Finally we got on our plane! Yay!!! We are going home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our flight left at 1:35am on Thursday! We flew to Frankfurt first. The flight was fine… we mostly slept! I hardly remember the flight! Alex and Anthony were fine too… I am pretty sure they slept too… I do remember waking up and the flight attendant asked me if it was ok if she gave Alex some water. We were in the center isle Alex was 2 seats in, Jerry sat on the isle side and I sat in the middle… then I laid Anthony on the other isle seat and put pillows on the edge and held onto him with my hand! It was a pretty good arrangement. We actually had an extra seat that no one sat in so we were able to spread out a little. We actually made a stop in Astana! We did not know we had that stop. Go figure!! People got on, but no one got off. We were glad the extra seat in our row stayed empty!
It was on this flight that I must have lost my zippered pouch that I carried all of our traveling documents in, like our itinerary, and our ticket receipts from all the flights and the last of our calling cards… I never saw it the rest of the trip… and I realized it way too late… we would have missed our next flight if I had gone back to look for it! Frankfurt is the most messed up airport right now! Oh my! We walked and walked and walked! The board said our flight was at c1 or something… well c1 was not really anywhere! So we walked to a bunch of other gates looking for a person with United! Finally we found some Lufthansa people and they looked up and it was actually supposed to be gate c9!!! Grrrrr….. we were so exhausted! Who knows, maybe I lost my pouch in there!!! Anyways we were just glad we made it after all of that!
The next flight was soooo long! 8.5 hours! We had the very last row on the plane! That worked out pretty good actually… even though we had hoped for bulk head. The united planes are a lot smaller! We put the carseat in and Alex couldn’t even fit in it! His knees were up by his ears, because they didn’t fit between the carseat and the seat in front of him… so Anthony sat in the carseat for most of this flight! When he got scream-y and tired I just cover the carseat with a blanket and he fell asleep, then I uncovered his face, I was paranoid of him not being able to breathe or something… mostly I think he just got hot under there though… It worked! Alex hardly slept on this flight he was very busy! Jerry and I were so tired though! We both dozed off quite a few times! Alex was pretty good though most of the time! Jerry let him watch a few Mickey Mouse videos that he had on the computer.
When we finally got to Chicago, we had to go through passport control and customs… it took about an hour in the passport line… Alex got pretty naughty in that line… and then he had to go potty!!!! Oh no!!! I thought he wouldn’t make it! I thought he was definitely going to be wetting his pants! I was not looking forward t that one! I was starting to get mad that it was taking so long! They had 2 people working for several hundred people in line!!!! But they had just one other person working the line for the people in wheelchairs… there are not that many of those!!!! Good grief!!! The non citizen line was even moving faster than our line!!! So annoying!!! We finally made it and then we picked up our luggage, went through customs, and dropped our bags off again and then…. We had to go tot eh ticketing counter, because Almaty never gave jerry a boarding pass for the last flight! It was a mess!!! So we had to leave the security and then go back through with all of our computers and camera equipment and all! It was a disaster! Come to think of it, we had to go through security in Frankfurt as well… They should know we are safe by now… plus we have been FBI checked at least 3 times! (for the dossiers, you know) We were so frazzled by the time we got on the next flight, we were sweating and so tired!!!! But next stop was Kalamazoo!!! WooHooo!!! We begged them to be very very very careful with our paintings… they wouldn’t let us bring it on to the plane, we had to check them with any other large carry-ons. We relaxed a bit, but the flight is only about 30 minutes in the air, so as soon as we got up in the air we cleaned the boys up and changed them out of their pajamas and into some nice, cute clothes for coming home!
When we landed the pilot met us outside the plane with our paintings, he was assuring that they were safe! We thought that was sweet of him, since they are so important to us! We hurried through the airport, and got to the revolving door and we could see all of our friends and family on the other side… Alex ran in the doors the wrong way!!!!! The alarm went off and the doors shut down! And we stood on the other side! Just looking through at everyone! We had to wait for a security guy to come over and unlock the door and put in a code… then Alex started to run in again the wrong way! We all screamed “no!!!!!! not that way!!!!” it was kind of funny… but embarrassing at the time!!! We got through and everyone was there, they had balloons and they were all excited to see Alex and Anthony! At least 3 of the people coming to meet us got behind a huge 8 car pile up on the interstate coming and never did make it! Mostly Bonnie! She had my truck and Anthony’s carseat and the keys to get in the house!!! Ha! :) so we barrowed a seat from Janelle, who didn’t bring her kids with her this time, and we had Alex seat already and we went home in 2 separate cars with Jerry’s parents and Heather! As we got closer to home we called Bonnie again, and she had been able to sneak around on the interstate and head toward home! So we waited about 15-20 minutes for her to get here and then we were able to go in OUR house!!!! Oh my! It was sooo nice to be home!!! Ruth, Jerry’s mom had made us dinner and Heather had also brought us a dish and so we had dinner together. Then we just chatted a while and the kids played… Anthony and Dylan looked at each other on the floor and reached toward one another some! We took some pictures. Then our luggage came! I forgot to mention that 3 out of 4 bags did not get to Kalamazoo when we did… we were so glad that they came that night though!
Soon everyone left and we all went pretty much straight to bed! We were soooo tired! Alex slept like a champ! Anthony screamed like crazy at 1, 4, 5, 6 and then we got up and got him up… Alex slept through it all! They are in the same room! Can you believe that!? I am not used to waking up to blood curdling screams in the night! Goodness! Makes me about have a heart attack! I hope that goes away soon! Oh my!
We're home!!!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
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