This Just Feels Better

After a flight back to Phoenix, some take out from Pei Wei, and a much needed night's sleep, Brian (Ty's Dad) woke Kathi up at 3:08am, and was already showered, dressed and ready to go. After all, we had to leave the house an hour and a half later.

Paige came over at 0'dark-thirty to help us transport all the huge donations bags back to the airport since we and the donations wouldn't all fit in one car. (Thanks Paiger!)
We caught the 6am flight to Chicago, quick stop there and then on to Washington DC. Since we were the last on the flight (that's the joy of Stand-by), we were scattered all over the plane. I sat Max with a couple with a baby, they looked pretty safe, and I sat in between two big guys. I don't know where everyone else sat. We were a little worried about Max by himself, but he did great! I fell right to sleep, and about half way through, I woke up and saw Ty take Max to the restroom.

I sat there thinking, since I was alone, and all these thoughts were running through my mind. I started writing in my journal (thank you Angel!) and had so many emotions, I didn't know where to start. I was thinking about how excited I am to meet and hold my little guys, how I hope they will adapt well, how much I will miss my one on one time with Max, how Max will adapt, how crazy yet wonderful our lives will be, how grateful I am to be making this adventure with Ty, the love of my life, how the birth family must be feeling, how much I am looking forward to getting to see the country our little guys will come from, how grateful and overwhelmed I feel for all the support and love we have received from people close to us and people who don't really know us, how grateful I am to have in-laws who are so loving and willing to take this journey with us which is WAY out of their comfort zone yet they are doing it anyway, how much Angel and Rob are giving up to let Kathi, their main Charlie holder, come with us, its all just wonderful and crazy and well, just ....CRAZY!! I started tearing up writing all of this and the guys next to me kept joking about all the pot holes in the sky we were hitting.
But I have to say, even though not making the flight yesterday was a little disappointing, going this way just feels better. It's more relaxed, and just feels better for some reason. And we won't have a twelve hour layover in Dubai in the middle of the night.
Tomorrow we will catch our flight to Rome on our way to Addis Ababa and we won't even have to get off the plane.

Since we had some time to kill here in DC, Max, Kathi and I went to the Smithsonian close to the airport that is all about air travel while Ty and Brian took all the monster luggage to the hotel and got us all checked in. Max got to see the space shuttle, the Enola Gay (the first atomic bomb dropper) and tons of other cool aviation feats.
We'll be "up and at 'em" in the morning, leaving for the airport at 7am local, so we'll be up by 4am when Brian wakes us up. ---Ann