The Long Journey Home

We arrived at the Hong Kong airport early on the 10th for fear of other problems, but everything went smoothly ... until we discovered that Mike only packed 2 diapers in the backpack. Unfortunately, this was only 30 minutes before boarding, so he was on a mission to find diapers. He found the last 10 hidden at the back of a bottom shelf in one of the stores!! I'd been feeling a little off all morning but just chalked it up to nerves. About an hour into our 12 hour flight to San Fran, Montezuma's Revenge kicked in. Since we were split up and our seats were in the middle of a 4 seat row, I would end up disturbing the very nice man next to me at least twice an hour the rest of the flight. I can tell you that prayer really works because by the time we landed, I was feeling so much better and able to face the next stressful leg of our trip.
We were delayed leaving Hong Kong which meant the stars would have to align in our favor in order for us catch our flight to Dallas. I guess this was an important connection for me because it meant we could make it home within just a few hours regardless of cancelled flight or no rental cars. Family could always come pick us up. We approached both the Delta and Immigration staff for help on catching this flight, but no one seemed concerned. Hence, I was one very frustrated mother as we finally made it to the immigration officer who needed to review Sydney's paperwork for citizenship. AAGGHH!! She didn'[t know what to do! Once she found out, she felt the need to train her co-worker BEFORE processing us! We grabbed our luggage and ran to the ticket desk to rebook - we had missed our flight.
We were rebooked through Denver and made our way to that gate - which of course had been changed by the time we made it there. As we were boarding, I stopped a gate agent for a question and found we were actually NOT on this flight. They had redirected us since there was no way to make our connection in Denver. So, we were being sent to Continental where we would fly to Shreveport via Houston. The irony is that Keri (who lives in Houston) was in Shreveport waiting for us, and I was sure we would miss our flight and need to spend the night at his house. As we finally boarded our flight to Shreveport, we were told we couldn't get on the plane because our boarding passes weren't registering. How could we have boarding passes and not be able to board?? After waiting for what seemed an eternity, the problem was fixed and we were on our way home...