On Our Way to Ukraine

Billy and Scheri and . . . feeding coins from our money jar into the sorting machine at the bank

Teresa sporting her passport pouch

Joy at the Boise airport. James met some very special people at the airport as well with whom we ate lunch prior to going our separate ways: James with them for a couple weeks and Kevin, Teresa and Joy on to Ukraine

Kevin--probably paying the bill for lunch

Awaiting our flight to San Francisco

Teresa and Kevin ON BOARD

Kevin and Teresa in the San Francisco airport

Looking down toward our gate area--we ended up spending a long time down there while our flight continued to be delayed

Kevin waiting patiently for our flight to be called--note the San Francisco sweat-shirt

Unbeknownst to Kevin, Teresa arrayed him in her sunglasses

Our flight was cancelled due to bird strike. ALL of us are outside the terminal awaiting shuttles to the Hyatt
Thank God our court appointment was no longer scheduled for June 1

From this vantage point we can actually see what the outside of the airport looks like

Fancy-Schmancy dining area at the Hyatt. Of course it is closed since it is now very early a.m.

Here are our passports and our meal vouchers

Lovely view of San Francisco Bay out our Hotel window

Eating breakfast--only $2 out-of-pocket

There was even a live jazz band--very pleasant, easy-to-listen-to music

Suddenly got a call to return to the airport right away for flight to Amsterdam; awaiting shuttle

I thought it was cool that the guy transporting us to the airport (to adopt Steven) was named Steven

Back inside the San Francisco airport

Kevin trying to get us tickets to anywhere. The flight to Amsterdam was over-booked. Now we are heading to London.

Poor Teresa has been such a good sport but she is fighting tears here. I am trying to use this Internet access to let the people in Kiev know of our newest new schedule

I asked Teresa and Kevin to make faces in front of this wall of masks

A unique saxophone display

On a bus to another part of the airport--in London???

Teresa and Kevin trying to finish their drinks prior to going through security

Calzones in London

***************************************************************************************

Oh boy, has this ever been a trip! Thank you for all of your prayers and your patience. We are supposed to have Internet in our apartment--well, we did have a computer, keyboard, etc but the mouse did not make connection with anything. After trying a different mouse and an adaptor, the people from the apartment have taken the computer out of the apt for repairs. It was supposed to be done yesterday. :) Anyway, it has been killing me not to be able to let everyone know we are fine.

Our adventure began on Saturday. Our good friend Carol from church took Billy, Scheri and Caleb to the Western Days celebration over in Twin Falls. I spoke with various babysitters trying to give everyone the needed info about schedules, medications, permissions and medical info in case of emergency, temporary guardianship, etc. The problem was that though my suitcase was full of stuff and surrounded by stuff, no actual clothing had yet been put into it!! And the rest of the problem was that we needed to be on our way by noon! OK, so clothes did appear in the suitcase (thanks Mom) but I neglected to re-read the very good packing list I had made and forgot a few important items such as jacket, Bible, Febreze, toothbrush--and no books to read.

We got to the Boise airport about 2:20 where we met up with the family that is keeping James for a week or two. We ate a yummy chicken strips and onion rings dinner (fish and chips for Kevin), talked with Pauline and Andrew (who are taking care of our van), and proceeded through our first of MANY security checks for the day.

The real fun began when we got to San Francisco. We didn't eat anywhere because we knew two meals would be served on the long Lufthansa flight to Munich. So we nibbled on the trail mix in my carry-on, walked around, sat around. I was FREEZING so we all ended up buying hoodie sweatshirts for which I have thanked God many times. We found out our 9:00 pm flight was delayed due to a bird strike to the engine. Then delayed some more. Then delayed some more. We weren't really complaining though because I'd much rather have this problem dealt with on land than on sea . . . if you know what I mean. Finally, the captain came out and said the investigation into the safety of the plane was going to take at least 2 more hours, and most everyone had missed their connecting flights anyway so the airlines was putting us up at the Hyatt Hotel. We just needed to go get our baggage and proceed to the hotel shuttle area. You can well imagine just how many people were standing out there waiting for that shuttle. We were on the very last load. I was very proud of Teresa for being such a good sport and not whining out there. I think it was about 2:30 am by the time we were settled in our room (a little late for dinner) Thankfully we had jerky, granola bars, trail mix to munch on. We were told our flight would be leaving 9:00 pm on Sunday.

Sunday morning we had a yummy breakfast for only $2 out-of-pocket and planned to go check out the Bay which was just down from our window, visit a little store to grab some things I'd forgotten, just kind of mosey around. Instead we got a phone call saying we were booked on KLM to Amsterdam and needed to head to the airport basically now. So we threw everything back in our suitcases and headed out the door.

Stood in the long line at KLM desk only to find out that though we were booked for the flight, no tickets had been issued and the gate was closing in 15 minutes. Kevin hurried to deal with tickets while Teresa and I watched the ticket desk close. Instead we got tickets on British Airways to London!!!

That flight went well--we had the individual TV screens which kept Teresa busy. I must have slept quite a bit because the flight seemed to go fairly quickly.

We made it to London, got some British pounds and postcards, ate calzones, got our boarding passes all straightened out to go on to Munich and Kiev where we arrived at 10:40 pm. We sailed through