What...A day!

Wow... So Sunday we *finally* made it home sweet home! Saturday night we found out that Heathrow Airport had been completely shut down...no flights in OR out! Luckily that night Eli had visited some friends while Daniel and I were at his work Christmas party. They were at a neighbors when we got there around 8:30. The neighbor had broken the news to us about the airport and that it could open up in the morning but the motorway was backed up for HOURS. Her husband had left at 7 that morning to pick up some family and still had not returned that evening. Great. I was on the verge of crying. She told us though that we might call over to RAF Mildenhall and see if there were any flights leaving anytime soon. So... we went home. I called United to cancel our flights since there was just no way we would even get to the airport whether or not our flight would leave out. Daniel called over to Mildenhall to see if there were any flights the next day. There were. TO BIRMINGHAM. How lucky??? By this time it was 9 pm and their office closed at 10 and Daniel would have to go to our base, fill out the paper work, go to his commander's house for a signature and then to Mildenhall to get us on the flight. My super hero husband got it all done. That night we were talking about what crazy luck this was and something just had to go wrong.

Sunday morning we were to report to the terminal at 6:30 which meant we needed to leave the house at 6:15. We are lucky to live so close to the bases! We didn't wake up until 6, yes 6 am when Daniel Ochoa pulled into our drive with his big loud truck. I had enough time to brush my teeth and wash the couple dirty bottles that were in the sink and change Eli's diaper. I didn't even look in the mirror or brush my hair. Talk about a scary sight. We got to the base and waited a while and finally got to board the plane...not what I was expecting. We flew in on a KC135... a fueler/cargo type plane. You can click here to see what the seats look like that we rode on for 9.5 hours. Had we not been with a baby the trip would have been much easier. Thankfully he was a sweet angel, even though he only slept for an hour...

We landed in Birmingham around noon and it felt so good to feel the ground again. I can't express how much I hated flying on that plane. Even though it was free, I would pay thousands of dollars to avoid ever doing that again. We are so happy to be home for the holidays getting to see lots of family and Eli is having a ball! I can't wait until tomorrow to see what all Santa has brought!!!