Happy Memorial Day

May 27, 2005 8:43 pm

UP UP & AWAY…Somewhere over the Eastern Atlantic

After lot’s of hugs & kisses & saying a heartfelt goodbye to Mom & Dad who took us to the airport, we had a very pleasant 11 AM flight on Continental. Instead of the usual peanuts & a soft drink, we were served a “lightfare” meal of a Turkey breast sandwich on a little round roll, a mini bag of baby carrots, skittles for dessert & a soft drink. The weather was good for flying-clear & just a couple bumpity-bumps on the way up North.

We arrived in Newark, NJ at 1:35 pm to a warm 88-90 degrees. Are you sure we left Florida?!

One of Laura’s best friends came over to Newark from Long Island NY to send us off on our long awaited journey. What a pleasant and wonderful surprise! We were taking off on British Airways at 6:30 pm so we got a good chance to visit with her for a couple of hours & it really did help to take some of the nerves away after a hectic week of getting ready & packing!

As tired as we were, we were so excited that after over two years, we were finally on our way to get our forever children. We did manage to catch a few winks on the cross Atlantic trip though--Ed had a lot of winks, Laura who can't sleep sitting up very well, didn't catch quite as many! ;-)

Arrived in London at 6:45 AM to typical "London Fog" weather: rain & 45 degrees F Brrr coming from FL! The fog was so thick the plane kept circling London & was delayed in landing-when we finally did touch down, the runway was slick & our plane skidded a little-which is always good for a few gasps-or was that all us?? Thank God, the pilot straightened it out-but that was a little scary! Even though we were tired of carrying our jackets everywhere else today, we put them on right away there!

We were to depart at 9:40 AM London time, so after following the crowd all over the airport, we took a bus to terminal 1, where Security decided we should be taken aside & patted down. It only took 40 minutes to locate the terminal building but they wouldn't announce the gate for Kyiv 'til 40 minutes before the flight and then we had to sprint to the other end to get to that gate to find that our plane was boarding and had long lines because the Girl's Scottish Soccer team was playing Ukraine in Kyiv. This plane was packed! Anyway, we took off at 10AM because of heavy runway traffic. This flight was fine, & we landed in Kyiv at 3:15! We were met by Alex, our VIP representative who we literally ran after to get us through customs, bypassing tons of long lines-it was worth it to us to use this service! Then, we were met at the sliding glass doors by our Facilitator & driver, & they took us to our apartment! It is Thundering badly now, it was very hot & humid here today(this apartment is very nice, but no air conditioning) so we'll write again tomorrow after some rest! ***Thank you all for the wonderful calls & good wishes, we're so pleased to be included in your prayers, please keep them coming, we need every one of them! Love, Ed & Laura :-)