***Notice - I wrote this the Monday after we came home, but saved it and we went to the beach for a week. I finalized it today, that's why it's taken so long for me to get to the end of our trip. Thanks for being patient!***
We all finally fell asleep by midnight only to wake up at 4:15am (9pm ET the night before) Saturday to get our kids up, take out the garbage, and bring all our bags down to the curb for the taxi ride to the airport for our 6:20am flight. The first taxi was on time, but the second one was late. The driver said the second one would be arriving in 6 minutes so whoever is going with him, get in and we'll go. We told him we did not want to leave without everyone together. He seemed in a hurry to get us dropped off but we weren't leaving anyone behind. Who knows what kind of drama would ensue if we were split up and had trouble re-connecting had something happened. Fortunately, the second taxi arrived (about 15 minutes after the original estimate) and the 3 boys and Annie piled into it and we were off.
We arrived at the airport 4 minutes later, just kidding, and we went over to the kiosk to print our boarding passes. It was taking FOREVER so we went over to the lady to print our passes for us. She asked if we checked in, and I said I did the night before online. She said we did not check in. I love it when people ask you questions when they already know the answer. Yes, we are dumb. Sorry we don't know how to use the computer to check in. You win.
She handed us our boarding passes after talking more about us not being checked in and off we went to our gate. On our way to the gate, Scott & I picked up a coffee and the kids had orange juice. I hadn't had any coffee pretty much the entire trip (I'm a coffee snob and only wanted DD hazelnut) so I was really enjoying some hot hazelnut coffee, even though it wasn't my brand. We didn't wait very long til we loaded up on the first of three planes and settled in for a 2 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany. Emma, Jack and Andris were sitting together, Leah and I, and Annie & Scott.
T.M.I. ALERT!!!
The flight was pretty much uneventful with the exception of the coffee working it's way through me, if you know what I mean, and of course this had to happen as the drink cart is going by only to block the lower class, excuse me, economy toilets. I bee-lined it to the first class one just in time. As I made my way back to my seat past the elite of the flight, I received a few questioning looks. Yep, I'm returning to behind the curtain, people.
We arrived in Germany and had a 4 hour layover. We found a place to eat and settled in for a little bit. Everyone was getting cranky and the sleep deprivation was starting to get to everyone. Well, mainly Scott and Annie. :( We figured we would just hang out at our gate, so we gathered our things and worked our way over to the sign to see where our gate was and couldn't find it. We asked an official airport person and they gave us difficult directions. We finally figured out our way and started walking. A nice man with an extended golf cart drove us to the other side where we needed to go. Whew. That would have taken us forever! We enter the main area, find our gate and sit down. We have 1 hour and 10 minutes to wait.
We were not able to have our boarding passes printed for this next flight to Dulles in DC, so we had to wait for an attendant to come to the gate so we could have them printed out. This man, who we thought was going to help us, was so rude. He was short with his answers and acting like we were wasting his time, even though that was his job. After we went through the "did someone ask you to hold a bomb and bring it on the plane with you" questions, Scott got in line to have the passes printed. We finally had them and only had 20 minutes left to kill. We ate "soft" pretzels, irritated one another, said mean things and "apologized" all the while Scott and I were acting like we had our act together. This is going to be a long plane ride.
And yes, it was. That little plane was never going fast enough on the screen, the 1 child movie was never playing when the girls wanted to watch it, food came when they were sleeping, they didn't like it when it did come, and kept asking when the flight was going to be over. Sigh. Breathe in breathe out.
We landed in Dulles and it just gets better. We all walk like cattle down a long, long, long corridor to the Customs and Immigration section. We are one of the first ones in line and go up to an agent to have our passports stamped. He gets to Andris' and asks us if we filled out an I-94 for him. Uh, no. Well, we just have to go all the way to the back wall and fill one out, then come back for Andris' Visa. As I am filling out the form, Leah screams and as we look to see what was wrong, SHE PEES ALL OVER THE FLOOR AND ALL OVER HER DRESS! RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THESE PEOPLE GETTING IN LINE! Poor thing starts crying and is embarrassed. I'm guessing she had to really go and couldn't hold it in. We go to the bathroom, change clothes and now she's crying and not stopping. She's exhausted. Everyone is. We leave the wet spot on the carpet, go through a short cut line and back to the guy we talked with and he stamped the Visa and off we went. (Yes, we left it. Don't judge. You talk to a government agent about a pee spot and see how far you get!)
After leaving Customs, we walk towards the security section to have our luggage checked yet again and we hear the speakers overhead say "A fire alarm has been pulled. The authorities are investigating. A fire alarm has been pulled. The authorities are investigating." Over and over again. No one seems to care, much less notice, so maybe this is a regular occurrence. Who knows? We wind our way through the roped walkways and put our bags on the conveyor belts and proceed to take off our shoes to go through the metal detector. A security agent gives Emma a hard time because she took off her shoes when only adults need to, so she should put hers back on. As she's putting them back on, the same agent tells her that she needs to hurry up and go through the detector. Jeez. She's a child. Give her a break.
Anyway, we finally get through that hurdle and continue on into the airport. Then, we came to an escalator. Oh boy! We love escalators! This is a good thing. We went up the escalator, walked 30 feet and went down, up then down, up then down. Who designed this airport? We had to take a subway to another part of the airport, but first, an escalator. We hopped off the subway and what do you know? An escalator! Time to go down. As we approached the next escalator (I'm getting tired of writing that word), Annie trips over her own feet. And screams bloody murder. This is her trademark. She screams like she's getting her arm ripped off. At everything. And this is no exception. After picking her up, we go down another escalator only to have Jack turn to look back at us and since this is a shorter one, he tries to jump over the end piece but trips and bites it into the carpet in front of a ton of people. Naturally, I laugh. What? It's funny! Don't fall around me, I laugh.
He stands up and holds his arm and yells "Stop laughing!" and keeps walking. I bite my lip and we all continue walking and then we see those walking conveyor belt thingys. Oh goody! Another fun toy to ride! Everyone starts running, Annie included. Man! There are 3 in a row! Life is good. As the kids get off the 3rd one, Annie and Leah are still running and now it's up hill. (Yes, we are still in the airport). BAM! Annie trips again and bangs her forehead smack on the tile floor. She's screaming bloody murder again, but she's really hurt this time. I didn't laugh because the head hitting the ground was awful. After a minute or two, we continue on. Jack comes really close to the side wall posts because he's not paying attention and I yelled to him to watch out. No more than 30 seconds later, Leah falls and scrapes her knee and palms. Now Scott is carrying two kids, and we continue. Jack helps Scott by taking his rolling luggage and is looking back at us like "look at me!" and BAM! runs right into the side wall post. He hit the side of his face full on because he was running and starts to cry. After we console him, we start going again. Jack looks back at us, and yes BAM! runs into another side post. Now I'm irritated. "Watch where you're going!" Man alive! He gets all upset at me and screams "stop talking to me!" and continues walking faster. Thankfully, there aren't anymore wall posts.
We get to our 3rd and final gate and find out everyone is sitting by themselves except 2 of us. Everyone is so happy, it was the best flight. Although, Jack did get locked in the bathroom and the flight attendant felt so bad she gave him 2 dollars. :) (He was locked in the bathroom on the way to Latvia too but no one knew he went so we didn't hear him yelling for us and finally made his way out. Nice parenting, huh?)
We landed in Charlotte and we were renewed! A handful of families met us there and it was so nice to see them! Andris had a proper welcome home; he was so excited! We took the shuttle to the van and went home. We were in bed by 10pm. Exhausted.
The next day we were so blessed to be able to join our church in the baptisms of 6 people in Lake Norman. What a cool thing to show Andris and be able to start sharing more of the Gospel with him. We ate, laughed, talked, and swam with our friends and it felt great. What a great end to our trip.
Welcome home, Andris.
