We had to get the rental car back to LAX at 7pm but our flight didn’t leave till 11:30. So we spent a few hours in the lounge before finally heading out.
Getting the final energy out before the flight.
R was asleep before we even took off. L wasn’t too far behind her. Ty was right there with them, but Mom and I stayed up for dinner and a glass of sparkling white. Yum!! Love Quantas and their service! I was amazed how well everyone slept on this flight. I’m sure it helped we were exhausted by the time it took off. I didn’t even take melatonin and managed to get about 7 hours.
A few movies and breakfast and then we were landing in Brisbane! This started the epic L meltdown. The ones other passengers commented on in the bathroom and luggage lines 🤦🏻♀️ My guess is he was just out of sorts from the 15 Hour flight. We didn’t want to open the stroller because we had all just been sitting for so long and wanted everyone to move a bit. But this became his breaking point, immediately off the plane. Screaming and yelling. Oh so delightful…
I finally realized this wasn’t a parenting battle worth pushing for good behavior and it was time to give him some grace. So I offered the carrier to give him a chance to snuggle and calm himself. Wearing a 4 year old in a carrier with a backpack on front while pulling two suitcases isn’t a small feat! But he was able to calm himself and we got through customs.
Another full screaming meltdown from L, before we got food was again delightful. (Did I mention you must have a high tolerance for public embarrassment when traveling with kids?)
Then began the Tiger Air scramble. Tiger Air only allows 7kg per passenger. Which translates to us Americans to about 15 lbs a person. We started weighing our bags before lining up and suddenly everything was so heavy!! No idea if we were wearing less clothing due to the heat or put more stuff in the bags in LA or where the difference came. But thus the shuffle of items started. We slung headphones around everyone’s necks. I stuffed phones in my pockets. We hid books in R’s pillow she was carrying! I shoved a bag of electronics in between L and I in the carrier. We even hid L’s small backpack off to the side. You may be wondering why the freak out. Because we thought it was going to be at least $50 US per bag, if we were over weight. We turns out all the scrambling we did was for not. We were still 4kg over weight and paid only $40 Australian which is just over $30 US. Phew, not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. Definitely not worth the scramble and secrecy.
A very long 2 hour flight and we finally, finally made it to Cairns!!! Only took us about 24 hours of traveling if you exclude our time in LA. 😳 But so worth it!
R getting loopy after so much travel!
After a swim in the pool, we got some groceries and take out noodles. So yummy! Then L put himself to sleep on our floor. Poor kiddo handled the travel today as best he could.
