The big move to Oman!

After a year of talking about moving to Oman, the day was finally here. Hallelejuah! We were officially homeless (we had closed on the house) and had been living in a hotel for the previous 3 weeks and were more than ready to move. We had our transportation arranged, something big enough to carry two big dog kennels, one cat kennel, 6 suitcases, 2 carry-on bags and Paul and I. Surely, things would go fine. Right? Why would I have thought that?

The plan seemed ok. We had to leave the hotel in the Galleria at 10:30am. Mother and Lupita had to rush to the hotel earlier that morning to drop off some paperwork that was delivered to Mom's at 10am (that we ultimately wound up not needing). We needed to go to the vet in Humble to pick up Henry's rabies tag, (we had been there 3 times in the past 3 weeks, you'd think we would have thought to do that earlier than the DAY we were leaving the country.) Then, we were to pick up the dogs at the boarding kennel. Finally we were scheduled to get to the airport by 12pm for our 3:30pm departure.

Well, everything is down in the hotel lobby... 2 empty dog kennels and 6 suitcases. We saved packing Henry up until last. Well, we can't find Henry. We look everywhere in the hotel room, it is large but there are only so many places he could hide. I was afraid that he had escaped the room when the porter came up to get the bags. We are looking everywhere. It is impossible for him to get under the bed (the obvious place). After a 30 minute search, Paul lifts the mattress off the bed and the damn cat has wedged himself between the head of the mattress and the wall. He was very close to being left behind. It is now 11:15. We had been told to get to the airport 4 hours ahead of time because of our enterouge (2 dogs and 1 cat). This is obviously not possible now. But I am letting it go.

From then on things went smoothly. We were one of the first few people in line. Other people were there with their pets too. It took us 45 minutes to check in everything and everybody. Shortly after this the line got longer and longer.

Plane ride was fairly uneventful. We actually got to see Charlie, Henry and Mabel being lifted onto the airplane in Frankfurt. They seemed as content as could be, at least the dogs. Henry was doing his best to ignore everything, sitting himself in the far back of his kennel. I have posted some pics of this.