Atitude of Gratitude....(when travelling with kids)



Today, as I sit at the Hong Kong airport at 5 in the morning I am reflecting on the first half of our journey. It certainly was not uneventful.



When we checked our baggage in at Toronto we were told the bike box that we were sending over was too large. We had the choice of either paying 175 dollars extra to ship it as is or we could try and repack the bike box contents into our luggage and reconfigure the bike box to the dimensions set by the airline (height +lenght +width must be 62 inches total). Cliff and I were given two rolls of packing tape and a tape measure. Together we wheeled all our luggage and the kids into an empty hallway. There we problem solved and managed to stuff three bike helmets, a small bike wheel and a baby back pack carrier into our luggage.



I am amazed that we did this as our luggage was stuffed full already. We walked back to the counter and checked our luggage in. The suitcases and back packs were all under the weight requirement and the bike box was perfect too ... no issues.

During the first 2 hours of our 15 hour flight here, Cliff noticed that Keegan looked really green. Quickly he grabbed him and took him to the washroom where he was sick. The washroom was a mess but thankfully nothing else .... He has been fine the rest of the journey.

For the most part we let the kids pack their own carry ons for the plane. Calia probably had the most stuff in hers and it was very well organized. We were quite surprised when we were pulled out of the security line up in Toronto and her bag was searched. The security guard came up empty handed and sent us on our way. Then when we got to Hong Kong her bag was also searched again. We all stood around and watched as the gloved security guard searched through her stuff and then pulled Calia's craft box out of the bottom of the suitcase. There inside he found the guilty culprit, her sharp craft scissors. The security guard was very nice and understanding and just sent us on our way. The scissors? They became a permanent resident of Hong Kong.


In a few hours the next leg of our journey will begin. Thankfully that is a shorter flight of only nine hours.