We are home!
Wow does it feel good to be back in your own home!!!
It was a very eventful trip home.
We took off from Hong Kong at 11:30 am on March 2nd. There were 2 other families from our group on our flight and one family that we saw at the China Hotel that was with another agency.
Robbie fell asleep at take off and slept for about an hour. He did really good on the plane. We had a row with an extra seat in the middle and this made all the difference in the world. We had many poopy diapers on the plane but we managed ok. The plane had an issue with it's sound system and only half the plane could get the audio for the movie. This affected our seats and we could only get one music station on our headsets and it was an 80's station. I think we were slap happy at that point and did lots of laughing at what was being played. Since the audio is controlled on your arm rest, this is also where the reading lights are controlled as well. So we had no lights. This in turn made them keep the bright cabinet lighting on for the whole flight!! I had a window seat so the bright lights were blaring down on me, and Robbie, so needless to say we got very little sleep. I think Robbie only slept for about 4 hours of the whole 14 hour flight!!!
United did give us a card to go online and redeem a "goodwill" choice for the inconvenience but I have yet to go on and find out what they are offering to us. I am sure it's not much.
We finally arrived in Chicago at 11:20 am on March 2nd. We made it through immigration and customs pretty fast. We found out that the flight we were scheduled to take at 5:30 pm had been canceled so they booked us on the flight to leave at 2:30 pm. At this point we were so happy to just be getting on an earlier flight home it was awesome.
Till we got to the gate... We got a quick snack and got Robbie to take a bit of a nap. Soon they were saying that the plane was going to be delayed coming in so that was going to delay our take off. They pushed us back to a 4:30 take off. Ok not so bad, until they changed us to another gate and told us there was lightening in the area and they shut down the airport a couple of times for about 15 minutes each. This delayed our flight even more. Finally the plane arrived and they said it would be really quick to get everyone off and get us loaded on after they did the safety check. The flight crew was ready and waiting so we were getting ready to board...and they found an issue and had to call in maintenance.
Wonderful!
Pretty soon they said they needed to go and get a part so we would have to wait. Finally at just before 6 pm they canceled our flight!! We were not happy about that!! At this point we had been traveling for over 24 hours! Andy my family was already at the airport waiting for us to come in. They told us we would have to go to United customer service to be re-ticketed. They had canceled a lot of flights at this point and the line was very long. While we were waiting in line Derek was calling rental car places to see if that was an option for us. After waiting in line for an hour we finally go to the desk. There was noting direct to CWA. Their options for us were to fly to Minneapolis and then wait on standby for a flight to CWA or we could fly to Appleton later in the day on Saturday...NOT! Well we didn't have our luggage and we only had limited supplies for Robbie so Derek told the guy that wasn't going to work for us and so we went to the Avis rent a car where Derek had a car on hold for us. It's only a 5 hour drive from Chicago to home.
On our way to the rental car we were talking to a woman who was supposed to be on our flight and found our that she could only get a flight to Appleton the next day and was going to miss a funeral that she was flying to her sisters to attend. Turns out her sister only lives 15 miles from us so she hopped in the car and rode along.
Robbie was not to happy about his first car ride in a car seat, and it was an infant bucket type to boot. Since he was so tired he gave in and slept once we got going on the road. It was snowing but the highways were pretty clear. Derek is a good driver so I was not worried about it and he had our extra passenger to keep him awake, although he was so upset at this point there was no way he was going to sleep.
We stopped at a Taco Bell as we had been craving this our entire trip. We left the airport at 8:15 pm and pulled into our driveway just before 1 am. It felt so good to be home!!!
Our wonderful friends had a huge sign hanging in our yard that said "Welcome Home Dombeck's" Mom and Makenna were staying at our house and Mom got up when we pulled in the yard and met us at the door.
Turns out our wonderful friends had done more than hang a sign in our yard. We were welcomed home to new countertops and sink in our kitchen!!!!! So unexpected.
I literally stood in the kitchen with my mouth hanging open. I couldn't believe it!! It looks so awesome!! A Huge Thank You to Jerry and Carrie for that one!!!
Makenna was asleep in the living room as she wanted to wait for us to get home. She woke up and we were finally a family of 4!! We stayed up till about 3 am then headed to bed. Derek was still wound up so he didn't sleep too much. Makenna woke up at 8am and couldn't wait for her brother to wake up so we finally got up at 9:30 after a few visits to the bedroom from her.
Derek then went to bed at 10am and slept till 6 pm.
I think we are starting to get back on track with things. Robbie is having some sleep issues and is up every couple hours or so. He has been up 3 times tonight in the past 6 hours since he went to sleep. Hopefully he will get on track and start to sleep all night.
We want to extend a huge THANK YOU!!! to all our amazing family and friends for all your prayers, love and support you have given us on this journey to bring our son home!!
Now for Chapter 2 as we start our lives as a family of 4.
(Sorry I don't have any pictures, I will try to get some up in the next few days)
A Real First Birthday Cake!
"I Love Cake!"
Silly kids!
