Our flight was scheduled to leave Ethiopia just before midnight. Ethiopian Air is notorious for not being on time...and they lived up to their notoriety on our trip home. We left Ethiopia almost 40 minutes late...not fun when you have 3 tired children and a connecting flight in Brussels. M*l******m was a bit of a mess on the flight...he was totally exhausted and was not liking his first experience with needing to wear a seat belt. We got lots of looks from the people around us...yes...we were "that" family. Eventually all of the kids fell asleep and we made it to Brussels in one piece. Kenny and I were already a little worn out, but happy that we were not too much of a disturbance on the plane.
We arrived in Brussels with only 1 hour and 15 minutes to catch our next flight...we were a little concerned but figured it would work out. Well, we arrived in Brussels and knew we were in trouble when we landed in the middle of the landing area. We had to wait for EVERY person to get off the plane, then got onto a shuttle bus and eventually were taken to a building. By the time this happened we had about 45 minutes before our plane left! We got into the airport and were greeted by a HUGE security line...we thought there was no way would make the next flight. Surprisingly, the line moved fast (although M and I were searched). We got to our gate with 15 minutes to spare before our plane left...hahaha! We were now flying on Delta and they had much better customer service. Our seats were not together (because we booked the flights 5 days before we left and had to take what we could get) but some very kind people switched so we could be close together. The kind woman at the gate also gave us our boarding passes for our flight in Atlanta (this will become VERY important later).
After a nine hour flight, we arrived in Atlanta. We had 2 hours to go through customs and get T*n***e and M**l*****m's visas processed before our next flight. First, we got through the part were they checked the passports for me, Kenny, and X...that was easy. Next, we had to go to a special office where the visas for T and M were processed. God bless the guy who was working there...but he could not have moved any slower than he did. There were a few people in line ahead of us...and we quickly realized we were going to have another time crunch. After about 20 minutes, Kenny risked having things move even slower and asked the guy how much longer things would take...we had a flight in one hour. The guy was really nice, and tried to get our paperwork process "as quickly as he could" but by the time we were finished we had 30 minutes to catch our next flight...and we still had to clear customs. We went to the baggage area and discovered one of our bags was lost...the big bag that had all of the cool stuff we purchased in Ethiopia. We talked to an airport employee and they said we would have to make a claim when we got to Los Angles. We hurried off, without much time to really give it a second thought. Next we had to get to our gate, and to get there we had to board a tram that took us to the right terminal..more time lost. We arrived at the terminal with literally 15 minutes until our plane left. We headed to the security line...another long line. I knew we would not make our flight. There was an airport employee standing at the entrance to line and I asked her, "We have only had 15 minutes until our flight leaves, is there any way we will make it?" By God's grace, she ushered us through at took us to the front of a special quest line. We thought we just might make it. However, as it turns out, EVERY one of our kids carry-on bags we red-flagged and had to be searched individually (by a cranky airport employee)...YIKES! When we finished, Kenny picked up M and RAN to the gate...we only had 5 minutes! I gathered X, T and most of our carry-ons and did my best to follow behind. As we reached the gate, I see Kenny passionately talking to the person at the gate and pointing back at me, X, and T. He was telling them, "my wife and kids are coming!"...they wanted to leave us! We literally walked into the tunnel to board our plane and they closed the door. We were SO THANKFUL the woman in Brussels ushered us our boarding passes for Atlanta...if she had not done that, we would have missed this flight! God really took care of us on that one!!!
We arrived in LA at a little after 6:00pm. We were soooooooo thankful to be HOME! We were completely exhausted, but we could not wait to see our little F****! It was wonderful to come down the escalator and see our family and friends waiting to greet us....what a comforting sight. It was great to see how quickly F**** warmed up to T and T seemed to love that she had a little sister! It was so cute!!! We got the luggage that arrived and placed a claim for our lost piece of luggage (the airline ended up finding it...it had never left Brussels...and they delivered it to us the next day).
Walking through the front door of our house was SUCH a relief! We showed the kids their bedroom and the play room. Although they were tired, their smiles were amazing! Before we left for Ethiopia, we were trying to finish a remodel on our house. When we came into the house, we saw how hard my parents and aunt worked to finish the job and make the house nice for our return home! It was such a joy to show T and M their home!!! All of the kids were in bed and asleep by 9:00pm! A great end to a long journey!
