Sea-Tac Airport, Erika and Malachi, Going Back into the Past

After all of the prep work on the bedroom they were going to stay in, the day finally arrived.  I got up around 8 with mom and we did some cleaning.  We should have waited until we got home to do it.  Like they would care if the kitchen floor was mopped.  I know they were interested in one thing and one thing only:  sleep.  They got on the plane in Germany around 1 am our time, 10 am their time.   They would be on the plane for about 10 hours without any layovers.  They would arrive at noon our time the same day they left Germany.  So their Monday was going to be over 24 hours long even though between the two airports it seemed like only two hours if you didn't include the 9 hour change in time zone. They exclaimed they went back into the past and when they would go home that they would be going back to the future.  Haha.

Mom and I got to the airport around 11:45 and found a parking spot inside the garage.  We have never been to the international section of Sea-Tac so we had a learning moment ahead of us.  Their itinerary did not tell us what gate they would be coming out of so we had to do some guessing.  We knew where their luggage was going to be.  So we sat there at the table waiting.  Their plane was going to be 15 minutes late.  While we sat there, a concourse worker walked by and handed us each candy canes and told us happy holidays.  That was really sweet of him.  Mom got up and walked around and I hung out at the table so no one would steal it.  I had some caffeine and some gold fish crackers for a snack.

Then I saw where all the arrivals were coming from.  Between baggage claim 6 and 7.  We gathered our stuff and headed over with everyone else waiting for someone to get off of planes.  There were many people holding signs with the arrivals names on them.  Lots of Asian people.  We were there for maybe fifteen minutes and then they came off the escalator.  Erika hugged mom and then me and Malachi hugged me and then mom.  I told him it was nice to meet him.  I finally met my brother in law after a year of being married to my sister.  He seemed pretty pleasant the first time I saw him.  He was very mellow and calm.  It could of been from lack of sleep on the 10 hour airplane ride.

We were very surprised when we didn't have to wait for their luggage.  They only brought backpacks with them.  I guess Germany and the American stores don't really have clothes that they like so they saved some money to take a clothes shopping spree.  We walked back to the parking garage and got our car, paid our money and we were off towards home.  They wanted some lunch so we stopped at The Commons (formerly the Sea-Tac Mall) for some food and some shopping.  We ate at the Mongolian Grill and shopped at Target for a couple of hours.  They wanted to buy some sweaters and long sleeved t-shirts.  We got back on the freeway and it was slow!  Ahhh!  We got home around 5 and they lasted two hours before going to bed for the night.