Friendly pilot, Rebooked, 1K'd and Wet

WARNING!!! This is a Ryan post.

We're in DC, sort of.

Reston, Virginia actually. A great hotel in a great spot. Good thing

We made it to the airport, care of Randy, without any problems yesterday at about 4:30 am. As we checked in, we were promptly told "you need to be rebooked". This was mildly alarming as we checked in for a 2 day journey to the other side of the world. But because our LA to DC flight had been cancelled they rebooked us on a 3 1/2 hour later flight instead. Still in our economy plus seats, plus now in an exit row. No big deal, but we knew we wouldn't arrive into DC with enough time to go downtown and see the monuments.

Big bonus: As we boarded our flight out of Fresno, we noticed we had a friendly pilot. Thanks Aaron and good flyin!

Turned out, our new flight in LA was delayed, the aircraft was changed, and we ended up taking off about 15 minutes after our original flight would have landed in Washington. Since we planned on spending the night in Reston, before leaving for Rostov, via Frankfurt, there was no need to panic, and no danger of missing any connections.

After some mild sleeping and snoring (at least that what I was told), we finally boarded our plane in LA more than 5 hours late, and nestled into our economy plus exit row seats thank you very much. Before take off, a fellow (relatively large) passenger stared us down as he walked pass, mumbling and grumbling about airlines, people, and all of the other problems with traveling and humanity in general. As he stumbled and squeezed into the window seat right behind Ally, he asked us "if they'd asked you, would you have given up your seat?". Ally promptly responded "no". (boy, she is tough!) We listened, against our consent, for the next 45 minutes as he complained to everyone in earshot, as he explained he was a "1K" (apparently a mileage status distinction for a very frequent United flyer), had booked his flight months in advance, been assigned an exit row, and because of the plane change had been reassigned without his knowledge. He promised his wife, he'd get something out of this on their return flight. Hmmmm? We'll never know.

Now in DC, after a very restful night's sleep, we are enjoying breakfast at Panera, but can't venture out into downtown, because of Hanna. The hurricane, turned tropical storm, that could dump between 3 and 7 inches in the next 12 hours. Bummer about not making it into downtown, but we'll enjoy the Reston Town Center as we wait to head to the airport.

Please pray, that the weather won't affect our flight leaving today. We should arrive in Rostov at 5:15 pm local time, Sunday afternoon. Monday we'll be able to visit Samuel and prepare for our court hearing on Tuesday.

We plan on posting after visiting Samuel Monday. We are praying his heart will be ready to let us love him.