Airport food

This part of JFK is a lot nicer than last night.  We chose to eat lunch at Bonfire (Todd English's place)......I had a delicious bleu cheese wedge type salad (see below).  This was the culinary highlight of my trip.  Although my vegetarian plane food was pretty good too (not kidding).  And I finally had some sort of appetite, so it was especially delicious.  So were Gabe's parmesan fries.  But I digress........
We're waiting on another delayed flight.

Flight delay update

After learning that our flight was canceled this afternoon, Dale stood in line for what seemed like 7 hours to hopefully get us lodging for the night from Delta.  No such luck.  Since it's Mother Nature's fault that our flight was canceled, we were on our own.  By this time, we're all exhausted from the Moscow flight,  my stomach has been queasy all day, head pounding, etc.   We now have to pay for a hotel room in Jamaica Queens, take a flight to Cincinnati tomorrow afternoon, then to Houston arriving home tomorrow night.   Really?  I thought the flight from Moscow was bad with all of the intoxicated Russian youths techno dancing and then fighting randomly through the flight.  The day only got worse.

Gabe's been a real trooper.  He made some new friends in the airport while we all waited for Delta to tell us NOTHING.  They even exchanged phone numbers!

At least next trip we're going non-stop both ways......

Russian protests

Here's a link to the events that took place right outside of our hotel in the Kremlin and Red Square.  Good thing we didn't venture out to buy souvenirs yesterday!!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101213/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_protests

Yes, that's our hotel in the background.

AARRRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!

Well, of course our flight tonight was canceled. Why?  No idea.

Now we get to enjoy the ambience of beautiful JFK airport.  Jeez.  Could this trip get ANY LONGER???????????    Oh.....and I just realized that our clothes and toiletries are in the suitcases waiting somewhere in this airport for the flight home.  Great.  So we'll all probably be wearing an "I Love NY" t-shirts tomorrow.    

I'm off to find some Rolaids.

Home

We're finally headed back home........arriving in Houston late Sunday.  Talk to everyone soon!

He's officially our son!!!!

Whoo hoo!!!  Day 2 of court is finally over and the judge granted that Jake is officially OUR SON!  (and today wasn't that much easier than yesterday in front of the judge)  We still have to wait 10 days to pick him up, so we'll be coming home this weekend but returning to Russia on the 20th.....back to Texas for good on the 29th/30th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of our shoulders.  Had a nice lunch in town to celebrate with Paulina.

Well, we're off for our last visit with Jake before we leave.  Gabe is coloring a cool picture to leave with Jake.  Back to Moscow tomorrow (and the bitterly cold weather.....it's been beautiful here in Stavropol).  Then home on Sunday.  Rockin' Rhodes here we come!

Court Day 1 - DONE

Whew.  That was a little intense.  This was apparently our tough day of questioning and tomorrow should be a bit easier.  Now, a few Advil and some Lipton with lemon.

Oh.....and apparently Gabe is pretty fluent in Russian.  He can translate any word that you give him into his version of Russian.  He's very serious about it too.  It's priceless!!