Well, we made it . . .

We're here, safe and sound in Japan, but first, let me tell you about our flight . . . Grandma Ferrante drove down to the airport with us and it's a good thing she did. I-275 was at a complete standstill at about 7 Mile Road, so we had to turn around and take Merriman down to the airport. The International flights are in the new terminal, so we had to find our way around that as well. What a great job they did on the new terminal! It's a really beautiful, brand new facility, with a lot of new shops and restaurants. We had about three hours until our flight left, so we headed to "Miss Donalds" for some chicken nuggets. Todd and Anthony took a walk around the airport and Anthony has his first experience on a 'moving sidewalk'. He mastered how to use them by the end of the three hours!
Once we boarded the plane; we were all set, mentally prepared for a 12 hour flight. Our plane, however, wasn't quite as ready, so we had to wait on the tarmack for about 1.5 hours while they fixed the #3 engine. Did I mention it was a 12 hour flight? Now it's turned into 13.5 hours on the plane, minimum. Try telling a 3 1/2 year old he'll have to sit still for that long and let me know how that works out for you! Fortunately Anthony had a lot of things to do on the plane. He even made the best of our aisle-mate, and kept him busy for awile too.
Just a quick note on the guy that sat with us on the plane. His name is Eric and he works for Nissan in Farmington Hills. He was travelling for work and this was his first trip to Japan. Once Anthony had learned his name, for about 10 minutes straight, he was "Eric . . . Eric . . .Eric . . .Eric . . . Eric . ..". I'm pretty sure he'll be changing his name when we gets home . . .
Anyway, apparently Eric was friends with one of the au pairs that the Stephen/Tara Grant family used over the years. He claims to have been interviewed by the cops in relation to the case, and while on the plane, he read the entire transcript of the Stephen Grant interview. Don't know if he's for real or not (I wonder why Todd calls me an ambulance chaser . . .), but at least it made for interesting conversation during our REALLY long flight.
Anthony finally fell asleep about 8 hours into the flight. If it wasn't that long, it sure felt like it. We all slept for a few hours and woke to a great breakfast of either scrambled eggs or pork fried rice. Yum. They announced only 1 hr 20 minutes until we land. NOW I'm getting excited, this plane ride was WAY too long. I'm not sure how to get back if we don't fly . . . we'll have to look into that.
Now for the most interesting part of the trip: When we landed in Tokyo, Deanna met us at the airport. I was glad to see her, but where was my brother? Why wasn't he there to meet us?!?!?! It seems that Michael had a nasty fall sometime during the night before and he landed face first on the bathroom floor (literally face first, you can actually see the remains of one of his teeth in the tile). He ended up with a broken jaw and a hugely swollen lip (he doesn't look really good right now, but it's great to be able to see him!!).
Since our plane was so late and Michael and Deanna spent most of the previous night in the emergency room, we all decided to keep it a low profile night and just go to bed. I'm glad we did, boy was I tired. Deanna says most people wake around 3:00 am due to the time difference. I'm SURE we'll be different, since we're so tired! Now if I can only get Anthony to sleep, we'll be OK.