Our Journey to Asia

Because we were flying stand-by to South Korea, it is best to take flights at less popular times.  Thanks to our brother-in-law Joe for waking up at 2 a.m. to drive us 45 minutes across town so we could catch the red-eye flight out of Oklahoma City on Tuesday!  That put us in Dallas right on time for the once-daily flight to South Korea.  Thanks to our nephew Michael, for making all our flight arrangements and getting up early to put us on the stand-by list!

The bad news is that we didn't get on the flight to Korea (or the alternate flight to Tokyo), and it was a very long day at the airport for two sleepy travelers.  The good news is that this meant we got to spend the night with another nephew, Matthew, and his family that live less than 20 miles from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport!  An afternoon to play with their children, Reid, Cole, and Ashlyn was just what we needed after sitting in the airport all day.  Denisa played a record number of ring-around-the-posy with Ashlyn on the trampoline.  The "all-fall-down" part of the game resulted in both of us having some crazy static hair.

While we were eating pizza, Reid lost his top front tooth.  Here he is modeling his new smile with that tooth missing.

All the pictures of Cole swinging in the backyard turned out blurry because he was too fast for the camera.  But we did get a picture of him when it was bed time and Matthew was reading a book.

Not to leave anyone out, we also include a picture of Ashlyn and Shannon.

It was a nice evening in Keller, Texas, and we were ready for bed shortly after that bed-time story.  After a good night's sleep, we started the stand-by process all over again the next day after Matthew shuttled us back to the airport.  But we got lucky, and scored two seats this time!  A short 14 hours later, we landed in Seoul, South Korea.  It felt like an even longer flight because we crossed the international date line.  So we left Oklahoma City very early on Tuesday morning and didn't arrive in Asia until Thursday afternoon.  We then had to find the bus to ride to the Gimpo Airport on the other side of Seoul.  By this time Denisa is looking and acting like a walking zombie in serious need of some sleep.  But we took a picture because they were celebrating the Chrysanthemum Festival at the Gimpo airport, and some very talented florists somehow trained those flowers into the shape of an airplane.

An orange sun was setting over the runway at the Gimpo airport as we waited for our last flight on this journey to Asia.

One more flight, and we finally arrived at the Ulsan Airport.  We felt like important international dignitaries with our limousine driver holding up a sign with our names on it when we walked through the gate of the airport.  Actually it was our nephew Brian, holding up his I-Phone with our names printed to the screen.  But we still felt mighty special.  It had been a long journey aided by relatives that gave us rides, beds, and arranged flights.  We are truly blessed to start this Asian adventure with the help of so many people!