Our long journey home......

Daddy is sharing his Pringles with Bella at the airport in GU.

She loves them!

Bella and Mommy are ready to get on the plane to go home to KY.

Mami Karen came to the airport to tell her "princess" bye.

Hello everone! Yes, we are home. Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog. We have been home a week now. We got home a day later than expected. The first part of our journey went well. Mami Karen came to the airport to tell us goodbye. It was very emotional. Her and her family were angels in Bella's life. They love her so much and have been so good to her. Karen's daughter, also named Karen, had made a beautiful card for Bella with a sweet message from Mami Karen on the back. Bella cried and reached for her when she went to leave. We were all crying. We promised we would bring Bella back to GU in a few years to visit.

We flew into Atlanta about 1/2 hour later than expected, then it went downhill from there. Last Thursday Atlanta was having bad thunderstorms. When we got in, there wasn't a gate open due to the storms and delays, so we sat on the runway for about 40 minutes. Bella had done great on the flight, but started getting fussy. When we finally got off the plane, we had to go through immigration to turn in Bella's immigration papers and to get her passport/visa stamped. Then we made a mad dash to our gate that said our flight was still on time. A little later they said it was delayed, then finally about 10 p.m. when we were already supposed to be home, they cancelled the flight. Delta had a line about a mile long with people trying to book new flights that Bob had to stand in for over an hour. They tried to book us on separate flights home first. Needless to say, we weren't happy campers. They finally found us a flight for 4 p..m. the next day, but they couldn't even find two seats together (thank goodness some nice guy let us trade seats with him when we got on the plane).

So after 11 p.m., we had to figure out how to find a shuttle to take us to a hotel to stay the night.

I had a little meltdown outside looking for the shuttle. I was upset that we weren't home where Arabella was supposed to spend her first night in America. We also didn't have any idea where our luggage was or when it would get to Louisville. So after midnight we ended up at the hotel with only our carry on luggage. We had most of what we needed for the baby, but I had no extra clothes. Then I discovered that the immigration offiicer had forgotten to stamp Bella's passport. We tried to make the best of it. We showered, put on the clothes from the day before, and left the hotel at checkout time, 11 a.m. We had to go all over the airport until we finally found someone to take us to immigration to explain that they had forgotten the stamp. We had to have that to prove when Bella became a U.S. citizen. After we got that done, we had lunch and just walked around the airport. They changed our gate a total of 3 times, so we kept having to pack everything up and lug Bella to a different part of the airport. Finally about 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave, they changed the gate again. The new gate was in a different concourse and we had to almost run to get there. We should have taken our time. We found out that our flight was delayed when we got there. We finally took off about 45 minutes after we were supposed to.

When we finally made it off the plane in KY, I could see my family and a few friends from a distance when we were walking towards the baggage claim area waiting for us and I almost lost it. They had brought flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, and other goodies to welcome us home. It was the sweetest thing. Bella didn't know what to think at first with all these people staring at her and hugging us. She warmed up quickly and started smiling and laughing. It was a great welcome home!

I'll update you on the rest of the past week ASAP.