We’re officially back in New York, adjusted to the time zone and back to work.  However, I still have a ton of photos to share from our trip, so looks like you’ll be getting to see those a while longer.  But really, it’s better than looking at photos of what I did today which was take a nap and watch tv.

Our flights home were nothing short of unpleasant.  We ended up being delayed a day because our first flight (of three) was canceled due to fog.  Which of course meant we missed our two connecting flights.  We went from having exit row seats on our 13 hour flight to being sandwiched in the middle seats in a row of four.  Painful.

We then enjoyed a six hour layover before a re-route from Philadelphia to Baltimore, all on Christmas Eve of course.  Instead of getting in and having a couple days to recover from jet lag we got in at 3am Christmas morning, picked up Brady in Pennsylvania, drove back to New York and were back to work the next day.

I keep telling people the worst part about traveling wasn’t the being super pregnant part, it was the traveling that far with long layovers and being sandwiched in middle seats.

Luckily the Brady snuggles we got upon our return were pretty awesome.

After traveling over 24 hours and finally arriving in Fiji all I wanted was to take a long nap.  We had finally gotten our bags (after waiting what seemed like forever and being fairly convinced they hadn’t made it to the other side of the Pacific) and went out to find our car.  We had booked it through the resort, and there was supposed to be a driver inside the airport with our name on a sign.  Well, no driver was there so we sat down to wait.

After waiting about 20 minutes Jon finally turned on his phone and called the resort.  Something had gone wrong and there was no driver after all.  The resort recommended we just take a cab from the airport.  Fine, no biggie, let’s get this show on the road.

Side note: I decided to not use the bathroom before we got in the car because I could surely wait until we got to the hotel. 

We hop in a cab right away, Jon tells him where we’re going and we’re off.  Our driver, Ali tells us that there’s a town about an hour ahead if we want to stop for any drinks before continuing on to the resort.  Um, make a stop in an hour?  How long is this drive anyways?

Over two hours apparently.

This is where I realize I should have gone to the bathroom back at the airport.  Or paid any attention at all when Jon was asking me which resort sounded better.

Somewhere along the two hour trip to the resort Ali asks us how we’re getting back to the airport at the end of the week.  He suggested that he could come back and pick us up.  This is where I was confused because would he really want to drive two hours back out to pick us up??  But he assured us that it was fairly common, and he was used to the long drive.

We’d need to be picked up at the resort a little before 7am, which meant he’d have to leave his house by 5am.  I thought it seemed a bit much, but with Ali’s reassurance we agreed.

After a couple minutes of silence Ali pipes back up and says, “Well I’m definitely going to be there, but maybe you want to leave a deposit to make sure?”  By this point Jon and I were so tired and so ready to be out of a car or plane that we were all, “Sure, how much do you want?”  When Ali dropped us off at the resort we paid him for the two hour trip, plus a deposit for the return trip.

We proceeded to take the best nap of our lives.  Then we woke up and we were all, “Do you think he’s really gonna come back and pick us up?”

Hmm, probably not.

So the day before we were set to leave Jon called Ali to confirm our arrangements.  Wrong number.  Yep, pretty sure we just lost our “deposit”.

We asked the front desk how long it would take them to get us another driver should ours not show up.  I mean, we’re still two hours away from the airport and flights only leave every couple of days.  Not to mention the impending cyclone that was headed toward Fiji.  The front desk assured us they could get someone within 15 minutes, if need be.

You’ll imagine the surprise of two very skeptical New Yorkers when the morning we were leaving we find Ali wandering around the resort looking for us.

I guess some people are as good as their word.  They just need practice memorizing their phone numbers.