Part II

I remember my flight home back to the States just like it was yesterday. I was blessed with having such a cooperative 6 month old baby. She slept that first leg of the flight from Lahore to Manchester - that was 8 hours. I was lucky enough to have bulkhead seating (which btw, I recommend if you are doing a long haul flight with little ones). The lady that sat next to me was such a blessing as well. She was a Pakistani woman who had a child with her. She was SOOOOO much help to me. From the get-go, she offered to help me in anyway possible. She would hold Sara so I could go use the restroom, or if I wanted to eat. I don't think I could have done it without her.

I remember when we stopped in Manchester. I got off the plane and went to change Sara's diaper. It was so nice to have normal diaper changing facilities. Since the old 747 we were flying on did not have proper changing facilities in the bathrooms. The only way to change a diaper was to lay a blanket down on the toilet seat and change Sara. Uh....NO WAY! So I just changed her in the airplane seat. Probably no the most proper thing to do, but what else was I to do?

Our layover in Manchester was no more than an hour or so and when we got back on the plane, the lady that had been helping me bought me some onion rings from Burger King. I guess she sensed I had been craving some good ol' American food. ha ha. They were tasty for sure!!

We did have a long wait for take-off out of Manchester and I bet we spent more than an hour just sitting on the plane. Well, unfortunately that made me late into Houston, TX. I had a domestic flight to catch once I arrived into Houston to take me in to Dallas/Fort Worth. I prayed and prayed that we would arrive back on time and if you didn't have to wait so long at baggage claim, then I might have made it. I rushed through baggage claim and through customs. Surprisingly, I got through pretty quick. I felt I was home free. Well, then we had to go through security. The line must have been a mile long and I was just chompin' the bit to get through there. I even asked the security lady if I could move up since I was going to be late for my flight. She declined to help me of course. Screw you lady!! That is what I really wanted to say.

We made it through security and I can remember literally running to the gate. No lie. I had Sara strapped onto me with one of those baby Bjorn look-alike things. Which btw, I highly recommend those things with little ones when flying. Not on the airplane, but in the airport, etc.

We made our flight! Wooooohoooooo!! I was home free!! I'll never forget the man that looked at me with almost disgust as I was walking down the aisle to my seat. I was the last one boarding the plane and I had an infant. Sara was the ONLY infant on the flight and I'm sure he was thinking, "oh great - we are going to listen to that baby cry the whole flight". HA HA HA jerk off - she didn't cry at all!!! But in all seriousness, he did say when we were landing, "I thought she was going to be crying most of the way - you have the best little baby - she didn't cry once". Well can ya blame her?? She was beat after our 18 hour flight. I did tell the man we had just finished a 18 hour flight. His mouth just dropped in amazement. Sara was a trooper that's for sure!

When we arrived into DFW airport (home), it was as if I couldn't get off that plane fast enough. To be continued later...

Until later...

Bye for now.

What's new?

So...I wonder who all is still out there? Who still stops by my blog? Who still even cares? :) Well, where to start...I think I'll start from when I left Pakistan. I'll just start right before I headed back to the US. Well, I believe that most of you know that I had my daughter, Sara in Pakistan. I stayed in Pakistan for about 6 months after she was born. Wait...let me back-track. My original plan was to stay long enough for Sara to get her American passport. When I first called the consulate they told me it would take 6 weeks to process her passport. Well, we went to the consulate - got everything done and it arrived in about 2 weeks. So my plan was to leave when I got the passport - right? Well, that wasn't the case. Shakil did NOT want me to leave. But, really - can you blame him? I mean, I just had a baby for goodness sakes. She was two weeks old and I was going to just leave. I must admit I had my fair share of the Pakistan life and was MORE than ready to go home. So was my Mom! Pakistan was very hard for my Mom. Afterall, it's an entirely different world. Plus, it was really wearing on me not being about to just get out and go do things on my own.

Days went by - weeks went by and then before I knew it, a few months had gone by. Everytime I would even start to think about getting my ticket to go back to the US - Shak would say, "Stay a little while longer". And of course I would. I have to admit life in Pakistan is very easy and laid back. Big change from what I'm doing now. But anyways... I left Pakistan when Sara was 6 months.

The day I left Pakistan I had no idea if and when Shak was going to get to come back. We did find out that is I-601 waiver had been approved, but we hadn't heard crap since then. I left thinking that I would go home for a visit and then return to Pakistan.

I returned to the US after living in Pakistan for 1 year. I arrived back on US soil in August of 2006. Man, it felt so good to be home, but I had lots of things on my mind and lots of things to get done...

I'll write more later! Stay tuned if you're interested!

Until later...

Bye for now!

Be on the lookout...

Tara is about to be back in da' house!! I'm going to start blogging again!! Can I get a wooooohoooo!?!?! :)

Until later...

Bye for now.