Goodbye Solveig :(

Typhoon Muifa finally left Okinawa!  But sadly, that meant that Solveig had to leave as well....

Which for a while there, I didn't think was going to happen.  We weren't quite expecting the airport to be as insane as it was Sunday (the airport opened back up Saturday - so Nic thought the craziness would have been contained to THAT day), however there were HUNDREDS if not thousands of people walking around, camping out on the floor.  The line for "connecting to international flights" was so long, that it bunched up to a mass of people - waiting in a huge bunch waiting to get in line.  It was impossible to tell where the line ended ... and we only had an hour to get Solveig on her flight.  Nic had parked the car and Solveig and I (& Maximus) were inside trying to figure things out.  I left her where we thought was a line - turned out to only to be people standing - and went to try to find someone who spoke English... After talking with 3 Japanese Airport personnel, I finally thought I would talk to someone who would understand me - and he DID, only he only spoke Japanese back to me... which didn't do a lot of good!  When I finally found Solveig again (there was barely enough room to walk) she said Nic was looking for me.  I found him and I let him take control over figuring things out, while I watched the kids.

Elora was wet - she was starting to leak through to her clothes and Colton was freaking out (Nic and him had an incident with the escalator - Colton wouldn't get on, but Nic had already gotten on with Elora so he was walking up the down stairs trying to get to Colton, who was freaking out and refusing to get on, until finally an Okinawan gentleman picked him up and put him on the stairs for Nic - which of course caused Colton to FREAK OUT, but at least they were headed in the right direction!)

...........

Solveig had about 15 minutes to get on her flight when Nic called me and said to take the kids down to security because they were checking her baggage and then would RUN there.  So down we trekked.  And we waited.  And waited. And waited.... She had less than 5 minutes before her plane was supposed to take off... and they come speed walking.  FINALLY!!

No time for goodbyes :(  Quick hugs and she went through security. With probably 3-4 minutes.  And she still had to get bussed to her terminal.  But somehow or another she made it.  I think they delayed the flight because of all the problems they were having with checking-in.  BUT Nic said he talked to 3 different personnel to keep getting them moved up to the front of the massive line.  There was an older couple who was nice and together we were trying to figure things out - they had been thinking they were in line for 3 hours (only to find out it wasn't really a line).  Of course, this nice lady also thought I was Solveig's MOM!!!! Really? I look old and Sovleig looks like a baby, haha!

Anyway, it was so sad to see Solveig go but I'm so glad she actually made her flight! It would have cost us over $2,000 to get her home if she had missed it!