Returning to America – rough start/happy ending

Woke up at 5 to keep working on the website. We really wanted to get the 12^th and 13th posted. The site was all a mess with nothing posted previously being shown so we’ll have to try to fix that when we get home. We ate breakfast and still couldn’t print out tickets so went down for our van to pick us up at 9 a.m. to take us to the airport. At 9:15 the van had not arrived yet and for the next half an hour there were many arguments at the Academia Services desk who said they did not have us on the list and refused to pay for a cab. They said we would just have to miss our flight!! By 9:45 for were out of options – we called a 2 cabs and did the Indy 500 race to the airport – our drivers were good and could not have gotten us there any sooner. We had a little trouble finding the United counter but eventually we did only to be at the end of a very long line. We decided to upgrade 1 class to give us leg room but by the time we got through the line we had about less than 30 minutes to clear security and customs before departure time. We arrive at the gate with 5 minutes to spare and boarded. Thank god. The flight took off about ½ hour late – we had to wait for maintenance clearance.

The flight home was great. We were all exhausted and were still on Krasnoyarsk time where we got up at 4 a.m. the day before. The upgrade definitely made for a more comfortable flight. We arrived at Dulles on time, cleared customs with a breeze and were met by our wonderful families. We all missed them much and we are all glad to be home.

Please check back in a few days for another posting – it will take some time to gather our thoughts to reflect back on the last 2 ½ years of work, the amazing last 2 ½ weeks in Russia and what it means to all of us involved. But until then, Alex, Dwight, Christian, Shane, Zach and Dave would like to say thank you to everyone for your support, kindness, thoughts & prayers. We came, we worked, we completed our mission, we played, we laughed, we cried. We love.