The Move to Belgium begins...
11 Jun 06-- We leave San Antonio and begin to make our way to the East Coast via Alabama so we can visit with our friends Paul and Carolyn Vaccarro and their children, Hunter and Hannah.

 
15 Jun 06-- After spending some relaxing time with parents at the farm, we had the chance to also visit with the Ingolds and Tilleys.  We got to meet baby Jackson and Lexie got to play with cousin Shelby--finally a little girl to play with!
 
16 Jun 06--CRISIS!  Lexie pulled her cast off!  Really.  She pulled it off of her arm.  Anyhow, after a visit to the emergency room in Roxboro and a trip to the orthopedist this morning, Lexie has a beautiful new blue cast.  She is NOT amused.

17 Jun 06--We say goodbye to Durham NC...
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18 Jun 06--Happy Father's Day!! Off to the beach!!  After a late arrival last night, we finally got to go to the beach!!!  Although Lexie's first beach experieince was a little restricted because of the cast.  Asa and Crockett played in the watger and sand.  A great time was had by all.

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20 Jun 06--Today Clay and the kids went to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher.  It is a really neat place with lots of exhibits of both sea and land animals.  There are habitats for land and sea as well as a huge shark tank with a live Q&A session while the guide is swimming with the sharks.

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21 Jun 06-- Goodbye North Carolina...after a somewhat hectic morning, we headed down Hwy 17 through Shalotte and Myrtle Beach to Charleston.  We went by the car drop off place to make sure everything was ready to go for drop-off tomrrow morning, checked in to the hotel, and then headed out to a big final US dinner at Sticky Fingers--a ribs and barbeque place.  Everyone was stuffed and ready to relax once we got back to the hotel.

22 Jun 06--The car is turned in, the bags are packed (well, mostly...), and we're waiting to catch the airport shuttle in about 45 minutes.  After turning in the cats for processing (sounds horrible, doesn't it?), we'll wait for our 2:20 flight to Dulles, then after a short layover, on to Belgium!  Should be fun since this is a first flight for the boys and the first time that we (Clay and Johnna) have ever flown at the same time--weird huh?

22 Jun 06--OK, we THOUGHT we were leaving...United misinformed us in the worst way about the proper preparations for pet travel, and neglected to mention during any of my phone conversations that the contracted carrier for the Charleston to DC leg of the flight did not even accept pets.  SO, after much gnashing of teeth, and seven hours in the checkin area of the Charleston airport, we took a shuttle back to a hotel (a different one) to prepare for the flight to Chicago and a--no kidding--4 day wait to fly after a very early morning start (0445).
 
23 Jun 06--We departed for Chicago on schedule.  After arriving, we spent some quality time with the customer service folks from United and they flight changed our outbound flight to Saturday (next day).  After a little more quality time, they agreed to pay for our hotel stay for that evening at the OHare Airport Hilton, directly connected to the airport itself by tunnels.  It was a nice place (although we would not have paid the expense out of our oun pockets).  We had a nice lunch and we actually didn't mind paying $14 for a burger--that's how good it was.  We both had massages--Clay's was OK, but Johnna was fortunate enough to have a young man named Sashko from Bulgaria provide a much needed deep tissue massage.  After a quick nap, we had a very expesive dinner in piano bar with waitresses in fishnets and velvet leotards...Clay was enthralled but the boys fell asleep.

24 Jun 06--All went as planned, except the 45 minutes we spent circling southwester Pennsylvania which almost made us miss our connection (see the onscreen tracking I took a picture of...I didn't think anyone would actually believe it after the trip we've had...)  However, we made it in the nick of time and took off for Bruxelles. (By the way, the boys were amazed that there was a dinosaur skeleton in OHare airport).

25 Jun 06--We arrived in Bruxelles, found the shuttle driver swent to pick us up, rode to Mons, and then checked into the hotel (see photo below of the Hayes family and all of our stuff waiting for the driver).  After fighting exhaustion until 7:30pm so we could adjust to the time change more easily, we all went to bed.