Longest day of our lives

We have just completed one of the longest days of our lives. After choosing the newest member of United Airlines to complete the apparently complicated task of checking our bags and printing boarding passes, we boarded an airplane in Jacksonville, FL at 9:30 am on a flight bound for D.C. Brady was well behaved for the first hour of our trip (ice and 2 cups do wonders when in a tight space), however, the final 40 minutes he decided it was appropriate to scream. I'm not talking about a cry that lets us know he is dissappointed we put him on a small airplane, it was more like "I'm going to make you pay for making this terrible decision. I can't believe what terrible parents you are and I'm going to make sure that everyone in this plane and any other plane that may be close knows exactly how mad I am." The poor flight attendent was trying everything she could to make Brady happy, even resorting to asking him if he wanted to read her romance novel! Once we arrived in D.C. I picked up some lunch and Greg and Brady went to the gate to get the next set of boarding passes. The plane had already been boarded so we had to rush to find our seats and settle in for the long haul. Our seats were wonderful! There was enough leg room so Brady could sit on the floor and play. We had a wall directly in front of us, so we didn't have to worry about Brady bothering anyone. Brady was extremely well behaved on this flight! There were many people praying for our trip and we just figured that maybe they had their coffee and then prayed since our early flight was pretty darn bad! We had a sweet flight attendent assigned to our section and she went out of her way to make us comfortable. This flight lasted about 14 hours. Brady did not have a nap and finally fell asleep about 10 pm (GA time), so he only had about 4 hrs. of sleep the entire day! Even still, he was happy and easy to deal with the entire flight. Greg and I were starting to feel the effects of such a long day, but there was still a long way to go. Once arriving in Tokyo we made it through immigration and customs with a baby, stroller, car seat, 4 carry-ons, and 4 checked bags that had to claimed and then rechecked for the flight into Okinawa. By this point everything was beginning to be a big blur! The flight to Okinawa was another 3 hrs. After 1 step onto the plane Brady went CRAZY! He started screaming and nothing we did would make him stop. I could just imagine the thoughts of the poor people who just wanted to get a little sleep! Brady screamed through the time it took for everyone to board, the taxi to the takeoff, the takeoff, and until the seatbelt sign went off. Once again we had the best flight attendents. They made a toy to try to make Brady happy! I think in order to keep everyone's sanity, the attendents let us play in the kitchen area. Finally, with about 30 min. left in the flight Brady fell asleep! As we were leaving the airplane people were wishing us good luck and telling us how bad they felt for us! One of Greg's old cop buddies picked us up at the airport and we had another hour of driving before we finally made it to our room. We left Florida at 9:30 Monday morning and arrived in Okinawa at 12 am Wednesday morning. This experience can definitely be classified as the longest day of our lives!