We have made a terrible mistake! Our flight into LA and our flight out of LA to Shanghai are only about 45 minutes apart. This is normally (in my experience) more than enough time between domestic flights, but apparently not nearly enough time to get from a domestic flight to an international one. the recommended time is apparently
three hours!
Changing flights now will cost us more than 200 dollars per ticket. This isn't really an option for us, so we decided to call up the airlines and see what they suggested. Our first call to Delta was somewhat unsatisfactory: after waiting on hold for twenty minutes we were redirected to the Spanish help line, who promptly hung up on us. On our second try, however, we got into contact with an extremely helpful lady who told us about a another way out of this mess.
It's possible to change your ticket to an earlier flight on the day of your departure. The process goes something like this. First you call the airline the night before your flight to check for the availability of seats. Apparently early morning flights are usually pretty empty. If availability is good, you need to call again
no more than three hours before the flight departs and ask to be switched over. The Airline will switch you over and charge you fifty bucks per ticket. not too bad considering it would cost us 200 if we tried to change right now. There are three flights available on the 22nd that would get us to LA on time...I hope this all works out!
So, we decided to make a poster in order to keep motivated and to remind us of our goals. It also helps to keep us on track with what we need to do next, with a handy little "to-do" list. We are slowly going to be adding to it as we go. Putting on pictures of the passports once they arrive, checking off the to do list, etc. Because we spend the most time in the kitchen, we have put it front and center on the fridge. It's awesome :) 
