Hello USA!

 

Kids were apparently getting most of their bad behavior out at the airport. I think Matt and I both thought 'what are we thinking?!' Several times before we got out of Sydney. They were so excited to be headed back to see family they had all this extra energy. And everyone was up earlier than normal so that didn't help either. Check in guy at Brisbane airport- seriously slowest ever. We stood there for easily 20 mins while he checked in our bags. He decided that we needed to take an earlier flight bc flights were starting to get behind already 1st thing in the morning. 2 separate agents came over and offered to take over but he just kept plugging away. He changed our flight but had us all sitting separate. Matt wanted to tell him that it wouldn't work but I just told him it would be fine. We didn't have time to mess with this guy anymore. Besides i am sure whoever had the seat next to EL would gladly move when faced with sitting with a 3 year old on their own. Finally, we had to book it thru security to catch the plane. Loaded up and we were off to Sydney. We had a little time to walk around in Sydney, might have had to sample wine in the duty free shop. Then it was time to board the big plane.
   The flight crew was awesome. Brought the kids coloring bags filled with goodies. They also made sure the kids had plenty of food and drink the entire flight. My tv didn't have any sound, lucky me. EL didn't really want to watch anything for more than 5 mins and she wanted to play the games but they were a bit too hard with using the tv controller. DB did pretty well and ended up really liking listening to the kids music on the tv. I did have to laugh when he asked me if we were landing soon, 4 hours into the 15 hour flight! MA was all over the place. Tv, movies, writing in her new diary. EL fell asleep while dinner was being served and woke up as everyone else was settling in. Oh joy! DB fell asleep and slept for quite a while. EL was restless but finally managed to go back to sleep at some point, I had no idea what time it was or which day it was where. MA tossed and turned and finally couldn't stay awake any longer. Now I could finally fall sleep. I would say I got about 2 hours of sleep. Breakfast was ok. No one in our fam ate much. A little bit longer and we landed at DFW.
    It was a mad dash thru customs, get the luggage, and thru another line. The lines were so long! EL kept falling down trying to keep up then crying and carrying on. That was fun with all our carry ons and luggage. Dropped of the luggage to be rechecked in and hustled to security then had to take the tram to our departure gate, I sent Matt ahead when we got off the tram and walked as quickly as I could with the 3 kiddos. Luckily the flight was running a bit behind and we were able to make the connection. A quick and uneventful flight to PIA and we we were back in the land of Lincoln. Grandma, Papa, Kara, and Kat were there to greet us. We even got a sign ;-) 2 pieces of luggage didn't make the flight but showed yup first thing the next day.
  My phone was broken so the pics from this part of the trip are pretty limited.

Walking to the big plane

 Preflight drinks.  

Dinner is served

 Couldn't stay awake on our flight from DFW to PIA