Stuck in the Delhi Airport

Here's the kids zonked out at 3:30 am when we finally arrived home to our house in Delhi, instead of America as we had hoped. Long story short is that we couldn't get on our plane because the weather was too hot for them to fly a full plane. We tried all sorts of options on for size in various lines and with various airlines from 8:45 pm to 2:45 am, but in the end we got tickets for the next night and went home to rest. We went home and slept till late morning, and then Rich took the kids swimming while I cleaned up and organized everything I hadn't had enough time to do before I thought we were leaving. Then we took a big nap and I went and got a manicure and pedicure (my fourth one in lifetime, and they've all been in India!) and then we tried again. Here's the boys in Target shortly after we finally arrived in America. Grandma took us to Target and we hardly knew what to do with ourselves with all those choices and carts and places to run around.

If you ever get stuck in the Delhi International Airport in the middle of the night, take a look at the big poster of the yoga lady doing yoga poses with the mountains as a backdrop (I intend to see some mountains in India someday soon . . .) and try to think calm thoughts. And then be sure that you bring some hilarious, enthusiastic, focused kids along to try out these yoga poses. Totally not my idea, but in around the second hour of standing in line past bedtime in the airport (around the time "I'm flying on an airplane to America and I'm gonna bring . . ." got boring), I turned around to see them trying out this pose. It took me a little while to figure out what they were doing!

Poor Graham was weirded out by the whole thing. Amazingly, he stayed awake almost the whole time while we stood in line, moved from line to line, talked to a ton of people who blew us off, got a flight through London and then couldn't get on because we didn't have some form that certified that I was crazy enough to fly alone with three small children! Mommy did more than her fair share of yelling, but by the end of the night, it was pretty hilarious, even to me.

Here's Isaac gallantly pulling the luggage cart loaded with three suitcases, three car seats, and three carry-on bags. By the end of the night around 2:30 am when we finally got tickets for the next night and headed home, he said, "Why don't things ever turn out the way we plan?"

Here's some of the 70 or so people who weren't able to board the flight to America because it was too hot to get everyone up and have enough fuel to get there. There were some very sad people who couldn't make their Disney vacations and get to work as planned. Next time I will listen to my husband and be the first one in line when I fly to America again!

Off We Go!!

We had a hard time saying goodbye to our temporary home at Grandma and Grandpa Cutler's house, but we were all excited to go!

Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Kimmy were all there to help us check in our 15 bags, 3 car seats, and one stroller. Rich had weighed each one with a bathroom scale and stuffed things in until they were 50 lbs. each. The woman at the counter was endlessly patient and helpful with us. After much to-do, we said goodbye and went through security with our 9 carry-on bags, only to realize we forgot the other stroller! Once we got on the plane, we had to wait an hour on the ground for clearance to go to Chicago, but luckily we had our bag of tricks to keep us busy!

Aunt Kimmy was a super-hero in helping us get ready to go. She made several trips to stores for odds and ends, and then got several fun pictures of family developed for us to take along to help us remember. We will sure miss her while she's on her mission!

Here's us in the Dallas airport super-excited to go!