I got dressed and made some coffee. I got my Bible and devotional guide and decided to "catch up" on the readings that I had missed. I was really not in the right frame of mind. I was mad that I wasn't getting as much sleep as possible before the trip. But then I got to Friday's reading. Totally refocused me. So I wasn't going to get the sleep I thought I would get. I just had to deal with it. The kids would need me to be calm and patient whether I slept or not. And I didn't have the luxury of being grumpy.
The alarm went off. John and I got everything ready. We got the kids up about 20 min before Andre arrived. We met him at the door, got everything in the car and headed off to the airport. It was a difficult drive just because we had to sit for 30 min. It allowed us to get sleepy again.
At the Kiev airport, we got our boarding passes, ate some breakfast (that we packed), went to the bathroom, and headed upstairs to passport control. THAT took longer than we thought it would, so we ended up being among the last people to board our flight. But we DID get on. Lena slept on that flight. Just 2-1/2 hours to Munich.
Once in Munich, we had to go through security twice, but at least we didn't change terminals. Once through the second security point, we had a passport check. This is where we had trouble. The attendant took our passports and proceeded to declare that we could not travel, because the kids' visas were expired. I just about lost it. Thankfully John stepped in. As the attendant was chastising us for traveling the day after the visas expired, John pointed out that the visas were ISSUED the day before. She disappeared, and another attendant approached and apologized for the delay and explained that the other attendant had mis-read the issue date as the expired date. Once that was cleared up, we barely made the flight to Newark.
This was an 8-1/2 hour flight. Hanna slept for about the first 2 hours (YES!!). I sat with her on the 2 seat side. John had Lena and Oleg in the 3 seat middle section. They did well - playing games on the video console, watching movies (I think), etc. I really don't remember. And we survived the flight.
In Newark, we had to go through customs and immigration before catching our last flight. The embassy in Kiev gave me a packet of documents for each child that I had to hand over. This is where the embassy staff said we "could" have a problem due to the mismatched pictures of Hanna. Fortunately, no problems. Would rather have gone through in Houston. While no one was actually rude, the attitude is different there. We made it through with enough time to get to the gate and call home.
The last flight, both Lena and Oleg slept. Oleg asked me to sit with him. That upset both Lena and Hanna, but I did it anyway. He and I took the 2 seat by the window. Lena was across the aisle, so we could hold hands from time to time. John took Hanna duty - for a while. Shortly after take-off Oleg was asleep with his head partially on my lap. Hanna ended up with me. Lena stretched out with John. We actually had to wake them up to land.
We got off the plane and headed for baggage claim. When we got there, Cliff, Emma, Vivian, and Grandma Johnson were there waiting for us with a big "Welcome Home" banner. The big kids ran to Cliff to give him hugs, then hugged everyone else. We got the bags, got them all in the car, and drove home. Hanna fell asleep on the way, so we decided to go home and make dinner. Fortunately, I had stocked the freezer with a few things for our return. Cliff had pulled out burgers and spaghetti sauce. Oleg really likes spaghetti, so that's what we did.
John went ahead and left for Austin, so dinner was just us Johnsons. We had a good evening.
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