What a Crazy day!!

You know how you think you've got everything all planned out but then life throws you a few curve balls. The last 24 hours have been all curves for the Homan family. It all started on Thursday night with a phone call from our travel mate, Stephania, from Berne. She asked if we knew that our 9:30 flight out of Ft. Wayne had been canceled. NO, we did not! She told us to call United and get on the 6:00 am flight, that was the only flight to chicageo. While I was on the phone with the airline Ted woke up Andrew and took him to the neighbors, because we would now need to leave the house at 3:30 am.

we were very tired as we left the house and just a little behind schedule. We drove in rain the whole way there. As we were getting out of the van we realized that we had left one of our suitacases at home (that's what I get for bragging about feeling confident with the packing this time around). The suitcase that we left had all of Paul's supplies and all of our food. Sorry Carrie B. but you won't get to see Paul in any of Riley's cute clothes. At least all of this stuff we can buy in China. ( Don't worry Chenzhou waiting parents, I still have all of your care packages).

So once we got inside we learned right away that the 6:00 was delayed until 8:00. It went all down hill from there. Chicago had a major snow/ice storm...nothing was coming or going...we were stuck. Over the next 6 hrs we went back and forth with the ticket agents trying to figure out what to do. At one point we were all most positive that we were not going to be able to go to China until Monday, which would have thrown off all of the scheduled adoption paper work.

As a last chance , we switched airlines from Ft. wayne to Chicago, but that too got delayed. Stephania, Natalie and I were back down at the ticket agent while Ted and Nick ( Stephania's son) waited at the terminal. All of the sudden we hear "last call for the Homan and Taylor party", here the flight was now going to Chicago and we had found out that the Beijing flight was delayed just long enough for us to make our connection. We had been at the airport for 8 hours and we almost missed our flight!! We still had to go back through security, but we had become friends with everyone at the check point since we had went in and out of security many times, so they breezed us through. We didn't even take the time to put on our shoes back on we just RAN!!!We got to the the gate and Ted and Nick are the only ones there, the doors were locked but Stephania told the one remaining clerk that WE HAD TO BE ON THIS FLIGHT! So they opened the doors and let us on. Praise the Lord!! Once we got to Chicago things went pretty smooth. We ended up getting on the Beijing flight shortly after we arrived. Stephania had called the adoption agency to say that we were going to make our flight. The agency told her that they had put our a "BIG" prayer request for the families trying to get to China, on the agency's web board. THANK YOU so much for your prayers CWA>

We did have to set on the plane for over an hour while they de-iced it and tried to find a new pilot (the original pilot's flight into Chicago was cancelled). We did not mind waiting, we were just so happy to be on the flight. With all of the craziness we were only 1 1/2 hours behind schedule. We're praying that the rest of the trip goes alot smoother.