Day 1 in Review

The kids have done great on this trip so far. That's a real answer to prayer, because this is outside their comfort zones, for sure.

Here they are at the airport with all of our stuff.
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Here they are with Sandy on the plane.
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The plane arrived in LA early, so we were optimistic that we could make it to Saddleback Church in time for their 4:30 service. Unfortunately, no such luck.

After retrieving all our luggage (so we thought), we waited for the rental car shuttle. We decided not to put all the luggage and boxes on the shuttle bus, so an airport official determined the best thing to do is for one of us to go get the van and the other one of us stay behind with the kids and the stuff. So David took Alex to the Alamo place where we saw a long line. Honestly, I didn't know how I would keep Alex quiet for an hour while I waited to get my car. And then I saw it. I told Alex if he was good for a couple of minutes, I had a big surprise for him.

We moved up in the line far enough to see it and he said, "Look, a McDonald's Place." Alamo apparently knew how long it would take to wait in line, so they provide their own playplace. Alex loved it and it kept him occupied the whole time I was in line. Thanks to the nice lady from NY that I stood in line next to, I didn't lose my place when I took him to the restroom or went to call Sandy.

Here's a picture of Alex at the "McDonald's place."
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To make a very long story very short, we got a van, picked up Sandy and the kids, but by that time, we had been at the airport 2.5 hours, so it was too late to go to Saddleback (maybe next month when we come for vacation).

We decided to go ahead and drive to Carlsbad so that we could get to our hotel and get something to eat So we travelled I-5 south and arrived at the hotel about 5:45 p.m. local time (7:45 in Missouri).

Hopping out quickly to dump some stuff in the room, Sandy noticed that she didn't see all of our bags. On the way to a restaurant (El Pollo Loco), she asked if I had seen all of our bags. I thought for sure we had them, because I counted at the airport. Turns out, I'm a better theologian than mathematician, because I counted wrong. We found out that one suitcase (ironically, the one with my clothes!) was still at the airport.

So we start making phone calls, chatting online with Mike Worstell at the same time, and determined that they had the bag at the terminal, and we can pick it up when we go back to the airport Sunday night.

It will be complicated, but we're sure that God is answering your prayers to keep us safe and get us to Taiwan. We closed the evening with a relaxing dip in the pool and had a good night sleep, until we started waking up at 4:00 a.m.

Next time: Sunday at Legoland