Finland : travel day

We had the morning to get last minute tasks taken care of. The bags to be checked were packed the day before so I vacuumed the car and made food and packed snacks to take with us. We left home just before noon and had a pleasant drive to Seattle. There was a little traffic once we were close to the airport but we had built in extra time. Mark dropped off the kids, luggage, and me and went to park the car. Getting four large suitcases along with our carry-ons and a baby in a stroller to check-in was a little slow, but we did it. Anja met us there and we let her use some of our luggage allowance. I had tried to pack lightly so we had two suitcases more that we could check. She decided at the last minute to check one of her carry-on bags.

All the kids were great at following instructions and moving bags. We had to check in at special services because of the infant in lap we had with us. The security lines were very long but moved quickly. We made it to our gate and had Helena and Mark board early with the carry-ons while the rest of us enjoyed a few more minutes of unrestricted movement and filled up water bottles. Having Anja along as was a huge help and fun for everyone.
Once on board we ate some flatbread, cheese, and vegetables that we brought with us. We were all seated in the same row with one stranger in a window seat.

The flight was uneventful. There were individual screens in the back of each seat so the kids watched some movies and slept a little. Our flight was a few minutes late coming in and even though we ran as fast as we could we missed our connection by a few minutes. KLM re-booked us on a flight later that evening. Then we looked up the schedule and asked for a slightly earlier flight on a different airline. After insisting that this was not possible the agent was able to get us on the flight. Some of us took short naps and we ate some of the snacks we had packed.

We arrived in Helsinki about 6 hours later than originally planned to find that our bags were not there. We filed a claim with the airline and caught the bus out of town.

Lulu and Raija picked us up at a roadside stop not far from their home. We got to the house around 1 AM local time, about 27 hours after leaving home.