Heading Home

We arrived home about 7:00 tonight -- about 48 hours after we left Uralsk. We're very, very tired, still feeling very sad but also glad to be home. Lisa met us at the airport with roses & the biggest hugs ..........

Thank you to Ginger & Nancy for making sure my house was spotless -- you guys are too kind! Thank you too to those who took care of our lawn --- it looks beautiful - we are very lucky people!

Our trip home couldn't be uneventful -- what would we have had to tell you? We left Uralsk late -- Yulia kept asking us if we were sure we wanted to leave. She said it wouldn't be too late until we stepped on the plane. Words can't explain the feeling when the plane pulled away from the airport -- I hoped that a child would magically become available or perhaps Vika would change her mind until that moment when I knew we were on our way home without "our child." A sad flight to Almaty.

More sadness when we arrived in Almaty and had to say goodbye to Mike, Debbie, Shanichell & Lucia -- they were required to stay in Almaty until they finished with the processing of paperwork. They hope to be heading back to Utah this weekend.

We waited in the Almaty aiport for our 7:20 flight to Amsterdam -- or so we thought. At about 5:30 a.m. the security officers around us started shouting and pointing -- we had no idea what they were saying -- suddenly everyone around us got up and headed back through passport control & through the gates to the doors. We started to follow ........ wondering what was happening -- one security officer came up to us and we asked if he knew English -- he pointed and said "get out." We kept going and going and going. Before we knew it the police arrived, a firetruck and the military. We stood about 1/2 mile from the airport watching with everyone else -- we had no idea what was happening but it didn't look good. No one spoke English around us .......

After 2-1/2 hours we were allowed back inside. The crowds of people ran to the doors -- we happened to be closer to the doors so we got there quickly. We didn't know it was a huge mistake -- the crowds pushed and pushed -- 2 officers stood just inside the doors allowing only a few people into the aiport at a time. This was scarier than being evacuated -- it was easy to see how people get crushed in these situations. Hailee and I were lucky because a gentleman protected us a bit -- he put his luggage behind Hailee -- I blocked the other side of her and somehow we made it through. Jack was right behind us in the beginning but he had the laptop and a carry on luggage and found that the crowds just kept pushing in and made it difficult to get through even for him.

After getting back in the airport we were required to start the whole registration process over again. About an hour later we were finally back to the gate to await our flight which was now postponed to 9:30 a.m. We finally learned from a stewardess on our flight that a bomb threat had been called to the airport. This in turn caused us to miss our flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. We have to say that KLM/Northwest was amazing -- they had us rebooked to Minneapolis and also booked to Milwaukee from there. The staff was so kind & helpful -- they even managed to get our luggage on the changed flight -- this was done with only a 1/2 hour of time between our arrival in Amsterdam and our new flight out.

We were just a little over an hour late getting in which wasn't bad considering how our return had started.

Hailee has already showered and headed to bed. Jack & I will be heading there shortly -- have a bit of sleep to catch up on. Yawn!