It has been a long few weeks. We didn't make our hop from Norfolk to Lajes. Who would have thunk that 70 seats meant no seats for me! Seriously! After realizing we weren't making it on the flight, me and a few girls from Lajes just kinda teamed up and started making phone calls. I was not prepared to be staying in Norfolk...come on 70 seats were available! We ourselves a Taxi and a room to stay in. At this point it is 12:30 at night, in like 100 degree humid weather, tired hungry emotional kids, and I am numb. I was not going home to Lajes was my first reaction. Thankfully after sleeping on it and finding out what the other girls were gonna do, I bought tickets. Luckily they were cheap..well that might not be the word for spending 500 dollars per ticket..that is just to get from Boston to Lajes. I still had to buy tickets from Norfolk to Boston. We stayed at Langley AFB which had really nice rooms. I rented a car. We went bowling, to the BX, and ate a lot of crap. We were lucky too because a few days after getting there it cooled off considerably. Enought that the kids got to go and play at the park. Owen got a haircut We then had to change locations because there was no room at the Inn. We went to Holiday Inn where there was a pool so the kids were happy. While there we went to Golden Corral (which was very scarey) and to the Virginia Beach Aquarium (the kids had fun playing with the sea otters and petting sting rays). Finally Monday arrived, we were there almost a week, and we finally got to go home. Portuguesse people are the nicest people. It was a great experience to be able to fly home with them. We sat by some wonderul people who played with the kids and helped with our luggage. Very different then us Americans. The Americans I encountered grumbled at the sight of my kids, and very rarely offered to help. As I was dragging one of 8 suitcases in line, not one person offered to help. When I turned to the guy behind me to apologize, he rolled his eyes at me and turned his head. Nice! I only got one pic of the entire ordeal and it pretty much sums up how I felt after the whole thing! Carter passed out in the Boston terminal waiting to go home.