Flying Home

I have been a terrible blogger. Sorry!!!

It's because I've been catching up with family and friends in person though! We're back in America!

Here's a rundown of our journey home to America. 

We left India on December 3rd along with one of our teammates, Jessie. She was a lifesaver helping us with the kids on the flights home! We flew on Qatar Airways, and overall I was very happy with them! The stewardesses looooooved Layla (who doesn't) so she got lots of ice cream :) I was about 26 weeks pregnant at the time, and although I was definitely uncomfortable (esp on the 15 hour flight) it wasn't complete misery. I definitely got up and walked around a lot more than I typically do on flights. Still, I was REALLY happy when it was over.

 Gearing up for the first flight...Our first flight to Doha, Qatar didn't have the individual video screens in the seats....not cool for a 5 hour flight with young kids! Thankfully, it was the middle of the night, so Landon and Layla slept a decent amount, and then we had a phone full of games and the iPad for them to play with.

 Watching movies. Thank goodness for the built in movie screens on our 15 hour flight from Doha to Chicago! 

Again, the kids slept a decent amount, and considering they were stuck in a seat on an airplane for 15 hours solid, they did really well not melting down or freaking out. 

 As our plane was descending to land in Chicago, we hit a fair amount of turbulence, which unfortunately made both of the kids upset to their stomachs, which unfortunately resulted in BOTH of them throwing up in final five minutes of the flight. Layla barely threw up; I was able to catch most of it in my hand, but Landon had just downed a whole glass of juice, and the whole thing came back up like a volcano. Thankfully, it was just watery juice, and thankfully, it was in the last 5 minutes of the flight. But yuck. Hence the change of clothes in the below picture in the Chicago airport:

Our flight into Chicago was running behind + we had to go through customs + we had to pick up our 8 bags (plus Jessie's 2) + we had to recheck said bags + we had a short layover = we missed our flight to Kansas City. I cried. Thankfully, they had another flight leaving just 2 hours later, so we were able to get on that flight and still made it home to our families that night. Thank goodness! I think I would have melted down completely if we had to spend the night in Chicago after being so anxious to see our families! With our extra time in the airport (really we only had about an hour and a half by the time we got our bags checked and checked in), we ate McDonald's hamburgers and walked around to look at all the Christmas decorations - that made Landon and Layla SO excited!

We eventually made it to KC with ALL of our luggage, except our 2 umbrella strollers that were lost somewhere along the way. It was such a thrill to see our families waiting there for us, and so surreal to be back in America. It was weird driving home to Kyle's parents' house, in our minivan, on the right side of the road, with wide open spaces all around. And semi-trucks everywhere...I had forgotten about semis! 

I don't have any pictures on my phone from our reunion in the airport with our families, because everyone else has them on their phones, but it was so special! The cold weather was definitely a shock...I walked out of the airport terminal to the car carrying Layla (who threw a FIT in the airport about having to put on a jacket), and she looked at me confused and concerned and said, "It's too hot, Mom!" Ha ha, she didn't even know the word for cold, but she knew it didn't feel right! She now knows that it's  "so cold." :)

So that was our journey home! Next...December.