made it home!

Well, we did it... with much help from all you who prayed for us!

It was a whirlwind trip back to Billings, but we made all our connections. Our flight left Santa Cruz about an hour late. We made up 30 minutes during the course of the flight, which left us 1 1/2 hours in Miami.

T-minus 90 minutes:
We got off the plane ran across the airport to have our passports checked in and be stamped back into the US. We went through that line amazingly quickly.

T-minus 70 minutes:
We watched the clock tick for 45 minutes waiting for our bags to come off the plane so we could go through customs. The bags finally came, we went through without anyone being checked!

T-minus 25 minutes:
We ran across the airport to the United check-in. There was not a single person in line, so we were able to get our tickets and head for the gate.

T-minus 15 minutes:
There was a huge line at security to get into terminal J for our flight... things did not look good. We told one the TSA checking ID's that we had 17 people who needed on a flight that was leaving in 15 minutes. He allowed us to go to the front of the security line!

T-minus 5 minutes:
We arrive at our gate... the plane had been delayed 20 minutes and was just beginning to board! WOW... we made it.

NOT DONE YET!
Miami was our big concern. We had a 1 1/2 hour lay-over in Denver, which should have provided enough time for us to grab dinner and be on our way to Billings. Even with the slight delay out of Miami.

We boarded the plane in Miami... and sat at the gate for 45 minutes. Looking out the window to the right, there were fire trucks and police cars. A US-Airways plane had come in with a fallen soldier... the emergency vehicles are a tradition in Miami every time a fallen soldier is brought in... so we could not back out of our gate.

We final pulled out and headed for the runway... and then we stopped again... for another 45 minutes. The pilot final came on and said they had been working hard and were able to resolve an issue they were having with the engines and we would be taking off shortly. Yikes! and there goes the nice layover in Denver.

One last sprint...
Our plane touched down in Denver @ 9:05. We got off the plane, ran across the terminal hoping to catch our 9:30 flight! Once again, the plane was delayed for 10 minutes... allow us all to get there just in the nick of time!

11:15 pm... we back in Billings!