January 16 -18

Continuation from the last Post: 

Right before bed around 9:00 we got a text that said that our flight had been canceled. They had rescheduled us for the afternoon which changed all of our flights. There was weather in Chicago that was causing the problems. We really wanted to get into Ethiopia on Tuesday night so that we could get a good nights rest and be fresh to go meet our boys. Darren got on the phone with United to see if there was any other options. Between 11:00 and Midnight they said that we could fly out on the 6:00 am flight so we could get into Chicago before the weather started. That meant only about 2 hours of sleep.

So we were up at 3:00 am, the kids were a bit surprised, getting ready to head to the Springfield Airport. Excitement was keeping us awake. We had an uneventful flight and made it to Chicago. Snowy Chicago. Our flight out of Chicago was not scheduled to leave until late afternoon. That meant hours at the airport. We ate breakfast, played some games, ate lunch and did a lot of waiting. Finally we got on our flight. We were off to Frankfurt...about a 9 hour flight. The flight went well.

In Frankfurt we had about a 5 hour layover. By this time Corbin & Lauren were exhausted and so we found an area for them to lay down. Actually mom laid down for a bit also. We were off 1^st thing in the morning on our Lufthansa flight...which was evening for us!

About 2 hours into our flight to Ethiopia we were being served our meals and all of a sudden the flight attendants came through telling us we were going to have to make an emergency landing in Croatia. They started pulling all of our trays and taking drinks out of peoples hands. Everyone asked what was wrong and they would not say. After circling over the Adriatic sea for about a half hour dumping all of our fuel we landed in Croatia. The pilot told us they thought there was a fire but, it was just the air conditioning, (later we read that 2 of our 3 engines blew). They decided not to fly us on and we waited for about 6 hours for them to bring another plane from Frankfurt. So, much for getting in in the evening and getting a good nights sleep. Most of us laid down on hard seats and slept. When I got up from sleeping my back gave out...muscle spasms and a lot of pain. I didn't know if I would be able to even walk to the plane. I took a muscle relaxer and had a man help me with my carry on (Darren & the kids already had their hands full). I made it on the plane and the flight attendants gave me a seat in Business Class so I could rest my back. My back actually did get much better by the end of the flight...I was thankful for a seat that reclined so my back could rest.