We're Home and...

We found out when we went to church this morning that our senior pastor is leaving in a few months. Seriously it seems like we can't go on vacation without something major happening at home! This happened when we went to Atlanta in 2006 as well. The pastor that we were closest to was fired while we were gone. At least this time it's not nasty circumstances, just the pastor feeling like it's time to move on.

Anyway, we got home last night at 7:30 after almost 36 hours of traveling. I was "hallucinating" in the car on the way home. Basically trying to stay awake for Brian and failing miserably, but having conversations with him in my head while sleeping which led to me saying some pretty random and silly things out loud. I guess that was helping him stay awake since he was laughing at me!

We left Saudi Arabia on Friday night at 1:45am, having arrived at the airport around 10 and having no major issues this time with security or anything. Thankfully Cory slept most of the way to Amsterdam on the floor in front of our seats.

Then started the craziness...

Apparently since we had a lame ticket (mmm, love those frequent flier tickets) that sent us on a commuter flight to Paris before switching from KLM to Air France we were considered "domestic" while flying inside Europe. This meant that we had to go through a special security in Amsterdam and the rest of our family couldn't go with us to our gate. But it was also a good thing we landed early since we didn't have any extra time and hadn't planned on this security thing.

Then Paris... oh, how I despise the new Charles De Gaulle airport. It looks like what I imagine a lunar life module would look like on the outside. Rounded with tons of windows. On the inside it's a nightmare. No staff anywhere when you get off the plane and the signage is either non-existent or unintelligible. We were lacking boarding passes for this last leg of our journey so didn't even know what gate we were supposed to go to and had no one to ask.

They did tell us a "wing" when we got off the plane so we headed in that direction, after standing in the wrong line for 15 minutes because everything funneled down to one small corridor. It turns out that due to our "domestic" flight we had to go to a different terminal entirely to catch our Paris to Seattle international flight. Except that the only way to get to that terminal was to leave the secured area.

So we had to check in again just as if we were coming in off the street. It's a really good thing I had Cory on my back as they passed us to the head of the ticketing line and the security line. And even with that they were already boarding our flight by the time we got the the gate. We never would have made it without those passes!

In the end we made it safe and sound.... except for my suitcase! They paged us in the Seattle baggage claim area to let us know that one of our suitcases was missing. We had to figure out which one by seeing which other two made it. Of course it was mine with a lot of the souvenirs in it. Sad!

This evening Brian called to see if he could find it since it hadn't been delivered today like they said it would be. It was supposed to be on a flight into our local airport this evening so I'm hoping it will be delivered tomorrow... but that also means I'm staying home until it gets here and I have other things I need to do as well. Drat!

I guess I can clean my house while I wait! And thank my parents for bringing down their camera cord this afternoon so I can get more pictures uploaded for you all!