The flight

Waiting to check in at Heathrow, struggling with too many bags, but thankful that my mum had persuaded me to take the buggy! As usual, flying long haul, the seats were too cramped and the staff not too attentive. I was tired and pretty stressed by this point. Turned out I should have ordered kids meals, despite checking on the website beforehand. We were sat at the back so being the last ones to be served, we had a choice of Thai red curry or Thai red curry - mmm, perfect for the kids?! Thomas then kicked the table and knocked all of his food on the floor. Not a good start, a few tears shed, by me not Thomas. Finally the boys fell asleep - not so much luck for myself and Martin. 

The flight was delayed as somebody decided they were too ill to fly and so they were off loaded but their bags needed to be found. Add on a strong headwind and by the time we got to Atlanta we were about 2 hours delayed. We had a connection to catch in an hour. Were we going to make it? We didn't realise that we would have to go through immigration in Atlanta and claim our baggage and re-check it in to Jacksonville. We knew time was ticking, so the immigration queue seemed never ending. The kids were exhausted, we were exhausted. It was the equivalent of 1am British time. We ran all the way to our terminal and fortunately due to the freezing temperatures in Atlanta, the flight was also delayed. When priority boarding was called, I was straight there asking if we could get on the plane.

The crew were so lovely. They gave us snacks which later we found out actually would have cost us a fair amount of money. It was a really nice gesture. The crew were quite taken by the boys.

We were very happy when we arrived at our hotel. The room was super sized, as you'd expect from America, but the weather was unusually cold. I could have strangled Joel when he would not go to sleep. He finally dropped off at 2.45am American time (5 hours behind you guys), then was awake by 6am. God, was I tired.