Heading to Texas

There were two routes to fly to Houston from Singapore because many international flights had already been cancelled.  The best choice was through Taipei and I happened to think that I should check the current travel advisories there.  At 8:30am, I realized that Taipei was closing its borders at midnight and there would be no more transiting through the airport.  By 9am, we had confirmation that we would be on the 1pm flight to Taipei to catch the connection to Houston, so we were given the ultimate expat challenge - pack up and get ready to leave the country at a moment's notice!  In 90 minutes, the kids and I had our stuff packed, fridge emptied, dishes washed, and taxi booked.  It was a little crazy but they were amazing helpers.

We arrived at a very different Changi airport from anything I've ever seen.

At the Eva desk, they knew immediately we were the last minute booking because there were only a handful of people on the flight.

The empty airport was shocking.  Even in the middle of the night, Changi is always bustling with people.  We found a quiet corner in the lounge to catch our breath, book an airbnb in Houston and a rental car on arrival.

Very thankful our flight was on time!

I love Asia so much.  If a mask is a good idea, then rain coats and full rain gear are even better!

Super thankful to get seats perfectly designed for social isolation!  With 18 hours to fly, we wanted all the space we could get.

Planes were grounded and parked all around the airport.  Again, I've never seen anything like this.  It brought tears to my eyes because I was so grateful to be heading home amidst global uncertainty.

Taipei was also a ghost town.

We disinfected a quiet corner to pass our layover hours.

We were so happy to land in Houston around 11pm on the same day that we woke up not expecting to leave Singapore!

Welcome to Houston!

Since we were the only flight arriving, things were incredibly efficient.  Immigration was barely 5 minutes and we walked into baggage claim to see that Ben's guitar was the very first piece of luggage off the plane and the rest of our bags were nearby.  We were the first people out of customs.

Service and food on the plane were very limited so we were all hungry when we left the airport around midnight and we were so happy to see that Whataburger was open.  Just what we needed!  I was surprised to see that Wal-Marts and all the other 24-hour stores were closed.

Our next surprise was that I forgot to get a screen shot of our airbnb door code and around 1am we were cruising through the Woodlands looking for free wifi because we didn't have US sim cards yet and my Jakarta sim wasn't working at all.  Thankfully we pulled into a McDonalds and found enough wifi to get into our house for the night.  We showered and crashed about 2:30am.  I was up by 5am because I was concerned about the grocery situation  and wanted to avoid as many people as possible.  At 7am, I got some essentials at Wal-Mart and picked up the breakfast of champions for two happy and tired boys.

Since it was spring break, we had no schedule or responsibilities.  We just had to try to get over the jetlag and relax at home.  It was wonderful to get to see the grandparents, but there were no hugs and we kept our distance in their driveways.  It was also great to discover that while the restaurant dining rooms were closed, most are doing curbside delivery and online payments so we were able to get our Tex-Mex fix without encountering people at all.

The spring weather here has been fantastic and we're able to get out every day for fresh air and exercise.  The walking trails are our friends right now for sure.

This is a different world than anything we've ever known.  We hate that Matt isn't here with us but he's completely holed up working and living in our house in Jakarta, safely away from the outside world, and our simple schedule means we can eat dinner/breakfast (for him) together every evening on facetime.  We're thankful for good internet to Zoom with friends.  People on the street are friendly.  Drivers are more patient.  Kids are leaving sweet notes on the sidewalk.  We're settling into our new normal and we're happy that the stress of uncertainty is gone.  School is closed for the rest of the 19-20 year so we can settle into this online life and make it work.