That last long flight on the way home was when we really had to work to come up with entertainment. Fortunately I had lots of little things to pull out at various times. Some things didn't work as well as others. My two year old kept accidentally shining her flashlight in the eyes of the young man sitting next to her. Oops, ditch that. And the little toy cell phones with candy inside...well, the candy was good, but the repetitive ringing, not so much. Ditch those too.

The very best toy turned out to be the beading kits I made up in ziplocks. The older girls strung beads on strings, and added real clasps to the ends to make fun necklaces. The two year old loved stringing her pony beads on pipe cleaners. Once on the pipe cleaner, the beads staying put even when she dropped it. I used a snack cup with a smallish opening for the beads, which also minimized spilling.

Other popular items included fruit snacks, chapstick, and cocoa puffs (again in snack cups). The movie Shrek 3, showing on the airplane TV was also a welcome diversion. Our two year old watched almost the entire thing. Thankfully also they all also did plenty of sleeping. By this point we'd been traveling a long time, and they were all really tired.

When it was time to get off the plane in Denver, John and I were running on adrenaline. We had two and a half hours to get through immigration, pick up our luggage, get through customs, recheck the bags, and get to our gate for our final hop home.

Going through immigration we got into the line for US citizens. We got to the front of that line quickly, then were led over to a side room where we would need to be interviewed more extensively by another immigration officer. As we waited, we watched one officer speaking very brusquely and impatiently with several different immigrants. Thankfully we got a different person who seemed to be having a better day and treated us very kindly. That interview lasted only about 5 minutes. However, the wait to be seen had been a good half an hour, so we were very glad to finally be sent on our way.

Our luggage was some of the last remaining in the pick-up area. We gathered it up and headed for the nearby customs inspection area. There I had a moment of anxiety as they opened my bag of Ethiopian spices, some of which looked a bit like a certain green (and illegal) weed. But they simply asked me what it was (thyme) and sent us on our way with a comment that it sure smelled good.

The United Airlines baggage re-check is only a few hundred feet from customs-- a good thing, because we were very glad to drop off all that luggage. Then it was on through one more security checkpoint (dump out that water again!) and then onto a tram that got us to our gate with 10 minutes to spare before boarding began. That was just enough time to call the kids at home to let them know we were on time, and run across the hall to buy a fruit salad and cheese to nibble on that last flight.

We dozed our way through those last couple hours. By that time we were all so whipped that we could fall asleep in seconds. Before we landed, however, I found enough energy to run a brush through my hair and put on some fresh lipstick. That didn't get rid of the bags under my eyes, but at least I didn't look totally beat.

The two year old slept her way off the plane and into the stroller, but the bigger girls seemd to get a little second wind when we got off that last plane. As we walked down the long hall to where our family waited, we all smiled and smiled. I hoped that the big crowd of family would not be too terribly overwhelming to the girls.

As I had expected, the welcoming committee included siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends-- a couple dozen people at least. The 9 year old hung back shyly with me, but the 11 year old squared her shoulders and proceeded to go down the line of people shaking hands like a born politician, bless her heart, and graciously accepted hugs as well. it was really neat to see the kids all greeting their new siblings. The kids at home had made a big banner for us, and the girls smiled to see their names on the banner.



Eventually we made our way downstairs to get our luggage (every piece arrived-- hooray!) Then it was time to head out to our van, where every seat of our 12 passenger van was now full. It was a feeling of awesome responsibility and amazing privilege to see all those faces looking forward towards John and me. God has been so very gracious to us. By His power we will give our very best to the precious children whom He has given us.



The Rest of the Story
Sunday and Monday | Tuesday | Tuesday(later) | Wednesday | Thursday (earlier) | Thursday (later) | Friday morning | Friday afternoon | Saturday morning | Saturday afternoon | Journey home(part 1) | Journey Home (part 2)