We left for the airport shortly after 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, with all of our stuff loaded into our neighbour's suburban and all of our people loaded into our minivan. Our neighbour's son purchased our minivan, so it made good sense (and was so helpful) to have them drive us to the airport and take possession of our vehicle there.6 people. 18 checked bags. 6 carry-on bags. 6 backpacks.We were a little early for check-in, but it made better sense to stand around the airport and wait than to be waiting in traffic. If we had waited any later to leave our house that would have been the alternative, rush hour being what it is. Being able to watch planes take off and land and everything in between, as well as having access to restrooms and drinking fountains was much better than being stuck in the car. We did have to take turns standing by the luggage, but we had enough people to switch off on this task that it didn't feel too onerous for anyone.We were first in line to check in, which served us well only in that we didn't have to move our bags up as the line progressed...because we were already at the front. Unfortunately, while I meticulously packed and weighed and repacked and reweighed all of our checked bags I was less careful about our carry-on luggage and they have a strict weight limit on those apparently. So I spent a good long while readjusting everything throughout our carry-on so that each suitcase weighed no more than 11 kg. This was accomplished by having everyone don the sweaters we'd packed, stuffing a few things in underweight checked bags, and redistributing heavy and light items more equitably in our suitcases.In the end I got all 6 checked bags to weigh 11 kg precisely (according to their scales) and they allowed us to check in.By that time they'd checked in everyone who had been standing in line behind us, which was good because it took about an hour to check all of our bags! I suppose that's only ~2 minutes per suitcase, but still...it was a rather frantic process for everyone, I think.But the staff were so nice about it! And so patient!I had neglected to sign the boys' passports, so they patiently passed me a pen and had me sign them at the counter (I had signed the girls' passports before our Canada trip and then just...forgot to sign the boys').They were furious that our travel agency had put our family across two separate reservations (not furious at us, but furious for us). "Why did they do that?!" the lady asked me."I'm not really sure," I said. "I think it might be because on our second leg my daughter and I are seated in economy...""Why did they do that?!" she nearly shrieked. "This must be a mistake.""We just figured they ran out of room in business so put a couple of us in economy...""That makes no sense at all!" she said. "Your ticket says business but you are seated in economy? Why?!"She spent some time checking our passports and tapping away while still frantically printing out luggage tags and weighing bags. She finally handed us our tickets (we went for paper just because...we have so many kids without devices and they often want each person holding their ticket so eTickets wouldn't work so well...even though you just keep flipping through...it is just so many tickets) and we were on our way. Only when we were getting ready to board in Turkey did we realize that she had magically re-seated us and now our whole family was together in business. It was quite the nice surprise to find that out (shortly before boarding).*****A few hours later...We touched down in Doha at around 1:30 AM on Saturday morning, having literally flown over Friday in its entirety. When we left our house I told Phoebe to say, "Goodbye, house!" and she did, quite happily.When our plane took off I told Phoebe to say, "Goodbye, Georgia!" and she did, quite happily.When our plane landed in Qatar I told Phoebe to say, "Hello, new home!" and she did, quite happily. And then she turned to me with big, wet puppy-dog eyes. Her lower lip started quivering and she blurted out, "I just...I just...suddenly feel like I'm going to miss our old home!"And with that she started sobbing. After a good little snuggle (once the seatbelt sign was turned off) she was good to go again, excited for the next part of our adventure.Getting through border patrol was...fairly straight-forward.Collecting our luggage was an absolute breeze. Our suitcases all came off the conveyor belt together. Andrew, Benjamin, and I pulled them off and wheeled them over to where I had left Zoë with Alexander and Phoebe. Then Zoë left Alexander in charge (?!) and ran off to grab some luggage carts for us (which was good thinking, even if I was alarmed to find her not with the kids when I was coming over with more luggage...and the carts weren't that far away...and everyone was fine).We loaded up five carts with luggage and had everyone push a big ol' cart, except for Phoebe, who pushed one single carry-on bag.I didn't get a good picture of her doing this in Doha (because I had to get behind my own cart), but here she is bustling through the airport in Istanbul:She loved being in charge of a suitcase. Often, though, one of the bigger people in our party would end up pulling along two carry-ons through the airport because it was tough for Alexander and Phoebe to navigate all the escalators and things with a suitcase (and simply needed to be less burdened if we wanted to get anywhere quickly). But they were great helpers when they were helping!Getting through customs was an adventure, but eventually the sheer chaos of our traveling circus our charm won them over and they decided we weren't the security threat they thought we might be (long story short: one of our bags or a couple of our bags were "tagged" with issues, so someone in our party "beeped" when we went through customs and we were pulled aside for extra searching (but not all of us) and they wanted to know which one of our suitcases had computer cords in it so they could check them and Phoebe was twirling her suitcase in circles and Alexander and I were ushered out because we were clear and maybe Phoebe was supposed to come with us or maybe she wasn't but she stayed with Andrew and I had the passports but Andrew needed his and Zoë and Benjamin weren't sure if they were supposed to be in the extra check area or whether it was just Andrew and one of our luggage tags fell off but we didn't know which bag so we had to check all of them and...anyway...after involving approximately eight customs officers and calling in the boss-guy they decided it would be best for everyone involved if we just went on our way...and that is probably true).We had three vehicles pick us up at the airport—two cars for people and one big van for our luggage.The ride to the hotel was as smooth as could be. Our bags were taken upstairs (to the fortieth floor!) for us.We had the kids in bed by 3:30 and were in bed ourselves before 5:00 (sad to note the sun was already rising on the day). We woke up at 9:00 and got the kids ready to head to brunch at some new friends, who wanted to help us through our jet lag—a home cooked meal, several little playmates, one big dog, a room full of kittens, and good conversation really did help us through the morning. After returning to the hotel, Andrew and I went and got Qatar numbers for our phones and picked up some lunch-y foods for a midafternoon meal. Then we worked on unpacking a few things. I eventually took a nap, but it was a restrained nap.Somehow no one else took a nap! When I woke up everyone was talking with Grandpa and Darla. And then we got ready to head out for dinner around 7:00. The mall is connected to our hotel, so we just went to the food court there. Phoebe scarfed down her food and then ran off to play at the little yellow submarine playground nearby:And then we went to Carrefour (also in the mall) to pick up some breakfast-y stuff for tomorrow.Malls are life here. It's too hot to be outside so families hang out in malls. We picked out a big Jordan Melon (which I guess is simply a cantaloupe, or close to a cantaloupe) and Andrew went to have it weighed (which you must do prior to going to the checkout counter or you will be chided by the cashier) and while we were waiting for him to get through the line, Phoebe asked if she could have some apples. They felt rather expensive when I looked at the price, but then I divided the price by three and it felt a bit better, though still rather expensive, but then I remembered that it was per kilo rather than per pound so I divided the price in half and...it's about the same as we pay in the states for apples, so I told her we could go ahead and get some (I definitely said no to strawberries because no amount of mathing was going to make that price feel anything other than astronomical). I had hoped we could bag some up before Andrew got through the line at the weighing counter but we were too slow. So instead we sent Zoë up to have the apples weighed. She was in line behind a woman with a lot of produce to weigh, but the man behind the counter interrupted his weighing of that lady's produce, grabbed Zoë's bag to weigh and printed out a sticker for her, and then started up with the former lady's produce again. It was very kind of him to let Zoë slip through like that.Here she is, having braved the produce weighing counter:We had wanted to use the pool before bedtime, so quickly changed into our swim suits and hit the deck shortly before 9:00 (somehow the kids were all still awake and thriving) but, alas, the pool closed at 8:00 (I had it in my head that it was 10:00...but that's the spa, not the pool). We will try again in the morning.Instead we got into our jammies and called Rachel and Miriam. Phoebe went to bed after a short visit (and fell asleep so fast!) while the rest of us went out into the living room to visit longer. We still can hardly believe we're here but I'm sure it will feel realer after we get a good night's rest!(posted at 11:40 pm; our computers are having as hard a time as we are believing that we are here and not in Georgia and my computer is thus currently insisting that it is only 4:40 pm)