Curtain closes on YBHA II – Thank Goodness

Reunited

The epic that included tours through 5 European countries finally closes after a 13-day run.

Amy’s European Adventure ended Thursday afternoon with her airplane touching down just after 1230p in Moline at the Quad City International Airport.

Her journey was a wild one that I’ve documented here. I’ll do a recap on another day, but a little bit on the end of this adventure.

Amy started the day in Spain, flying on the Deere corporate jet with a direct flight. Some 250 Deere employees were stranded by the volcano is Iceland in various places.

Amy’s boss Gary and other travel companion left Thursday as well on a commercial flight that went from Madrid to Washington, D.C., and then to Chicago and Des Moines. So, they were going to have a long day.

Touchdown in Moline. Photo by Michael Graham.

Amy landed in Moline and Chef Mike became chauffeur Mike. The best friend a guy could have, drove from Iowa City to Moline to pick up Amy. Huge thanks to him. He even played photographer for the moment, capturing this picture of plane taxiing into the hanger.

The wife of one of the pilot’s was stuck in Europe. She too, was stuck with the KWQC-TV6 viewer trip to France.

So, Noah’s birthday party will happen on Sunday. We will be going to the Kindermusik family fun night and all sorts of other stuff together.

Again, thank you all for the concerns, thoughts and prayers about Amy’s travel. Her story was just one of the many. We gave a ride back to DM to someone from another DM area Deere facility. He had been in India. Got a flight to Italy, couldn’t get off the plane because there was no hotel rooms, eventually landed in Germany. Then to get to Madrid to catch a plane, he and almost 2 dozen others rode on a bus for 22 hours. He was glad to be home.

Thank you again for thinking of us in our situation.

Day 12 – Awaiting Confirmation

I hope by the time I write again to you here, Amy will be fast asleep after a big day of traveling. There’s a good chance she will be on a plane by the time I wake up Thursday morning. Today Amy, Robert and Gary made the trip from France to Spain with hopes of flying back to the states today.

Levi is at attention to see his Mommy again.

It has meant a lot to receive all your wonderful comments about our family and Amy’s trip adventure. I don’t think she fully realizes how many people are hoping for a safe return and happy ending. Thank you so much.

We’ve also had some great help from everyone making these last 12 days go so well. Also, thanks to Levi for sleeping through the night last night. That is always a winner, winner chicken dinner.

Tonight while feeding Levi before bed it gave me a chance to reflect. I have really enjoyed this time with my boys. It has just been us, with huge amounts of help, to hang out and have fun. I’ve gotten to spend time with them and be there for them. That being said, it is even more fun to share that with Amy. I love being a dad. This is the greatest job I’ve ever had. And I can’t wait to see us together again.

Noah holds up his treat.

Ok, back to the nice things others have done for us and speaking of good things to eat, a big thanks to Chef Mike for the random package he sent yesterday. He had sent a picture earlier in the week. Then we get a package sent to the Yeager Boys. Noah holds the loot. He also tells Mike thanks in this video. Always good to have Cardinals peanuts.

And more with the video talk… Levi really is developing into the talker. Imagine that. I’m really not sure where that comes from. He really gets going about 35 seconds in.

Here’s a little fun video to just listen to. It makes me happy.

Also thanks to everyone’s friend Romelle and this nice post he wrote on The (Convoluted) Mind of a Single Man. Give it a look. Thanks Romelle.

Finally, this European Vacation for Amy (really, don’t you think it feels like “look kids, Big Ben, Parliament,”) has been some fun. She’s been in 5 countries in the last 6 days. Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and now Spain. Not bad for a work trip that was only to last 6 days. Now I’m just hoping she can make it 6 countries real soon.

Day 11 – Little Boy’s Prayer

Noah and Levi have been dressed each day for school in clean clothes.

Noah finally gave me a weak moment tonight when he prayed for the volcano to stop so Mommy can come home.

Up until this point, I’ve not had Noah break down and that just about did it tonight for both of us. He has been a great little boy this entire ordeal, even if he doesn’t know exactly what is going on with Amy’s trip home from Holland.

Amy, Levi’s hair will look blond to you when you get back. Plus he’s really good at sitting up by himself and his laugh is contagious as always. Tonight I took the boys to Culver’s for supper like in Day 1 and to Target to get a few things. Thanks to Tammy for remembering us and the staff for being helpful.

Here’s what happened today. The image is from the BBC and shows flight patterns around the ash cloud. Impressive to say the least.

Ash, flight patterns and plans in the air. Image from BBC.

Amy, Gary and Robert loaded up in their rental car and headed south through France with a goal of Madrid, Spain. There were headed to Bordeaux tonight with the last 6-7 hour drive Wednesday to Spain. She says traffic wasn’t that heavy. We’re still hoping for a Thursday flight home.

Our story of travel trouble is not unique. Countless people are impacted by this volcano’s ash. As people try to get home to or from Europe, we just hope for a safe ending for all parties.

This has been called the worst air travel issues since 9-11. My friend Scott Harves reminded me of his story from that week in September. Scott was a segment producer for ESPN’s College Game Day. The schedule usually included travel to a college campus on Monday or Tuesday, shoot the story on Tuesday or early Wednesday and get back to Bristol to cram a story together for Saturday. That week in 2001, Scott was in Tallahassee, Florida and the campus of Florida State University. Scott was on the ground and already on campus when the attacks happened. Scott posted this note to me:

You reminded me of the time I got stuck in Florida for 9-11, spoke with Bobby Bowden for two days, games got postponed, ended up driving home Thursday/Friday that week.  That was creepy.

Again, everyone has a story now of where they were and where they were trying to get to.

Levi. I just wanted to put in another picture of Levi for fun. So, here you go.

We did get our story told in the Des Moines Register. Here is the link.. There’s an interesting line about how we’re learning as parents on this one. Marc Hansen wrote the story. Also in that story is Ryan Becker’s tale.

I also talked to WHO-TV 13. That story has yet to post, which means it probably won’t. I’ve got here on DVD, but won’t get that posted tonight. I’m wiped as Levi decided to wake up a couple of times overnight.

My old college professor Liz is also in Europe. She and her husband plus another couple are trying to get home as well. Liz reminded me to keep on top of the laundry. That is done. Liz is in Madrid and hopes to fly home Thursday.

By the way, this blog hasn’t had this much traffic since the posts about Ali Farokhmanesh or the TV Reporter wearing hats posts.

And the link fest wouldn’t be complete without a post from Kristin as she visited the farm over the weekend. Kristin starts with a reference to Noah’s joke telling ability.

By the way, here’s what is on the Iowa Journal this week.

10 is Not Enough

Levi, Amy and Noah posing prior to Amy's trip to Brazil back in February.

Another day, another set of twists and turns in the get-Mom-home-from-Europe drama, or as it has been called before on this blog, Yeager Boys Home Alone II.

We’ve had relative calm here in Ankeny as Amy tries to get out of Holland and Amsterdam after her work trip for John Deere. She and some 250 other Deere employes are stuck on either side of the pond and affected by the volcanic ash in Iceland.

Sunday brought some realization that Amy has no idea when she’ll be able to fly. She admitted to me today that she’s intentionally avoided reading the latest news about the volcano. She’s living it, no need to see how bad it really is. You know, thousands of flights cancelled, even more stranded in the airport.

Monday morning Amy and her boss, Gary, and Robert, the third member of their traveling party, headed to the Amsterdam airport to just see if they could get a stand by ticket on a KLM flight home. Amy said the ticket staff wasn’t the most cordial and said with no flights on the horizon, no stand by tickets were going to be issued.

So, now back to the plan of driving 17-18 hours to Spain. That idea picked up steam on advisement from the travel department. Amy, Gary and Robert are planning on leaving for Spain early Tuesday, drive through France, try to get to the southern part of the country, get a hotel, then drive Wednesday into Madrid with hopes of getting on a plane Thursday, Friday or Saturday. There’s a chance Amy may make it out Thursday, but likely Saturday.

However, with the UK lifting some travel bans and revising others, by the time the ink is dry on this post, they may stay in the Netherlands and try to fly from there.

Today I actually got to talk to Amy on the phone. That was the first real conversation since she left on Day 1 of her adventure. Her company issued Black berry for the trip finally worked, but not sure if that will happen again before she returns.

So, we’re in a holding pattern, but you can see more on the WHO-TV 13 News in a story or likely in the Des Moines Register on Tuesday. I did interviews for both groups about our situation. The DMR will hopefully devote time to the Ryan Becker story. Becker, the JHS Alum of 1992, is scheduled to get married in the states on May 7. His mother Joyce’s concern now is if Ryan will make it back in time. Joyce shared that story with me Sunday at ALC in Jesup.

Noah and Levi posing. It was PJ day at school for Noah and not that I don't know how to dress him.

Noah finally asked this morning when Mom was coming home. I’ve tried to keep him distracted enough to keep his mind off Mommy and wondering when was she going to come home. I’d say Levi was wondering when Mom was coming home, but he was more interested in a bottle from 4-5 AM today. He and I are really getting to know each other.

Again HUGE thanks to Grandma Paula for picking up the boys from daycare today and feeding us all. Wil came over to the house later as I was mowing the lawn. So, at least that’s done for the week and we can just focus on eating, sleeping and getting out the door in a reasonable amount of time.

Also a big thanks to all who’ve offered to something for us, watch the boys, go shopping, get us St. Louis Cardinal season tickets, (ok maybe no offers like that). It means a lot.

We just want Amy home safely. When, is not up to us. Her safety is the most important thing.