Coming to America

Michael on the flight being entertained by a book


michael smiling at his parents, despite the fact that a moments negligence on their side led to him falling off the couch and him getting a big scab on his nose


Michael and Brian trying not to look guilty at security. Brian not worrying about his separitist political lapel-pin potentially causing concerns

Because there was no room at the Adam Family Inn in Edinburgh, Sarah, Michael and I decided to stay over with my mum and dad in Glenrothes the night before the flight. We were all pretty excited, but somewhat nervous about taking Michael onto a plane (three planes, to be exact).

My dad ran us to the airport, and unbelievably all of us were on time. We were flying Ryanair to Dublin, before flying US Airways to Philidelphia (did I spell that right?) and then on to San Diego. The Ryanair flight was the weakpoint in the plan, as it severely restricted how much luggage we could bring, and we got no luggage allowance for Michael.

It turned out that we had little to worry about with Michael on the plane, as all 3 times he fell asleep on the runway taking off, and was pretty pleasant all of the way. The cabin pressure didn't seem to affect him, and he didn't set off any alarms in the 3 security gates we had to pass through. He was quite happy to talk to the other passangers, and having lots of people with us flying over helped to keep him entertained. We did lose our travel buggy on the way over (left it plane-side in Philly).

At every stop there was a bit of a palava (is that how to spell it?) getting boarding passes for Michael. This wasn't helped in Dublin when Neil sneakily placed some luggage on behind our luggage and told the lady it was ours (which it obviously wasn't). She got very upset, and took even longer to process our paperwork than everyone else's.

After what seemed like a really long time we arrived in San Diego. Sarah's Aunt Sally and cousin-in-law Dale were there to pick us up. We were staying at Marianne and Dale's in Escondido. The rest were all staying at Alpine (about an hour away). We may or may not have been ripped off (not for the last time) at the Car Hire place, as we were persuaded that our desired car wasn't big enough and had no boot, so we hired something a little bigger.


The car that was a bit bigger

Dale was good enough to lead us up the I5 on the way home, so that we could see the Spaceship (San Diego LDS Temple). Honestly, once you've heard it called that, it's difficult to believe that one of it's towers isn't going to blast-off at any second. Michael was totally out of it by this point, it being about 3 am BST by this time.

Dale and Marianne were good enough to give us their room, so that we could have the travel cot in with us. Michael woke up in the middle of the night over there (babies really don't understand jetlag), and I ended up watching the old goldie hawn film wildcats and a load of crazy US adverts with him until he fell back to sleep.