Part One - Germany to Mankato, the people

We finally made it to Minnesota. What an adventure we had. The flight took an hour longer than it was scheduled for, which took an hour from our 2.5 hour layover in Chicago. Then, one of our pieces of luggage was taken off the convayer belt BEFORE it came around so we thought it was lost (this was just the beginning of the lost luggage saga). Again, this was taking away from our already shortened layover. When we finally found the "lost" luggage we then had to run through the airport to catch our next flight which thankfully was running late. (Have you ever tried to run through an airport with one child trying to hold his pants up as he ran because if he had a belt on, then it would have taken longer to get through security?? If not, try it, you will never laugh so hard again!)By this time we had been up for almost 24 hours and exhaustion is starting to set in. The kids had not slept on the long flight from Germany so they both crashed on the short hop from Chicago to Minneapolis. So when we finally land in Minneapolis and wake both kids up (believe me that was no easy task), get them off the plane, find the baggage claim area only to find that this time they really HAD lost my suitcase!! (and of course it would be mine because it held all the important stuff in it. i.e. toothbrushes, shampoo, toothpaste, laptop.....) At this point we are all exhausted and can hardly function but we still have a 2 hour drive to get to Barry's parent's house. (I learned a little something about myself this trip - I loose my patients after being awake 24 hours straight. ) So now the airline has so thoughtfully agreed to bring my luggage to me when it is found. When we got into the rental car, the boys fell asleep before we turned the car on . This made it such a nice drive. When we got there, of course we had to get the kids into the house. Once again, we had to wake Nathan up and Michael wouldn't budge. I ended up carrying Michael into the house. By now I could hardly remember my own name much less the names of Barry's 2 nephews that I had never met. It was all good though. Soon after arriving the boys and I went back to sleep. The three of us crashed in one twin size bunk for a couple of hours before Nathan went to the other bed to sleep with Barry. Talk about being squished!!! Then the time difference caught up with us. We went to sleep around 11 pm and woke up around 2 am. It was a very interesting feeling being totally exhausted and totally awake. I definately do not recommend it.