My light posting lately has been partly due to my laptop. Some glitch in the software has forced me to do a destructive rebuild — twice — in the last day. Destructive, meaning…I had to erase EVERYTHING. Thankfully I keep the bulk of my files on my big ‘puter. But still... inconvenient... irritating... grr...

Anyway, this weekend I thought I'd share my daughters' homecoming stories. This first one was from my first Ethiopian daughter who came home at the age of twenty months in 2004. On that trip I also had my then-thirteen year old daughter with me. We flew Lufthansa and had a good experience with their service.

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We arrived at the Addis airport around 7 in the evening for a flight out around 10 pm. The ticket counter lady was able to check all our luggage thru to Denver, so we would not need to get it in Frankfurt. A great relief. Though I had Tsion in the baby sling, I was still worried about the logistics of getting 4 heavy pieces of checked luggage from place to place, plus our 2 backpacks. We got to our gate with a good hour to spare. I changed Tsion´s diaper in a bathroom, and was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did they have toilet paper (it had been rumored there is usually none) they also had a nice little diaper-changing station just like in the US.

The plane flew out at nearly 10pm, and Tsion almost immediately went to sleep, and stayed asleep almost the whole 8 hours to Germany. Occasionally she woke and fussed groggily, but settled right back down with the bottle. My 13 year old and I slept a fair bit, but it was pretty crowded with Tsion in my lap the whole time, and of course I did NOT do much moving lest I waken her.

We arrived in Germany around 7 am German time, facing a 5 hour layover. Ugh. We spent at least an hour in the McDonald´s playland there, which was definitely helpful. The milkshakes there were also very refreshing. But you can only hang out at McDonald´s so long. That 5 hours seemed to last an eternity, and we knew we still had such a long trip.

Finally we were allowed back in the boarding area and eventually were on our way back to the US. Blessedly we had an empty seat between us, which gave Tsion at least a little room to bounce around between her big sister and me. And considering it was a 10 hour flight to Denver, she did wonderfully well. She napped, talked and smiled, played with toys and happily sampled a fair bit of airline food. Fussed a little bit too. I spent an hour or so near the end jiggling her in the back of the plane. But she did great. We tried to doze a bit when she did, but it was hard.

By the time we hit Denver, we were utterly whipped. We had been traveling 24 hours. And now came the nerve-wracking part--immigration and customs. Thankfully Tsion´s body clock was telling her it was night again. She slept slumped against me in the sling like a little wet noodle as we got thru immigration and retrieved our luggage from the carousel to go thru customs.

We must have given all ther right answers because they didn´t open one bag. Then we were happy to discover that the United Airlines luggage check-in had a rapid check station literally right around the corner, meaning we had to spend only a few minutes dragging all our luggage with us-- a total of a couple hundred feet. Very nice.

The layover before the flight to our home town was only 1-1/2 hours, but we got to our gate in plenty of time. As we sat there exhausted, with Tsion asleep on my chest, we struck up a conversation with a very nice older couple who turned out to live near us. The lady was named Muffy and was very interested in Tsion. We all were admiring a TCBY dessert that another lady had, which was topped with raspberries. It looked SOO good.

Suddenly the man got up, declaring he was going to get us all one. He came back with a yummy dessert for each of us, refusing money and declaring it was his treat. I was incredibly touched. We were so, so tired at that point in our journey that the kindness was ten times as meaningful. It felt in a way like they were our angels, restoring our souls for that last 2 hour flight home.

As it was getting close to boarding time, the pilot discovered some electrical problem on the plane. We wondered for awhile if the flight would be cancelled. But they were able to replace the part, and we flew out only half an hour or so behind schedule. once settled in, Tsion continued to sleep. My 13 year old was so exhausted that she felt nauseated. She drank a bit of ginger ale, then fell asleep with her head drooped down onto my shoulder. Poor kids. They had really been wrung through the mill.

Finally, finally, we touched down -- we were home!! Though exhausted, I was humming with all the lovely excitement I always feel when getting ready to introduce the newest family member to the rest of the family. Especially, especially her daddy! He was just going to love her!

And sure enough, he did. And everyone else did too. We had a full complement of siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents to greet us. They all agreed she was much more lovely in person than in pictures, though she remained fast asleep - - until we put her into her carseat in the van and I in my jetlagged state promptly shut her finger in the dumb thing. Poor kid. As soon as we released her hand, however, she quit crying and looked around in interest at the siblings she could see from her position in the van.

At home she seemed a little shell-shocked, but stayed in my lap and enjoyed seeing some of the familiar things as we pulled them out of the suitcases to show. Soon, it was off to bed. Finally, she was home. What a wonderful feeling to have the whole family together again!!