On Wednesday night we got the boys ready for bed and finished our packing…not like we had much to do since we had not luggage. We went to sleep at about 10pm and Kelly and I both woke up at midnight (6pm Louisville time). We were so excited that were finally bringing our babies home that we could not sleep another minute.

At about 2:30am our message light started blinking on the telephone. Kelly called the front desk and they said our luggage had arrived at the DMO airport in Moscow. We told them we would pick it up in a few hours and to please hold it for us….How nice of them to get us our luggage just in time for us to recheck it on our departure flight.

Jane picked us up at 4:15am and took us to the DMO airport in Moscow. Kelly and Jane located the lost and found department at the airport and were able to get our luggage. We proceeded to the check in counters and of course there was an issue. By the time everything was straightened out we ran through all the security check points and was escorted to our gate. By the time we sat in our seats we had 3 minutes to spare before takeoff. Mind you we had been to the airport about 2 ½ hours early.

As our plane pulled away from the gate they discovered a problem with an engine. They tried to fix it but decided it was not fixable and took us back to the terminal. Since we were traveling with babies they let us hang out in the business lounge. They were bringing a plane from Frankfurt big enough to combine 2 scheduled flights to Frankfurt. Ours and another flight that was leaving at a later time. The boys were such troopers hanging out, playing and napping in the lounge for 9 hours. Finally, the attendants had a lot of people leave the lounge and proceed to the new gate to get their boarding passes and board the plane. They kept telling us to wait. It was really worrying us that they would forget about us and we would miss the flight…Yes, that is right. We have no faith left in the people that work for Lufthansa/United. FINALLY, they said we could proceed down. When we got to the gate there were about 20 of us needing seats on the flight and with the way the Lufthansa people were acting I didn’t think there would be enough seats for us all. Sasha started having a tantruming meltdown and Kelly was trying to get him quiet. I told him to let him scream and cry and then maybe we could get a seat faster. I went ahead and had a meltdown with Sasha. I started crying and could not stop. Then a crew member in a neon vest pointed at us and said, “You, come with me.” He walked us down the ramp and directed us to our seats. I cried until we were in our seats and settled.

When we arrived in Frankfurt I sat with the boys while Kelly tried to get us seats on a connecting flight. By this time I was so exhausted and I was hoping they would give us a hotel for the night. I knew there was no way I could handle two babies on an eight hour flight to Chicago. I needed sleep. After Kelly was at the counter for about an hour we indeed did get a hotel and a connecting flight in the morning. Only one minor problem. The boys were Russian citizens on Russian passports with no visas to stay in Germany. We had to go to the police station in the transit area and get emergency visas so we could take the boys past passport control and stay the night outside of the transit area. The officer at the counter was being such a jerk I had a second meltdown for the day. While Kelly was trying to discuss with him what we needed I was holding the boys and just crying. I was so exhausted and all I could think about was the movie The Terminal where Tom Hanks’ character is stuck in the transit area of an airport.

After another hour in the police office the boys were issued one day visas and we left for our hotel. We had dinner and put the boys to bed. They were soooo tired and cranky. We were also so exhausted because by this time we had been up for 24 hours and we had only made it to Frankfurt Germany.

Friday morning we woke up and made our Chicago flight with plenty of time to spare. We got to sit in the bulkhead seats and it worked out great. We had a bassinet that hooked to the wall that the boys took naps in and there was plenty of room on the floor for them to sit and play.

We made our Louisville connections with no problems and arrived in Louisville at 5:50pm. I about started crying and I have never been so happy to be home in all my life.

From the time we woke up on Moscow and could not go back to sleep to the time we landed in Louisville it had been 48 hours of traveling. Normally, this trips is between 20-24 hours. How did we get so lucky?