au revoir Poland! ;)

Wow so we did make it safely back to Aprémont with all five children and all 16 pieces of luggage and assorted pillows. :) I'm sorry to confess I did doubt God could get us through a time or two but in my human weakness I thought surely this is not going to happen. But it did!! To start with our bus to the airport was about fifteen minutes late arriving at the hotel to take us. This was okay I thought because we had plenty of cushion time once we arrived. We were leaving around 10 AM and our flight didn't leave until 2 PM and it was just under a 2 hour drive to the airport, no biggee right? Hah. We got there and the domestic terminal was on the FAR END of the airport and we had to walk all the way down only to find we had to go UP stairs to get to it. Where is the ADA when you need them?? :P Man oh man they'd have a hay day in Europe. We ended up unloading all the suitcases off the carts we had, carrying them up the stairs, and reloading onto new carts. Then we went to check in and it took FOREVER as it did last time to get it all done. Apparently they had trouble running Thomas's passport, like it didn't show up in their system which is ridiculous since he's already flown more than once with it. In the end they only checked him into the flight from Kraków to Warsaw and we would have to check him in again there. It was also an ordeal for them to try to find us all seats together. By the time all this was done we had just under an hour before our flight was supposed to board and we still had to eat lunch. The hotel had given us lunches to bring and eat so that was super nice and we enjoyed opening those up but as you can imagine with that many little guys it takes awhile to eat lunch, go to the potty and get ready to get on the plane. By now we are pushing 15 minutes til boarding and still have to go through security. As we are just about to head through the lady from the airline counter runs up and asks for our passports again because she has to do one more thing. When she comes back she says for us to hurry because they are boarding now! It is NOT an easy task to hurry five kids through security along with three laptops (those all have to be pulled out of bags you know), a stroller and cranky baby. I had been holding Audrey because she'd been fussy and Amy was still finishing up so we got everybody through but me and Charles and then Amy came back out and got Audrey. We finally got through all that and reassembled everything only to realize that this stupid tiny airport in Kraków is one that you have to ride a stupid bus to the plane. So then we have to load everyone onto the bus and hang on to kids so they don't fall over. We finally got everyone all on the plane and situated and Amy says "don't you just breathe a sigh of relief when we all get settled in on the plane??" Yeah. Definitely. Thomas asked to sit by me and we had a good time on our short flight. :) He is SO stinking CUTE!!!

The flight from Kraków to Warsaw is only like 30 minutes long which seems hardly worth all the effort to get on and off the plane. :P But it was what we had to do so we did it. When we got to Warsaw we only had ONE HOUR before our flight was to leave for Paris and we had to go through security AGAIN and get Thomas checked in! The security line was INSANE. They only had ONE ROW open in this airport and there were like a hundred people all waiting to get in. We weren't the only ones in a time crunch either as people kept running up to the front, some barging their way into the line ahead and others begging to be allowed as their flights were already boarding. The two big ones were a Chicago flight that was boarding right then and the Paris flight we were trying to get on which was in fifteen minutes by the time we got to the front. We finally made it through security once more and got to the gate to get Thomas checked in which took just about the rest of the spare time we had. Amy had hoped to get the kids to the bathroom before the flight but didn't find one close and our flight started boarding so we had to skip it. They were kind and allowed us to board first so we got everyone in place before the masses started pushing their way on. As soon as the plane got good and off the ground I went to sleep. I think I slept an hour, it was so good!! I would have loved more but shortly thereafter we began landing preparations. Charles and Amy kept asking me this week if I was exhausted yet after various things and I was able to answer honestly not yet but last night and tonight I AM.

The rest of the trip was not as interesting, just gathering all the suitcases and getting them to the car, then unloading everything at the house. I've got my stuff mostly unpacked and dirty clothes ready to be washed as I've just gone about two weeks since I had that opportunity last! Yeah it's about time. :P I'm pretty tired so I think I'm going to at least get my teeth brushed and whatnot. Love to all my peoples at home!!!