God's Butterfly Kisses

Honestly, I don't recall those 2 days at all waiting to leave Semey. I do remember driving past the street that the baby house was on when we were driving to the airport for the last time. I remember crying and thinking, I will never be this close to her again.

We boarded the plane and this was the worse flight in my entire life from Semey to Astana. We were on a very small plane. Thomas and I were the only Americans. The air was not working. I got so hot that I couldn't breath. I came so close to getting up and going to the cockpit. I thought I was going to pass out or die from the heat and I just couldn't breath. We finally made it to Astana, I thought I was going to have to climb over all those people just to get a breath of fresh air!

Then the driver and Sonia picked us up from the airport and brought us back to the same hotel where this entire journey started, The Hotel Grand Park Esil. On the way, we passed the President of Kazakhstan on his way to the airport. Our driver and Sonia were so busy looking at all the limosines and hoopla that we almost rear ended the car in front of us going 65 miles an hour. Remember, the driver speaks and understands no Enlgish, so I just started screaming! He understood that and we were able to experienced another moment that God had his arms around us....we were safe.

Exhausted, we had to spend 24 hours in Astana. Well, at least we knew of a decent pizza place to eat! Again, I don't recall much of the time spent here.

The next thing I remember is being in Frankfurt, eating at an "American" like restaurant! Yeah, food! However, Thomas and I did each gain about 10 pounds so it wasn't like we were going to waste away.

I barely remember the flight from Frankfurt to Detroit. Except that we were in first class, with everyone speaking English and decent food (even though it was airplane food).

We arrived in Detroit and someone had hacked the computer system at the airport or the entire US (can't remember) so we were stuck trying to get out of customs FOREVER! We made it, and were able to get on an earlier flight to Rochester just so we could see Kalista and Jager. They had no idea what was going on yet. We had asked everyone not to say anything as we wanted to tell them ourselves.

When we arrived at Rochester airport, I lost Thomas and couldn't help myself so I walked to see the kids. Oh JOY! I had my children in my arms! I still didn't know where Thomas was so now I was getting irratated! Long story short, he had to check his computer last minute and it didn't make the flight so he was dealing with that. Finally, he walks in and the kids jumped in his arms!


We did tell the children, they were saddened by the news. Jager, of course, is to young to understand. Kalista took the news well, but it was hard on all of us. We still have our moments to this day.

So I ended up staying in Rochester with the kids for another week just to unwind and Thomas flew back to Atlanta to go to work.