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On our first flight with all three kids - leaving Kemerovo for Moscow: I was holding the luggage tickets. The flight was not alot of fun...the boys were fine, but I was sitting with Delaney and she was struggling big time. The lady on the other side of her kept talking to her very sternly in Russian and then giving me dirty looks...hard telling what was being said, but at least D buckled up and stopping screaming.
So, we are about to land and I take out the luggage tickets and hold them out across the aisle to show DH that I have them. We land about 10 minutes later and I reach into the pocket of my carry on where I had just put the tickets and they were GONE. I became frantic very quickly. I was looking under the seats and checking all my pockets, all D's pockets...asking the boys and DH to check all their pockets. Behind us were a group of 20 somethings and they were all laughing at us. We let everyone get off the plane and continued searching. No luck. We walked into the airport thinking we would never get our bags out with us. We were discussing where to go to buy new clothes and what papers we could be missing. We entered the gated area (way before our flight was called, because we couldn't understand) and waited for our bags. By this point, D was crying again...the boys were teary eyed and sitting on the floor in slumped positions and my DH and I were freaking out. I started crying, then both the boys followed suit - so all but DH were hysterical. We got ALL our bags (I think we had 5 huge army duffel bags) and looked for the kindest looking "exit lady"...they were by the gate checking luggage tickets as you left. I got out my translation book and figured out how to say "lost tickets"...She looked at us all crying and asked for our passports (it took about 30 minutes to figure out what she wanted)...then she started comparing the names on our bags to the passports. As she was doing this, I noticed two of our bags no longer had tags. She checked three - looked at us and at our driver (who by this time was standing at the gate vouching for us) and waved us through. I've never been so excited to walk through a gate in my life. The driver told us how lucky we were...he had never seen that happen and told us to hold onto things in the future. Needless to say, DH didn't let me be in charge of anything else important on that trip!
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