from somewhere in my imagination

9/11 - 10 Years On & Still Surreal

There are certain things that happen in our lives that we never forget where we were when they happened for example I'd been on a Geology field trip the day Diana died, I remember coming home, turning on the television and Diana's death was all that was there.  We discovered that Osama Bin Laden had been found and killed when we disembarked from our flight to LA, that kind of added to the surrealness of our 9/11 experience.

In September 2001 Steven and I were in Europe, we spent about 10 days in Sweden where he had a training course for work which we followed up with 4 or so nights in Paris then another 10 days or so in England.  I clearly remember that there were significant problems with protests and refugees at the time.  There had been several instances of people actually entering the tunnel near Calais and travelling by foot to England.  It was all over the media at the time.

When the planes hit the twin towers Steven and I were aboard the Eurostar travelling from Paris to Dover.  We knew nothing of what had happened until we arrived at Steven's Uncle's home in Canterbury.

When our train arrived in Calais from Paris police boarded and removed 3 passengers and their baggage.  They did a full sweep of the train looking for and removing unattended luggage.  My irrational self was inwardly terrified about what might happen but never thought much retrospectively about what might have happened.  I don't know if there was any relationship between our train and the word trade centre attacks.  I sincerely hope there wasn't.  It was the last train to travel through the tunnel for many hours.

When we arrived at Dover Uncle Terry picked us up and made comment along the lines of 'isn't it terrible what's happening in America'.  We thought he was referring to all the refugee related unrest happening globally at the time.  We actually had no idea what he was talking about.

When we arrived at his home we saw what he was talking about.

In the space of time that Terry had travelled from Canterbury to Dover and back to collect us the second plane had hit.  We were glued to the television for many hours after that, I'm fairly certain that we were already watching when the Pentagon was hit.  I have memories of it all unfolding, most of my memories of the footage (and floods of tears) probably come from the one year anniversary when I was at home with one month old Charlotte.

For all the things we Aussies poke fun at the US about one thing that I absolutely love is their love of country and general patriotism.  It only took a couple of baseball games and J knew exactly when she needed to be standing with her cap on her heart during the Star Spangled Banner before the game and God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch.  She's been known since to hear one or the other on TV and come running to stand at attention.

We visited the 9/11 memorial site on the eve of the Memorial Day weekend.  There were a number of US Navy Officers visiting at the same time as us.  It's hard watching your own husband cry but it's harder seeing a military man shedding tears for his own country and countrymen.

It's impossible to explain what happened to your children.

It broke my heart seeing the artefacts, reading and hearing the stories, looking at the family photos of the victims and the missing person fliers, seeing the responses from everyday Americans from their visits to the memorial and above all looking at the sheer length of that list of names.  In many respects, for me, such an act of terror in modern day is still unfathomable.

Time moves on, but this is one would in the modern western world that will take a very long time to heal, if it ever can.  I look forward to revisiting the site in a few years time when rebuilding is complete.  In the meantime I remain thankful for living the 'the lucky country' and say a prayer for every soul, and their loved ones, who lost their lives that day.

It was a day that altered the world we live in.

Where were you that day?

Tatum xx

Small Style 23 - Our New York Rainbow

It's been ages since my last Small Style post.  Ever since we got back from our trip to the US the kids have been rugged up for winter and haven't had many particularly stylish days.

However, I have been wanting to post about our little new york rainbow ever since that day back at the end of May.  Have I mentioned how much I miss New York and want to go back?

It was the Thursday, a completely gorgeous end of spring kind of sunshiny day and the kids had dressed themselves.  We headed downtown on the subway, we were heading out on the Staten Island ferry to get another look at the Statue of Liberty, as we emerged at Battery Park I noticed that the kids had dressed themselves collectively like a rainbow.

It made me smile.

Sebastian is wearing Polka Shorts and Green Dandelion Happy Shirt

Lil is wearing a Cotton On T with a Ralph Lauren skirt

J is wearing an Old Navy Dress

Charlotte is wearing a Country Road top and Pumpkin Patch denim shorts

I'm linking up with Small Style on Mama Loves Papa.  Morgan's blog is just lovely, I'm sponsoring her this month and we are collaborating on a spring/fall sew along in September.  If you have never sewn anything for yourself but have always wanted to try you are going to want to join us!

We have had some unseasonally warm weather here this week, I know it will be sad when it drops back down to wintery cold again tomorrow.  Thankfully those warm spring days will be just around the corner...I'm looking forward to unpacking the suitcase of new warm weather clothes we brought home but haven't seen the light of day yet.

Which do you prefer rugging up and snuggling on cold winter days, enjoying the summer heat or those lovely in between days you get in Spring and Autumn?  T

hose in between days are defintely my favourite, warm enough for short sleeves and jeans during the day but still cool enough for the doon at night.  I love opening up the house and letting the breeze blow through.  It makes me happy in my heart.

Hope that you are having a lovely week.  Don't forget to check out my Planning with Kids Giveaway, it's a fabulous organisational tool for every family.

Tatum xx

Flying that far with Four Kids - Were we Crazy?

I still have a few more photo posts from our trip to the USA left to do but I have been flat out this week and editing lots of photos of an evening has not been particularly appealing.  So, for now, I'm getting started on some of the posts I have planned about travelling with kids, place to visit, places to avoid, where we got good service, where we didn't...the list goes on.  This trip will keep me busy blogging for months!

One of the things people seemed to reat to most was the fact we were flying 'that far' with four kids.  I experienced significant wonderment at the fact we would even attempt such a thing.

To be honest, the actual flying part was one of the least stressful aspects of our trip.  I am speaking from our long haul experience with Qantas and domestic (in the USA) with American Airlines, Delta and Jet Blue.

Here are some of the things I learnt:

• Don't believe everything you have heard about the bad service provided by air carriers in the USA, in our experience they were definitely no worse that Qantas.  In terms of general customer service Qantas was the worst of the four airlines we flew with.
• Given the introduction of the new self check baggage systems make sure you have some one extra to watch your kids at the Australian end if you have alot of bags to handle.  When we left the system had not yet been introduced.  We arrived back via Tullamarine, the flight was late, we missed our connection, Qantas has a grand total of zero ground staff to help people and inform them of what was going on.  We found our way to the domestic terminal 4 kids, 8 suitcases + hand luggage in tow where we were reallocated on to a flight and faced with having to retag and handle our luggage.  It took a bit of effort to find someone to give us a hand.  I remarked that the new system wasn't very family friendly...'not for families as large as yours I guess'.  Somehow both Steven and I managed to keep our (very sleep deprived) cool and not rip into her.
• Going through security at any US airport IS a stressful experience.  The amount of clothing/money/watch/goggles that they require you to remove at the security point does vary from one airport to the next.  Being told to hurry up/take your time/don't touch that/move that please whilst trying to remove your shoes/belt/clothes/underwear and keep an eye on four children (any amount of small children really) is a VERY stressful experience...Stressful to the point you are hoping that your husband isn't arrested because he is having a stand up argument with the security guy at LAX (who truly was a tosser).
• For heavens sake make sure you know where your deoderant (they look like hand grenades apparently) and other small liquid containers are.  Make sure you have a stash of zip lock bags to pop them in.  The argument followed even our best attempts at being organised.
• Get to the airport early.  Above is a photo of the check in counters at Tom Bradley (LAX).  We jagged it that we arrived during a check in lull about 3 1/2 hours before departure.
• Plan your flights (with kids) so that they aren't at peak business travel periods.  We arrived at JFK mid morning on a Saturday.  Not a single line to be waited in.  Awesomeness...although the security bit was still a little stressy.
• If you are flying with Jet Blue make sure you do our seat allocation online otherwise the six of you will be allocated seats all over the plane despite it was one booking.  Even the two year old. I'm not kidding.
• If you have the option to fly on an A380 over a 747 take it.  The A380 is lots more comfortable.
• If the small child is crying and the lights are out the airline staff will, most likely, repeatedly ask you if there is anything they can do to help.  Which, in itself, is actually unhelpful because said small child just needs to go to sleep and they are disturbing her.
• They give you plenty of food on long haul flights.  Qantas offer a 'snack on' service on both the A380 and 747.  We didn't need anything extra.  I am fairly tough love about what the kids eat.  They either eat what is put in front of them or go hungry.  The kids meals have plenty of kid friendly things though.  We had no complaints of I'm hungry.
• When you are booking long haul flights give significant consideration to your departure and arrival times.  A 6am departure is probably going to make everything alot harder in the long run than a lunchtime one.  Everyone will start off alot tireder than if you leave a little later.  It also gives you less hours on the flight before your kids equivalent bedtime.
• When you arrive at your destination try and slip into normal bedtimes as quickly as possible.  To be honest we suffered minimal jetlag in both directions.
• You won't need a whole lot of things to entertain your kids.  Unless, bizarrely, they have no interest in their own personal in seat entertainment.  Sebastian stared at the screen sitting relatively motionless for the majority of the flight home (well the bit where he wasn't sleeping for 5 hours).  Why fight something that works.

• We had pencils/textas/crayons, lined notebook and an activity book for each of the kids.  We also had Uno (which did get played on the way over), DS's which weren't required on the plane but were useful in the airports, and reading books (might as well have left them at home or packed them in the suitcase).  Textas (connector pens are probably the best because you can prevent them rolling all over the place) and crayons are better than pencils because there is no sharpening required.
• The activity packs handed out on the long haul flights caused more fights than any useful purpose.
• Put all your hand luggage in one compartment, this way you are far less likely to leave something behind when you are tired, the kids are tired and all you want to do is get off the plae.  We learnt this the hard way when we landed in Orlando (thankfully it was a domestic flight not an international one!) the camera bag had been in a different locker and got left behind.  Thankfully it just meant a bit of tooing and froing for Steven and a wait for the kids and I before it was retrieved and we were on our way.  It was a heart stopping moment when he realised we didn't have it.  I kept calm and it was all good.
• I didn't even consider giving any of the kids anything like Phenergan.  I wouldn't normally unless it had been prescribed so I don't see the sense in doing it for a flight unless a GP has reccomended it (Charlotte is prone to car sickness so we have given it to her).  Some kids get hyper on it instead so I definitely wouldn't be chancing it without a test run.
• The duty free shopping and general retail in all of the airports we went through (with the exception of Orlando) was dismal.  Even finding food can be difficult.
• Match up your boarding passes with your passports, every little thing made simpler makes the whole experience easier.  Oh and make sure you take off your/hour husband's hat at the passport checkpoint.
• Our immigration experience coming into the USA was not a quick one but it was a friendly one.
• If you need to enquire at a ticketing counter in the US don't expect it to be quick.  The staff are slow and will take a pee break whenever they need one, irrespective of the length of the line.
• When all else fails and you really just need to sit and smile for a while ou can find Krispy Kreme donuts in most airports these days.

• Just Breathe.

So, in short, I didn't think that we were crazy flying that far, just the two of us, with our four kidlets.  To be honest I think I probably would have found the flying part more stressful if we had been flying with other family or friends because our expectations of our kids are our own.  We were free to be ourselves with them and them with us.  It is often when other people and other people's different expectations ofan our children (and/or their own) come into play that things can get more difficult.

Have you flown long haul with your children before?  How did your experience compare to mine?  I'd love to hear about other people's experiences travelleing to other countries or with different airlines.  Hook me up with a link to a blog post if you have one :)

Have a sensational weekend.

Tatum xx