From Ohio to Paris

Here we are with everything that we'd need for our three months of travel. We locked up our home, picked up our bags, and we ready to be on our way:

Then we got to the airport. Early, thank God.
We had booked our travel through Travelocity. I showed my confirmation code to the airline representative, and she looked in her computer and we were not listed as passengers on their flight. It took three hours to work out the problems, but she did a stellar job of helping us through our first (and largest) traveling problem. Travelocity, however, failed us miserably both on this flight as well as our return flights. (Friends had the same problem with Expedia). One of our first Sabbatical Learnings is that one should never book international travel through a travel site--always go directly through the airlines.

Here, the airline representative is attempting to convince Travelocity that they need to help us solve our problem. The boys keep entertained by weighing themselves and our bags on the baggage scale:
After an hour or so, I stayed with the airline representative and Shawn and the boys wandered through the airport, connecting with the art:

It worked out well in the end. Our airline representative booked us on better, more direct flights and it was smooth sailing to Paris. Yippee!