finally home

Wow! We finally made it back home to Istanbul after leaving our many homes back in the States. On our way 'home' to the States a month ago, we spent 12.5 hours in the sky and 20 hours total door-to-door. On our way 'home' to Istanbul this weekend, we spent 10.5 hours in the sky and 30 hours door-to-door! What happened, you ask? The medical kit on our flight from Chicago was not working, so we had to wait 3 hours until they found a new one that worked. (2 in the airport, 1 in the plane). We of course missed our connection in Rome and had to wait 7 hours (instead of 1) until the next flight out (which was 3 hours less than the flight they wanted to put us on before we put our crying, sleepy children in front of the desk).  After two really yummy meals (thanks to food vouchers that were good for way more than we would have spent ourselves in an airport!), a lot of stroller pushing, and a couple accidental snoozes by mom and dad, we got on our last flight.........only to arrive here with out any checked bags. We waited 2 hours to fill out a lost luggage report...straining our brains to remember what we actually packed in those last frantic hours before we left Chicago. Was it 2 blue bags or 2 floral bags or both?

We are thankful to be in one piece. The kids did surprisingly well on their crazy sleep schedule and mom and dad survived quite well on even less sleep. We all slept from 1am until 1:30pm today. Micah has been playing hard with all his old toys that are new again. He has been reenacting the trip...

"the brown car took us to airport" "us on ku (plane)"

then he drew me a nice picture of

"mom and moo and dad and lulu eating table in house"

Woah! His vocabulary has exploded since we left!

We miss everyone at home very much. We look forward to skype rendezvous!

and more sleep. :)