Home

We made it home today. We were able to spend about an hour and a half with N after court Wednesday, then Nastya took us back to the hotel where I got on-line until our 24-hour internet card ran out. C slept a lot in the lobby, but I stayed awake. After about 5-6 hours living in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel in Samara, we caught a late flight to Moscow, where Zhanna picked us up and took us to our hotel. There is a one hour time difference between Samara and Moscow, so we landed not long after taking off, clock-wise. We checked in at midnight and checked out at 3:30 am for our 5:45 am flight. It almost wasn't worth it to go to the hotel at all, but we wanted too shower and just be horizontal for a few hours before the long upright journey home.

American Airlines didn't have a Wednesday Moscow-Chicago flight, so we went through Vienna and Frankfurt on Austrian Airlines and then picked up with America in Frankfurt for a direct to DFW. Loooooooong day. I slept in Nastya's car on the way to the airport, on the Samara-Moscow flight, not much at the hotel (irrational fear of over-sleeping), on the two Austrian Airlines flights, a doze a little on the Frankfurt to DFW leg. I've decided these 18-24 hour journeys are cruel and unusual punishment. Not once, but three times round trip. Now there are some families in some regions that are having to do FOUR trips for their children. Insane.

I was over the last flight about 2.5 hours into it when I woke up from a nap and saw that we still had 7 or so hours left on the plane. My feet swelled up like balloons on this flight. They are still swollen 9 hours after we landed, but it is going down. I've never noticed it this bad before, but then I usually wear socks and this time I did not. I got up and walked and stood and worked my legs several times....maybe 5 or six on that last flight. It was a toughie.

I sacked out immediately upon reaching home, and C went into the office (he slept on the last flight) and now he is home with food. I will upload more video later.

Thanks for all the warm wishes here and on Facebook and via e-mail. We love reading them!

And my spell check now works. It didn't in Russia...one time it was working in Russian and told me every word was spelled wrong! so y'all should have a better time reading my posts now. My typing is still as bad as it ever was.

P.S. fixed the third video below to public access