This was it. The day we return back home is now here. Two weeks of new places, new people, and new adventures in Costa Rica are finally coming to an end. We had some finalizing to do with packing, but went down to get breakfast first. Alexis absolutely loved her scrambled eggs again along with the usual fruit. The buffet was pretty much the same as the day before, but was a good last breakfast in Costa Rica. We finished our last minute packing and starting moving the bags down to the lobby. By the time we got there and started checking out, our transportation was already here. We were ready to just get these bags checked and begin the trip home.
We got to the airport almost four hours before our departure time to give us enough time to pay the airport departure tax and get checked in. Unfortunately, the ticketing counter wasn't even open, yet. There was already a sporting team of some kind in line, but again by having Alexis we were escorted to the front of the line. Keeping her occupied until the counter opened was our task for the next half hour or so. We had a few juice boxes left over from the week and so I got one out for her. At first I squeezed it into her mouth so she could drink some, but after a few sips she would actually close her lips and drink out of the straw herself. This is the first successful straw usage! We checked in and everything went smoothly with the bags. We were left with just the carry-ons and continued on to security. Security was actually very similar to the United States, except they didn't care about the liquids (specifically the bottles of milk we were bringing on for Alexis). The gate area was empty so Alexis was able to crawl around and explore all kinds of things. We scoped out a place to grab some food before getting on the plane but didn't want to get it quite yet. We passed the time by pushing Alexis in the stroller and then got some food from Burger King and Alexis ate some fries.
About to board the plane, they started setting up some folding tables around the jet way and we were wondering what they were setting them up for. Since we were "travelling with an infant and needed extra time boarding the plane", we got go be the first ones. We then noticed what the tables were for as this is where they checked your liquids, searched your bags by hand, and gave a pat-down to all passengers. This was a bit unlike what we were used to and I think tripled the time it took to board the plane. One teenage girl was not happy about this as she got her lotion taken away and it cost $8.00 (We won't mention the exact words she used, but everyone within a 10-row radius knew the whole story).
This first leg was on a plane where we had a third seat next to us at the window. We first met the guy when he was putting his luggage in the overhead bin and managed to drop various things out of his bag onto my head and shoulder. Throughout the flight he successfully spilled water on Nicole, coffee on himself and the tray, and was virtually a walking klutz. We were happy to make it out alive. This plane has personal screens on each seat where each passenger could pick what they wanted to watch from live satellite television, to current television show episodes and recently released movies. Alexis actually fell asleep near takeoff in my arms and that allowed Nicole to watch the majority of a movie she wanted to see while things were quiet. I would have been able to, as well, but I denied getting headphones at the beginning of the flight because I didn't really expect to be able to need them. I did learn about halfway through that we got ESPN on satellite and watched a fair bit of the Masters golf tournament. The beverage cart was coming through the aisles with her still asleep and the flight attendant commented how cute she was sleeping. She then felt it necessary to slam the drawers on the cart, clank all kinds of things together and scoop the ice as loud as possible which of course woke up sleeping beauty – not so cute anymore now that she's screaming. That was the end of that, but good while it lasted. We were able to occupy her with various books, toys, snacks, etc. but eventually everything becomes old and she just wants to move around. She had her fussy moments but we made it through and it was a pretty decent flight.
We knew in Atlanta that we were going to have to go through Customs, get our checked bags from baggage claim, go through immigration, and then somehow get our bags checked again to get to Milwaukee. We weren't quite sure of all the specifics, but we had just less than two hours to complete that and get to our gate to depart for Milwaukee. Since we're back in the US, we didn't get special treatment of going to the front of the line anymore. The customs line moved fairly quickly with no problems. We got three of our bags and the other two took a little longer to arrive, which had us worried for a bit. Luckily they had free carts there for people to use so we were able to push all of the luggage to immigration. Immigration was easy to go through and they told us which belt to put the bags on to go to Milwaukee. After dropping those off, we headed for the gate. We made it with still a bit of time to spare and Nicole grabbed a bite to eat while we let family know that we're back in Atlanta.
The second flight was just the two seats to ourselves, so we didn't have to worry about Alexis climbing on other people. She was extremely tired at this point, but didn't want to fall asleep. It was a little tougher to keep her occupied and attempting to get to fall asleep wasn't working. Then, finally with only fifteen minutes left in the flight, she finally falls asleep without us even trying; figures. We landed and let everyone else off the plane before us to let her at least sleep a little before we had to move her. We then went to baggage claim to get all the luggage. Nicole kept an eye on those while I took Alexis with me on the shuttle to get the van. I drove back to pick them up and loaded everything in. The drive back to Madison concluded with us needing to get some milk for Alexis because she was either going to need it in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning when she wakes up. The first grocery stores we tried were already closed and finally found a gas station that was open (rather than having to drive an extra 15 minutes to get to Wal-Mart) and just picked up half gallon for now. After leaving the hotel about 17 hours ago, we finally get home and do the bare minimum to get luggage in the house and lay down for bed. So concludes the wonderful adventure of my first (half) sabbatical with Epic.
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