Daddy, we made it!

It's 4:15am Saturday morning and we're at Perth Airport waiting for the ticket counter to open to get our new tickets. Because of delayed flights we're now going to Sydney and Los Angeles on the way to Chicago rather than through Tokyo.

We were one of the last onto our flight to Sydney because when they re-booked our tickets they sort of forgot about Elijah. He needed a ticket too! But we made it and the kind air hostesses let us move to the only three vacant seats on the flight and we had lots of room.

After a 3:30am start, it was great that Elijah got some sleep on that flight.

Now we're on the plane from Sydney to LA. We had a really bad seat to start with, but then they moved us to a bulkhead seat with a spare one for Elijah. The Qantas staff were fantastic!

This is not a great picture, but as you can see, Elijah is sprawled across the lap of a very kind farmer from New Zealand. We're on our way to Chicago and Elijah has had a bit of sleep on the plane after having had a mini-breakdown in the LA airport. (I found out that a tired, screaming baby attracts a lot of compassionate looks and offers of help from bystanders and ground staff. We got escorted to the front of the very, very long Immigration queue. Poor Elijah had just had enough by this stage.)

Here's Grandpa calling Dad to tell him we made it. We were warmly welcomed by family in Chicago and Elijah took to them straight away. He was a bit stunned and tired and just wanted to cuddle.

Grandma, please tell me it's all over and I can home to your place and sleep!