51-A, 51-B

Well, here goes. Our tickets for the Philippines have been issued. Northwest has a special program for adoptive families flying internationally and we decided to go ahead and reserve our tickets. The cost is not necessarily better than what you might find on the internet... but there are certain perks that make it worthwhile. One advantage of this program is that you can change your dates at no cost. (Changes in our case would be around $250 per ticket.) Another advantage is that you may bring extra luggage at no extra cost. We may not need it coming back, but it may allow us to bring some extra supplies to CSC.

The lady that helped me was so nice. There are telephone numbers and file numbers and this and that that they need to prove that you are adopting. At one point, she said..."Oh, I'll just take that number. I trust you. It seems pretty obvious that you are serious about adopting if you are bringing 3 kids back with you!!" (That seems to be a pretty common response when we mention the number of our kids.) Allen and I will be able to travel in exit row seats on the way to Tokyo. (Seats 51-A and 51-B to be exact.) However, on our return flight from Tokyo, there are only individual seats left. I'm a little nervous about that, but the lady helping me said "Don't worry, when you get there and they see that you have 3 adopted children, people will be happy to move to accommodate you." I hope she's right! We'll see. That is something you could be praying about!

Here are the very basic details. We leave Minneapolis on Saturday, October 25 at 3:10 p.m. We will arrive home in Minneapolis on Sunday, November 2 at 11:00 a.m. We are planning a very small welcoming committee...basically their new siblings! After that, we will try to keep things pretty low key for a few days. We'll figure that out later. Anyway, that's the latest. Pretty exciting, huh??