Wednesday we had a nice leisurely breakfast and then sat around in the hotel room until lunch time. Rachael reorganized our luggage and stuff to make it easier to get ready for our trip home on Thursday. For lunch, we walked to the Starlite Diner. The boys had chicken nuggets with potato smiles, Rachael had French onion soup, steamed broccoli (which she shared with the boys) and ice tea while Chris had a club sandwich, french fries and a chocolate shake (he graciously shared a sip with Rachael). Not quite like at home, but good none the less. As we started to walk back to the hotel after lunch, it started snowing (with some sleet/rain mixed in). It isn't very far distance wise, but it seemed twice as long with the wind and snow mix coming down rather hard and fast.
We finally figured out that morning that the TV in the bedroom had sound on the channels that actually had some cartoons on it so the boys watched cartoons during nap time. We watched them in the living room.
We got the passports back around 6:30 that night and had dinner in the hotel restaurant (Radio City Bar and Kitchen). Really good food!!
We put the boys to bed and then relaxed for a bit before going to bed ourselves.
5:30 came way to early Thursday morning. Our ride picked us up in the lobby at 6:30 and we got to the airport around 7:30. The first thing we did was pack the jackets, hats & gloves as they would NOT be needed when we landed in Houston. The boys did good going through the security checks (including the scanner thing).
Our flight left Moscow at 10:40 (their time) and landed in Houston at 2:00 (our time). The actual flight time was listed at 11 hours, 45 minutes. It seemed much longer. The boys only slept for about 2 of the hours and we didn't sleep at all. There was space next to Chris so David sat by him and Michael stayed by Rachael. David was much better than Michael on the plane. Michael liked playing with the seat belt when he didn't have to have it on, however the last hour (seemed much longer) on the plane we had turbulence before landing and he had to wear the seat belt. Nothing could calm him down. Two of the stewardesses tried to help distract him, but it didn't work. Once we finally landed and stopped at the gate, he calmed down almost immediately (of course that is when the seat belt was undone). Longest hour ever.
Chris' mom picked us up at the airport. The plane landed around 2:00 and we finally made it outside around 3:30. When we went through Customs, we were pulled into a 'secondary room' so that they could process the boys' visas and paperwork (those all important sealed envelopes we got from the US Embassy in Moscow - see previous posts to find out about them). We were told that it could take up to an hour to get processed, but it only took about 30 minutes. Finding our luggage after that was easy, there wasn't much left on the belt (once we found out which belt it was). Thankfully there wasn't a line waiting to hand over the arrival card and we pretty much just walked up and through.
The boys spent the ride home looking out the windows and trying to figure out what they saw. We enjoyed talking with Lela (nice to talk with someone else that spoke American as a first language) on the ride home and catching up on news of family.
Now that we are home, we will post pictures of the boys, our trip, and more information about how they are doing (and how we are doing as well).
Thanks for all the prayers and support you have given. We really appreciate it all!
Here is our 'first family picture' taken in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square:
SO exciting!! I love your first family picture! :)
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