Guardian Angels

I thought I would zip back to my flight home so I can always remember fondly our nightmare, I mean, trip, home from Ukraine.

I bought these flowers the day I left Ukraine from a woman who sat all day in the sun selling flowers with her six year old daughter. They cost $2.00.

On my last night in Ukraine, I was feeling really lonely and sad. Then, I met the sweetest family, Mark, Hansina and Morgan. Please check out their blog! http://www.loveforlittlelydiah.blogspot.com/

You know how you meet someone and you feel like you have known them all your life? That's how I felt about Hansina!

Here is Francesca at the beginning of the plane trip.

Here she is after 15 hours.

I even drugged her with Benadryl, which did nothing but appear to give her the urge to poop 500 times in a row.

Poor Victoria was obviously in pain.

I met the most amazing people on my flights. On our way to Frankfort, Lufthansa suddenly realized that there wasn't a seat for Francesca, even though I had paid dearly for one. Just as I was panicking about having two screaming babies on my lap for five hours, suddenly I saw a woman I had met at the embassy in Kiev. She just adopted a 14 year old. She was so sweet and wonderful AND most importantly, she didn't mind holding a slobbery, screaming kid or two. Now what if we hadn't met that day at the embassy! I am so glad to have met her and of course, she has the best name ever, Catherine.

We even had the same four hour layover. If it hadn't been for her, I would have crawled into a fetal position and stayed there.


On the flight to Atlanta, I was seated next to a scary looking woman who stared at Francesca with obvious disgust. My mind was getting numb and we still had 10 hours to go. Then, a miracle. The flight attendant asked the vexatious (my new goal is to use big words ) woman to move so another couple could use our seats since we had a little more space. Well, my new seatmates were wonderful. The woman sat down and immediately smiled at little Victoria.

Her sweet husband even got Victoria to sleep for 14 1/2 minutes!

I know it wasn't just luck that I met all these guardian angels on our journey. It was because of all your prayers for us! Thank you all so, so much!

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water." Well, on this journey, I realized that I am stronger than I thought!