09/12/2006 Adoption Update e-mail

Hola Familia y Amigos,

Ok, things don't always go exactly as you plan, but somehow they end up
working themselves out. We arrived in St. Louis with out any problems
around 11:20 am on Monday in time to catch our 1:20 pm flight. We said
our goodbyes to my brother and his family who live in St. Louis, and
then we were on our own. As soon as we passed though security, I looked
for our flight on the screens. It was showing a status of being one
hour late. Unfortunately, that one hour is all we had for a layover in
Atlanta which was our one stop to Peru. We were scheduled to arrive in
Peru about 10:20 pm Central time. I made my way up to the Delta Desk to
find out what could be done. We ended up taking that flight to Atlanta,
but from there we had a couple hour layover to go to Miami. That flight
was also delayed, but this time we had no worries because our flight
from Miami to Lima, Peru wasn't scheduled to leave until 10:50 pm CST.
Yes, that's in the evening, about the same time we should have been
arriving in Peru! The Miami flight did leave on time and got us to Lima
at 4:20 am CST. And unplanned overnight flights are such a lot of fun
with three kids. :) However, we survived, and our adoption agency was
able to make all the appropriate changes for the taxi and hotel when I
let them know what was going on back in St. Louis.

So, we made it to Lima and went to sleep as soon as we got to the
hotel. We didn't do much today, except wait to leave for Trujillo, Peru
which is where the girls' orphanage is at. We departed the hotel at
4:40 pm and our lawyer, Maria Elena, and her husband Raul helped us get
to the airport. We arrived in Trujillo with Maria Elena and Raul around
8:00 pm. We were met at the airport by the girls who were brought there
by a couple of workers from the orphanage.

The boys and the girls hit it off immediately. Everyone, old and young,
was very happy to be together at last. I have attached our first family
pictures as a zip file. It's late, but I wanted to let you all know
that we made it safely, and everything is great. I'll write more as the
week unfolds.

Chau,

Tim

The first family picture the evening we arrived at the orphanage.