MOVING DAYS+Qatar+China

 May 10th came way faster than I was expecting!

We loaded up the car with all of our bags and headed off to New York! 

The boys loved jamming out in the car! It was pretty cramped with all our stuff, so it was kinda hard to take photos, but my sister snapped this cute one~!

After two long hours, we parked! 

its hard to get a good photo

Once we actually made it to new york, we headed to our destination: the flagship Nintendo store!

we may not look like it, but we're super excited to see bowser!

there it is!

We were happy to see mario, too!

After we hit up Nintendo, we got to eat some lunch and do a little sight-seeing!

five guys!

times square! (we end up losing that hat)

After our little jaunt around NY, it was time to head to the airport. I sacrificed my patience by volunteering to drive into JFK airport. I don't have any photographs, but it was pretty scary. Sorry, Alaura!

Once we got into the airport, we had some time to wait for our flight, so we got some snacks and I made some phone calls. JFK is my least favorite airport, not because the security process is janky, but at some point, someone skimmed my credit card! and ordered $80 worth of beer! I wouldnt know this until we landed in Qatar, but hoo boy. 

I over packed our carry ons by 1kg so they ended up getting checked, thankfully for free, but we spent our whole trip in the same clothes, unfortunately. But we persevered!

Our overall experience at JFK was mediocre at best, but I digress. We eventually made it onto the airplane!

here we are!

dinner on the plane!

                                 

We made it to Doha! Unfortuately, I got the notification that my debit card was skimmed while on the plane, and the card was locked, so the only money I had to eat with was the cash I had on me :( Thankfully, Keith's Nana, Jessie (bless her) had given me some cash for the trip so luckily we were fine! We left Ollie's new hat on the plane too, which was my fault as I rushed us off the plane. I ended up wasting a lot of time at the Doha airport when we got there on the phone with the bank, but we eventually made it into our taxi and was on our way to the hotel! Shout out to the airport worker who called the hotel for me and helped me find my taxi driver, I had ended up walking right past him because I was so worried about my card!

they were trying to be so patient, but it was HOT

a cool building i saw

qatari sunset!

skyline shot, its a bit hazy

We eventually made it to our hotel, I did some sink laundry and used the blowdryer to dry the important parts, but we went on a night walk and got some snacks from a local gas station!

the whole city is made up of this white stone, its pretty cool!

If for any reason you visit Qatar, the Movenpick was such a great spot!

Eventually, we had to go back to the airport.

qatari moonrise :o

they had these purple lights all over on the drive over!

We left around 11:50pm, got there a little early to go back through security. While we're waiting, we grab some "breakfast"!

banana bread

chocolate chip muffin!

 I had purchased the Al Maha service, which was wonderful. Our agent met us at this giant bear (picture below) and led me through all the priority lines! We ran into another hiccup of course: we get onto the plane, and the pilot informs us that we have to disembark due to a hardware issue. So I collect the children and we wait for instructions. We're informed by a lovely (I felt so bad for him, everyone was angry) that we would be updated on our new gate by 440am. We get vouchers for meals, so we grab some flatbread pizzas and soda (at 3am) and head to a playground that they had in the airport. Doha Airport is incredible, actually. Theres a train inside! Tons of shopping and several playgrounds for children. Our new flight time is 730am, so we play for a while, and then head back to wait for our flight. Of course, the flight faces yet another delay (they had to have someone come out and sign off on something), and there are some older passengers that do NOT like that. One man yells so much and so loud they have airport security all over our gate. Like, 15 armed guards. It was a bit scary. But, eventually we made it onto the plane!

the giant bear lamp

the playground we hung out at!

the second delay, poor tired boy

we were barely hanging on at this point, but its another 45 minutes and we board!

Once we get on the plane, I finally pass out. Id stayed awake this whole time trying to figure out the flights and delays etc so it was necessary to get some catch up hours! BUT, we made it to China!

Going through security in china was a little stressful because at this point we're so tired (sleep you get on an airplane I discovered, isnt really sleep) and I fill out our entry cards wrong the first time around (another shout-out for the kind stranger who saw me crying about messing up something so simple, and let me know that its gonna be okay), our QR codes have to be redone, and its just another little cherry-on-top mess to deal with while trying to corral Nolan and Oliver. But, I redo the QR codes, and I dont have to get completely out of line to fill out the entry cards (you have to hand it to the immigration desk) and we make it through security, grab our bags, and we go to look for Keith. and guess what?

we found him!

Sorry for the wait on this one! It was a pretty rough go, but we made it!