The Adventure home to the US

We have been home now a little more than 24 hours! I wanted to make sure and have the crazy trip home written down somewhere because she will hear about it the rest of her life! :-) We are having a good time together and I tear up every time I see her brothers love on her and take care of her. Riley really enjoys when she crawls over to him and smiles or giggles. He says "I think she already loves me and knows that I am her biggest brother." It is pure joy to my heart to see them together. Reed keeps asking her to "Use those feet and walk with me." He doesn't quite get that she doesn't walk yet but I am sure it will happen soon enough.

So actually getting home was a true feat! We were originally supposed to be home Saturday, December 19th- just in time to celebrate my 31st birthday. Michael kept teasing me saying that I would have a 31 hour, 31st b-day. :-) I hate to fly and really am not a sit still type of girl. I am always on the go and my breaking point for car travel is 5 hours. The flight from Russia is usually 15 hours! This trip however was almost 36 hours!!! Some of it was in a hotel, not much, but most of it was either in the airport or in the air. I did get to go to 3 countries for my bday, so I guess I should be thankful. We had 3 flights cancelled, spent the night in Frankfurt, had a brief hotel stay in a scary Russian hotel, and most memorable spent an hour in the German jail! Since Reagan was just a Russian citizen at that point, she wasn't allowed in Germany without a Visa. We had planned to go straight to the US so that we wouldn't have any issues, but the weather in the US and the fact that our Visas for Russia expired that day, we were forced us to go through Germany. We were able to get a One-Day Visa for her and had to stay at the hotel attached to the airport for the few hours that we were stuck there. Thankfully there was a market and we could get her more food since our baggage was lost. We had to be creative since we had a baby and no baggage or way of contacting people. We had an hour of Internet at the hotel so we made the necessary calls and tried to sleep for a short bit. We eventually got to board and since we had so many issues, we were upgraded to First Class for the rest of the travel back to Dallas. We all 3 ate the whole way home and got some rest on the plane. The chairs fully recline into a bed so Michael and I took turns sleeping and entertaining Reagan. She could not have been a better traveler! She smiled at everyone and was happy most of the trip. I think she is even a better traveler than I am! We stopped in Chicago for a very short layover and ran through Customs. Once she got her official stamp stating she was a citizen, we hugged and celebrated as we ran through the airport to catch the flight to DFW. We kept telling everyone that would listen that we had to get her home to meet her super special big brothers!

We finally landed late Sunday, December 20th. We were greeted with signs and balloons and the most important: Reed and Riley! The boys ran to us and hugged their sister. She cuddled right up to them and they loved her right back. We were blessed with some awesome friends that came to take pictures and capture the whole thing for us. We also had grandparents and good friends that have praying us through this adventure from the start. Of course our luggage was lost so we just got to leave and head for good Mexican food! :-)