The Journey Begins...Grenada!! (8.8.12)

 Here is my first post from Grenada!

I'm a little behind since tomorrow will be our 2 week mark of our new home being Grenada! But I'm going to go back to that early morning 2 weeks ago to try and recap how we have adjusted to our new island life...

Our travels began on August 8, 2012 at 3:00 AM.

So early the camera couldn't even focus!

Pop woke up to say Bye to us!

The car was packed!

We headed to San Francisco Airport with my mom and Bethany to send us off. My mom dropped Ashkon, Bethany, and I on the curb to get started while she parked. It was a bit of a struggle to get our 10 pieces of luggage (and 2 food bags that we "snuck" on the plane and a pillow each with our already allowed 2 other carry-ons) into the airport but we eventually made it inside. Because we made our flights before we were married and were not sure how long the name change process would take, my ticket was in my maiden name. We were told that there would be given no hassle as long as we had our marriage license. After a bit of authorizing and checking our marriage license and passports a couple of times, we had our 6 bags checked in and we were free to go.

Ashkon checking us in

Our carry on stash! Hopefully the rest of our bags make it!

Since we made very good time to the airport (there isn't much traffic at 3 in the morning), we had some time to spare (more like stalling the inevitable goodbye). After taking turns watching our bags and using the retro-techno music playing bathrooms, we found these awesome chairs (and a random man sleeping)!

We felt sophisticated...and a little bit like we were in Austin Powers.

Then the time finally came to say goodbye. I had done pretty well the whole morning until then. It was a bit strange saying bye to my mom and sister who I had never been more than about 350 miles away from at any moment in time. Now we were going to be more than 4,000 miles apart. And moving to a place that neither Ashkon or I had ever been to! But being confident that God was really calling us to Grenada and knowing that I was getting to go with my husband and best friend gave me the ability to walk towards the security gate and say one final goodbye and give one more hug. And after about a 20 minute wait to get a pat down (We both refuse to go in those x-ray body machines) and a bit of a walk, we made it to our gate to begin the craziest adventure either of us had ever been on.

We were blessed by Ashkon's mom who had upgraded us to First Class so that we could take 3 bags each instead of 2 each allowed 70 lbs instead of 50. I have never ridden first class so I definitely wanted to soak it all in. As soon as we were seated, we were offered a drink. I gladly took some water and took advantage of our First first class photo op!

Can I offer you some water, juice or champagne?

 We were off and as exhausted as we were from our 1 hour of sleep, we were excited for the adventure ahead!

After a quick turn around from our short layover in Miami, we were on the second leg of our trip. Our flight was delayed for almost an hour while we sat on the plane, so of course, Ashkon used this time as an opportunity for his first-class modeling! 

Warm nut mix? Yes please!

One more diet coke before we get there!

After a few hours, a couple meltdowns of fully realizing what we were doing (or maybe more so the lack of knowing what we were doing), encouragement from the most amazing husband, and a little bit of our rented Madagascar 2 on the Ipad, we had made it to Grenada!