World traveler

James took his first trip last week... we went all the way to Virginia and back, just the two of us! I was pretty nervous beforehand - never having traveled with a baby and being on my own was a little intimidating. But it went as smoothly as can be expected. Everyone along the way was SO nice and there were an unlimited number of offers to help. On the flight from London to Charlotte (where we connected before going on to Charlottesville) he cried/screamed a little at one point and didn't want to eat, but was pretty good the rest of the way. I had a couple seats to myself so we were able to spread out a bit and we did a lot of walking up and down the aisles. The three hour layover in Charlotte was pretty long, but we made our way into the US Air lounge after paying a daily rate and were able to make ourselves comfortable. There was even a private family changing room where I could close the door and feed him without lots of other people around.

Once we made it to Charlottesville, after 18 hours of traveling, he adjusted to the new time zone pretty easily. He woke up around 4 or 5am every morning wanting to eat, which he wasn't doing in London, but then he'd go back to sleep until 7ish. He had a lot of fun meeting so many relatives - his great grandparents, his uncle, his grandfather, and his great great grandmother. It was really nice to have so many people around to help entertain him! James is probably thinking that our normal life back in London is pretty boring just staring at me all day... he's missing the variety!

The flight home was great... overnight and he slept almost the entire way. Everyone on the plane was very happy and lots of people commented about what a good job he did. Yay! I definitely feel like I accomplished something by flying to Cville and back with him...

As a side note, we figured out at the very last minute that babies DO need UK visas and for a little while thought we'd have to try and force his way back into the country visa-less. Luckily, I found a GREAT guy in the US who was able to literally get the visa for us in 24 hours. I FedExed him all the paperwork, which he got on Monday, and we had James's visa and passport back on Tuesday. All for $250. Amazing. Especially since the company we were talking to here in London was going to charge us more than $2,000 and said it would take longer than two weeks. Yikes!

Lots of pictures are up on Flickr. Enjoy!