Our journey begins

Wednesday morning 3am, we awoke to shower one last time- fearing this will be my last HOT shower I enjoyed it while it lasted. Packed the last of our things and were out the door by 3:45am. My mom dropped us off at the MSP airport and we were off on our Grand Adventure. We breezed through security and waited patiently at the gate for our plane to arrive. The Little Misters were pretty excited that our Italy trip was finally here and it was time to RIDE ON A PLANE!

A quick 45 minute flight and we were in Chicago. Pretty much walked to our next gate and it was off on an 8 hour flight to London, England. The boys both liked going up and down for take of and landing. Lucius asked once "is it time of blast off?"

The Misters did an amazing job, between eating, napping and other electronic and non-electronic distractions they seemed to be mostly content. The flights were not going all that well for me, as I had some motion sickness I was dealing with, which I almost never get. I slept most of the long flight and Jerimy single handedly helped the boys enjoy the air time.

10:20 pm London time, now about 12 hours into our travels we had to transfer airports. We bought tickets on a coach bus which took us to Gatwick from Heathrow. It was an hour away by bus- which meant a little more snoozing and distractions.  

My cousin gave me some really helpful kid travel tips, and as we had 12 hours to kill I made an impromptu luggage/ blanket fort for the boys to sleep in. Worked awesome, Lucius fell asleep right away (poor guy was utterly exhausted and hadn't napped too long on the plane.) Oliver had his second wind but calmed down when I put a shirt over his eyes for darkness.

It was middle of the night London time and the floor/ airport were cold. The boys slept for about three and a half hours before we woke them up to check in and go find a gate to lay down at (to be warmer). Little did we know that they don't announce gates till JUST before the flight time. We still had 5 hours to kill, luckily Jerimy spotted a sign for "family seating". When we turned a corner we found this little play area. The Little misters were ecstatic  to say the least. They played, watched new TV shows, jumped, and play some more while Daddy used his first real chance of downtime to sleep.

 

Once on the plane from London to Rome I gave the boys a cliff bar for their "lunch", mentioning that after snack it was time for naps. Lucius was out cold before we even left the gate. Oliver sat watching out the window as his blinks got longer and slower. Fastest flight ever as we ALL got a nice two and a half hour nap (sleeping for the entirety of the flight). Still had two more trains and a taxi ride to go. First train took us to Roma Termini, the central station, where we then bought our tickets to Florence. After a bit of confusion and frustration we managed to find the train and board JUST before it took off. Whew.

Definitely a LONG two days but we're so glad to be here safe and sound. The boys did an amazing job, as many strangers commented to us. It was not all that easy to take a trip with little people, but it was nice to power through and get here so we could all SLEEP.

In total we took:

1 car ride, 3 airplanes, 1 coach bus, 1 monorail, 2 trains and 1 taxi adding up to 34 hours of travel time.