Hi Everyone--
We're FINALLY back in Athens!!!!!!! Although I heard very kind comments about the conference, it was an absolute blur, made even more so by our struggles to adjust to the new time zone and massive jet lag. In fact, this post marks the very first time that I have even touched a computer since leaving Guanghzou. We juggled the conference, parenting, and sleep deprivation to the best of our ability, but it left no time for anything else.
We finally got home late on Sunday evening. Praise God that we made it!!! We had a "direct" flight from St. Louis to Columbus, with only one stop. Well, the "stop" turned out to be Chicago-Midway, not Cincinnati as we had anticipated. (Thus, it wasn't even really on the way.) During our trip, the turbulence tossed our plane around, even dropping it around 20-30 feet at times. Items flew around the plane, and coffee pots even flew off and landed on the flight attendants. It was really intense. Emmy and I cuddled and prayed as Roger hung on to Ellie-Kate. (We still didn't have our car seat with us.) God provided for us, and we landed safely, but our plane suffered structural damage, and we needed to get another plane in Chicago to continue our flight to Columbus. As I told Emmy, I didn't like the turbulence, but I was more scared by the ground transportation in China!!! One flight attendant said that she had been flying for 20 years, and it was the third worst turbulence that she had ever encountered. WOW!! Anyway, given all of the trouble, we arrived back home around two hours later than expected.
We walked in to find very eager dogs waiting to see us as well as a very sweet sign and bouquet of balloons from our house sitter, Lindsey. Ellie-Kate laughed at the dogs, widened her eyes at her new "princess" bedroom, and ate a late supper. (Yes, Ellie-Kate managed to sleep through all of the turbulence as well as her first car seat ride home to Athens so she missed supper.)
It was so nice to be home yesterday, but, boy, we sure felt out of sorts. We had no food in our house; we didn't know where anything was in our bags, and we had massive laundry to do. Coupled with getting Ellie-Kate oriented to our house and her new toys, we were scrambling! We did get a lot unpacked, cycled through lots of laundry, and processed our huge stack of waiting mail. (We received a lot in nearly three weeks!!) We accomplished much, but we were fighting exhaustion all day long. We fell asleep early last night, missing the championship game and "one shining moment" for the first time since we've been married.
Ellie just woke up, and I need to care for her. Thanks again for all of your prayers and support, and I promise to post more pictures later today from the last leg of our journey.
Praise God that we're home!!
Christie
