Departure Take 2

So, after being denied passage by the Chilean PDI, we got our luggage again and took the kids to Gabriel and Angela's house where Gabriel made them pancakes and they were eating and watching Madagascar 2 at midnight. Corey worked his magic on Skype with Delta and got me and my crew tickets for the next day, same flight, same time. While Corey did that, I rummaged through a bag of stuff that we hadn't packed but in a rush had just thrown in a garbage sack. Thankfully I found all the room keys for the apartment - they had been in Corey's junk drawer of misc. items. (Each bedroom had it's own key, even though we never used them cause the doors didn't close cause the door frames had been misaligned slightly by the earthquake in 2010.) So with all the keys in hand, Corey and I headed back to Las Condes to sleep in our apartment again with the owner who slept in the kids room, with plans to finish packing and to go to the Notary in the morning. We went right to bed and were asleep by 1:30 a.m.

Next morning, we got up around 8:00. I loaded up then pushed the apartment shopping cart down the street as I took the left over groceries and random toys to donate to the church nursery over to some friends. Corey and I finished looking under beds and in drawers and we left while the owner was still in bed, but I don't think she was sleeping, maybe just wanted us to leave. I felt bad cause I hadn't finished cleaning and the master bathroom was pretty disgusting with all the dirty magic erasers I had used as I worked my way back through the apartment. When we got there the bathroom was all cleaned, so I felt bad she had seen it like that and hope she didn't think we were totally terrible tenants. And if she does, oh well, it's over now. Off to the Notary!

We walked to the Notary, since there are Notary offices everywhere - it's quite the business racket down here. You have to have a law degree to be a Notary. There were lots of people there. Corey had some great comments as we waited which made me laugh, I'll write them when I find the paper I wrote them all on. We were a little annoyed that we had to jump through this hoop to go to our home country, but were also humored by it. We had a fun morning laughing at the whole situation.

Here was another situation - in Chile, you have to go cancel your internet and tv cable in person, so we had another errand to run after the Notary, it was almost 10:00, Corey's plane left at 1:10, we still had to drive to Los Cerrillos to get the boys that were flying out with him - hurry hurry! We go to Parque Arauco so he can run in and pay the bill. I stayed in the car to write down some of the cars info so we could pay the tolls we've been collecting - we had only recently figured out that the occasional beeping sound in the car when we were on the freeway was not any warning from the car to go in for a check up, but happened whenever we passed under an automatic toll booth that somehow scanned us like a UPC code. The mystery beeping is solved! And that you can pay that one online. So as I was waiting in the car, there was a tap at my window. Paula, our friend who had babysat all the kids after school yesterday and who we had said adieu to at that time, was looking at me with confusion in her face - "Either you are Tiffanie or you are her twin sister!" It's me. I told her how they didn't let me on the plane, she said her sister has trouble every time she flies cause her sister is black haired Chilean but her son is very fair skinned and light haired, they always giver her a hard time. Oh the joys of regulations. So we laughed and said goodbye again. She has a sister that lives in Utah and is coming to visit in June, so as we said bye she said "See you soon! But not here!... There!"

Corey came back to the car, we tried to leave, but our 15 minutes in the parking lot required payment, so we had to back up and go pay at their little parking pay machines, Corey came running back to the car. Okay, now can we go, Chile? Please?

We drove to Angela's house, and couldn't find it again, Gabriel came and found us and we followed him to his house -


Corey and the kids each grabbed their backpack, one small carry on suitcase to get them by during their one night in Costa Rica, and Corey's saxophone, then they were off to the airport. And most important: Do you have your notarized letter? Yes. With no luggage to check we hoped that would help them make it to the gate on time.

At the airport they scolded Corey for not being their 3 hours early. They had started boarding the plane at 11 for some reason. He called me and said he made it past the PDI okay to give me hope for my turn tonight. Good news! So he was off.


I stayed at Angela's and the kids watched movie after movie while I went through all of our too much stuff and gave a lot of it to Angela to use or pass along to others as she pleased - our DVD player, CD player, lots of clothes, an infant car seat, lots of school books, and miraculously after several hours of work, I had widdled things down to 8 checked bags, two small carry on suitcases, and 3 back packs and my bag with all my important documents: passports and don't loose the notarized letter!!!

The missionaries stopped by while we were there, one from Utah and the other from New Mexico (but to save explaining it everytime to Chileans who don't know where New Mexico is, he just says Texas) - the Elder from New Mexico had just received a package from the US and shared his peanut butter cups with the kids -


They are Joseph's favorite and they don't sell them here. (You can find Snickers, MnM's, Twix, and a few other US candies.) It gave us all hope that this land of the USA does indeed exist and yes, we can, we will make it there to the promised land!

I loaded up the luggage - can you believe it all fit!!! 6 bins, a big duffle bag, a big suitcase, two small suitcases, 3 backpacks and my bag, a stroller, a carseat, 4 kids and two adults - gonna make it!
The kids jumped on the mattresses outside while Angela and I loaded up the car with our 3D puzzle.

Took a picture with Angela's girls - they are angels and were so cute with Lily and Abi during the day (since we kept them up late they stayed home from school)


Lily doesn't want to go? She was tired. Hopefully she'll sleep well on the flight - 9 hours 45 min to Atlanta, I can do this!

We left around 6 to give ourselves plenty of time. Joe held Lily on his lap, Mel held Abi, the four of them scrunched into one seat, hope the police don't stop us!

With three carts we loaded the luggage again for take 2 of our attempt to depart. Joe pushed a cart, Mel pushed a car with Abi riding on top, Angela took a cart, and I pushed Lily. Good system we got going, gonna make it!

Checking in the baggage - Can you see Abi? She's there in the background, look above Lily's head - Abi is laying on the floor with her hands behind her head, like she's out on the grass gazing up at the clouds, pretty funny. Our baggage was checked by the same lady who helped us yesterday, luckily I had an infant pass for Lily this time thanks to our run yesterday. Ok, here we go to the PDI, notarized letter in hand. The lady told me to go to the office, I gave her a slightly panicked look, she said not to worry, something something I didn't understand, so I go over there and the officer takes my notarized letter and the kids ID cards to verifiy that in face the said man Corey Wride is indeed the biological father of said children. Corey didn't have to do this step, don't know why I did, but after a 20 minute wait we were through and gave a big hug to Angela for all her help - we love you!


We made it onto the plane! It was a nice big plane - 7 seats across. I had an empty seats besides me, so Lily and I had space and she was able to sleep there, it was very nice. US, here we come!!! We're gonna make it! Yay!!!