Getting to Australia

Melanie dropped us off in Great Falls where we luckily got there well in advance because we ended up spending 3/4 of an hour while they tried to sort out our tickets and visa information. Then we were lucky to go through security before the rest of our flight deemed it necessary because Spencer and Rosalin both had to get pat down and all of their luggage searched and chem wiped because we had all of Rosy's baby food with us as we had two days of traveling ahead of us and I had packed a lot of food for her. The flight to Salt Lake was rather uneventful as Rosalin slept most of the way. We had a two hour layover in Salt Lake and then Rosalin slept again on the flight to L.A. where we had a 6 hour layover ahead of us.
L.A. is the most annoying airport to have any kind of layover in. We tried to think of a place to eat, but there was nothing besides pubs and McDonald's in our terminal. We saw a sign to go to another terminal so we went downstairs where we were met with two employees just sitting against the wall and a 200m completely white hallway that was empty. We decided we were in the wrong place so we went back upstairs to have a supper of McDonald's.
We eventually ventured down again and almost got murdered 5 times before we made it to the other terminal. That terminal was about as boring as ours so we walked back and sat in the uncomfortable rows of seats for several hours. One exciting thing though was that I saw Cory from last season's bachelor. I didn't say anything as there was a creeper there doing enough talking for the whole airport. She was politely trying to get rid of him but he was quite persistent, talking while she ate and texted on her phone.
Finally we got on our plane to go over to Australia and we had quite a bit of luck! We tried a trick we learned from the Hughes and booked seats one apart hoping that they wouldn't fill the seat between us and it worked out! We had an empty seat between us and so when I got Ros to sleep, I could lay her down and sleep myself. Our plane was 9 seats wide and the business class had these sweet sleeping pods that they could curl up in. We were served two meals during our flight which left at ten at night and got there in 2 in the afternoon. The meals were generally disgusting, but there were some perks such as bottomless pop supply and a dinner bun with every meal. Rosy slept most of the time which was wonderful and Spencer was able to sleep fairly well also. I wasn't as lucky as I spent most of my time trying to make sure that Rosy wasn't going to roll off of her seat. Plus, every seat had a touch screen on the back of it with over 50 movies to choose from and games like sudoku and solitaire.
Coming in to Sydney, the weirdest thing started to happen. I felt a stabbing pain starting in my forehead and it started to spread all across my forehead and above my eyebrows. It hurt like nothing I'd felt before and didn't let up until we'd landed and then I could still feel the remains of the pain until we took off on our next flight. After a 14.5 hour flight to Sydney we had to gather our thoughts together in order to go through customs. We didn't have our boarding passes for our last flight yet, and we had to pick up all of our checked bags and check them again for our last domestic flight. Try to imagine Spencer and I in charge of 4 huge checked bags, 2 carry on size bags, a longboard, a diaper bag, a computer bag, a stroller, and a Rosy. We were quite a sight.
We managed to get through customs and then to our check our bags and boarded the bus to take us to our terminal to make our flight to Brisbane. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:00 am and we were leaving on the bus to get to the departures area of the airport at 8:50. They assured us we would make it, but with a baby that was starting to pee through her diaper and would soon be hungry and all of our bags, I had my doubts. We got to the airport and they hurried us to security. Spencer and I start taking off our shoes, and belts and then pulling out all of our liquids, and the guy was staring at us like we were some kind of crazy. I guess their security is a lot less strict than those in U.S. and they don't require you to take off shoes or belts and they only make you show things in aerosol containers. That would have saved us a lot of time if they would have told us this prior to us getting undressed.
We got to our terminal at 9:20 and our plane wasn't even at the gate yet. I guess Virgin Blue (our airline) is notoriously late, and they proved to be consistent as our 9:00 plane didn't leave the gate until 10:10. Rosy slept again on this flight and as we landed, again I got the stabbing pain in my forehead. The headache from this pain lasted for over 24 hours and according to the internet it could happen every time I fly -->crap.
Overall our flights were fairly uneventful, we didn't lose a single bag, we made it to all of our flights, and Rosalin slept on every leg of the trip (thank goodness). We didn't even run out of gas on that long leg from L.A. to Sydney (although I think I heard the engines sputter a bit Dad, maybe you should talk to them). I didn't get really sick although turbulence as we landed in Sydney while they were feeding us soggy eggs made my stomach a little upset but nothing that didn't go away as soon as we landed.
We're here safe in Lismore and hopefully student loans will come soon so I'll have more to write about. It's time for bed, but I have some more stories to tell (an interesting ward in Lismore) and I plan to get better at blogging once we have a more reliable connection. Love to all.