WE MADE IT!

Whew! After a somewhat rocky start, we made it! We were close to missing the first flight due to major traffic but it got delayed anyway so we had plenty of time. Still we were nervous about the second one because we only had a half hour to make the connection in Chicago. We arrived at Gate B and of course, had to go all the way to Gate C to make the flight to Tokyo. We were nervous and literally RAN through the airport with all our stuff. Poor Jeff was carrying the 2 heavy carry-ons. One had 2 laptops, all the electronics, and all the adoption paperwork. The other was a change of clothes and shoes for all of us and my fancy hairdryer and clarisonic skin brush that I HAD to have. I had all our blankets and travel pillows plus my own huge diaper bag carry on. What a sight we must have been!  Sweat streaming down Jeff's face, me huffing like I ran a marathon. Cause we DID. As we were tearing down the hall I heard "Kitzmillers please report to Gate B16, final call". I ran even faster and was like WAAAAAIT! Thank GOD, we made it!

Once we got on there, everything about our day changed dramatically. The people at United knew their flights were always late and saw how tired and stressed we were. I was so relieved just to be on that plane but was also a bit worried about the luggage not making it. They assured us that they are really good about luggage on international flights and not to worry. Within minutes our flight attendant told his supervisors about us and they were all back at our seats taking care of us. So incredibly sweet, this crew! We told them about the adoption and they kept coming back with bottles of water, gifts from business class (toiletries), even a glass of wine from first class with our dinner! The 12 hour flight was a breeze. We both slept, watched some good movies, ate a lot of rice and noodles. Another nice thing about United is when we checked in at Philadelphia, the guys saw it was Jeff's birthday and heard us talking about the bag for the orphanage and WAIVED the overage fee for our bags! For ALL of them! Talk about nice! Saved us a fair amount of money cause let me tell you those bags are HEAVY!!!

As you can tell I am wide awake and thrilled to get internet at our airport hotel. We had some average room service and Jeff is taking a nap. I need to try to do the same. We need to be up at 4am and it's one now. Both of us slept about 3 hours on the Chicago-Tokyo flight and 4 from Tokyo to Bkk. Not too bad. Think I am just hyped up with excitement!  We are meeting our daughter later today! How amazing is that?