Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Home Sweet Home!

After a brief night's sleep in Dubai, we boarded our airplane and began the 16 hour flight to Houston. It was loooooooooooooooooooong. At least my baby got to fly in style! Emirates Airlines has bassinets available for families traveling with babies. We loved flying Emirates!


The boys did really well on the flight. We were exhausted by the time we reached Houston. One of the flight attendants was so excited for our boys' homecoming that she and another flight attendant lent their hats to our mothers for a photo op when we had landed!


It felt great to be back in Houston!


We made it through passport control, and then Brian and I and the boys had to go through immigration. That's when things got rough. There were about 30 people waiting for their visas to be processed when we walked in the room. It took over an hour for them to get to us. Normally, waiting that time wouldn't have been so bad, but given that we had been traveling for such a long time on very little sleep, I hit a proverbial wall, and I couldn't hold it together anymore. It was a level of exhaustion that I had never experienced before, and I just sat there sobbing, holding my baby as I was dealing with nausea from the exhaustion, waiting for them to get to us. It wasn't pretty. Brian was holding Jeremy, who suddenly got a bloody nose (altitude change, maybe?). Poor Brian yelled, "Does somebody have some tissue? My son has a bloody nose!" Not long after that, we got our visas and were on our way.

I was soooooooo happy to finally walk out through the big doors and see my sweet sister, who had been waiting there for almost three hours!


My friend Cissy was also there waiting to meet us with balloons, ice cold bottles of water, and her big SUV to load up our luggage. Thank you, C!


I changed clothes to feel a little fresher, because there was a wonderful group of friends waiting for us at our house to welcome us home! They were so awesome--they had balloons, American flags, groceries, and two huge chocolate chip cookie cakes, which we feasted on for days!!!!


After our friends left, we went inside and Aunt Jilly got to love on little Zachary.


We showed the boys around the house and introduced them to their new room.


It was great to be home! I had hit a point with the exhaustion that I had to go bed, so I did just that...and slept for 19 hours! Thankfully, Brian and both of our moms were here to care for the boys while this Mama caught up on some much needed sleep!

6 comments:

Laura said...

Aw, sounds like you had a great taste of that unparalleled "mommy exhaustion" right away! ;) *hugs* What a wonderful story!

Dana Cheryl said...

Sounds like all the mommy exhaustion due from these two beautiful boys was saved up just for you. One big huge giant slam of exhaustion that tooks months and months to build. So glad that you have a wonderful support system. I'm sure you'll be covering for dad sooner or later. Families are beautifully designed. Just love it!


Also loving Jeremy's expression in the photo taken after arriving at the airport. It's obvious that he feels secure. Happy thoughts, lots of love, and many, many thank yous to our Heavenly Father are simply pouring out of my heart right now!

Jen Disney said...

Oh friend! Your family is all together now! I'm so excited for the two of you.

Anonymous said...

I've been exhausted from flying internationally with young kids. I can't imagine the the level of exhaustion you must have experienced, and yet you still held it together for a homecoming party! Amazing!

What a blessing to be able to get that long needed sleep.

Jamie Jo said...

SO wonderful. How neat to have such amazing friends and family surrounding you. I'm jealous!

Esther said...

I'm loving hearing your story!