking lounge, but I was too scaredy pants to close the door myself.

Two diaper changes, a gate change, and after a very inefficient gate check process for the stroller and Ellie's car seat and we're finally boarding the plane at 10:45. The flight was lovely and both girls slept well. This flight is only 30 minutes long though so unfortunately we had to wake up a rather cranky Lucy to deboard the plane. Doha is undergoing MAJOR renovations to the airport so you have to go up and down stairs and get on busses that take you to your terminal for basically every flight. I have a packnplay on my back, a baby strapped to my front and a diaper bag on my shoulder, and Travis has a backpack, carseat, our carry on bag, and Lucy. A very sweet Qatar Air employee was extremely helpful upon arrival and walked us through security. Travis asked if it would be possible for us to use the 'privilege club' lounge since we were facing a 14 hour layover, and they graciously accommodated (he was only 10 frequent flyer points short, so I don't think it was too much of a stretch for them). This lounge has been our saving grace!  There is a constant supply of food, the wi-fi works great, and we were able to set up the pack n play. Lucy has yet to get the message that we actually want her to sleep in it (this is her bed at home right now so she's used to sleeping in it), but we're hoping that maybe now that it's getting close to normal bedtime she'll just fall over from exhaustion without much fuss.

It's been fun exploring the Doha airport and we've met some interesting people. One Pakistani lady was very concerned about the fact that Ellie uses a pacifier. She kept telling me 'no good, no good!', and I told her we were going to have to agree to disagree. I've also learned some valuable lessons about what to put in your carry on bag. Maybe it's the newborn haze, but I did not at all think through packing the carry on bag for this trip. Now our checked bags are organized by outfits for each location we're visiting and I'm quite proud of how organized they are. If only I had anticipated actually needing to use things in the carry-on bag! We truly only even brought one because it had wheels and we could use it to help carry Lucy's carseat (as well as provide extra space for all the goodies I intend to bring back from Germany!) I feel like we've traveled hundreds of times over the past 10 years and at first I always made sure to have essentials in my carry on bag... and I've never really needed them, so this time I was a little too relaxed about it. For fun, let's just go through what's actually in my carry-on bag:

-Lucy's purple rainboots
-The glider board for the stroller that got checked through to Frankfurt
-My winter coat
-Two boxes of Nature Valley granola bars
-Two blankets for Ellie

The blankets have been useful. Lucy is wearing her rainboots just because she saw them in the bag, and at the moment I'm wearing my coat, but those totally weren't necessary.

Next time we travel I'm going to pack:

-A change of clothes for each person
-A variety of toddler food
-Phone chargers
-The large pack of wipes
-More books
-A toothbrush

Now the good news is we did have some other essentials (laptop and charger, ipad and charger, plus the typical stocked diaper bag), but the things in the above list would have made a much more practical carry-on.

Travis now needs to use the laptop to watch the K-State / KU game. Please pray we make it to Germany (another 6 hours until we can board the plane) and can somehow function despite not sleeping more than a couple hours since we woke up on Friday morning!