Finally here after 37+ hours...

So we're here finally after the said number of hours! The flight hours were only about 6-7 hours, both from philly and Heathrow, but it was the wait on the strip both times that killed us. Our flight from Philly was scheduled to take off at 10.00 PM. We, ofcourse, had reached the airport at 4! We had 6 hours to kill BEFORE the flight. Somehow that was accomplished, got to board the plane at around 9:45, then we were informed that we couldn't take off until we were de-iced, since it was such a ridiculously cold night. We had 10 planes ahead of us at that time. The kids had been so excited about the whole flying and eating dinner and watching their own TVs, poor kids fell asleep because of the wait. Finally after about 3 hours on the strip, we took off around 1:00 AM. Dinner was served an hour into the flight. Kids could not be roused.
The only good thing about the wait on the strip was that our layover hours in LHR were reduced from 5 (hours) to a little over 2! Anyway, now we're at Heathrow, dog tired and everything, trying to keep the kids entertained enough so they wouldn't go berserk. We boarded the plane for the next leg of the journey. Hoping and praying that this leg would not be THAT bad. Oh boy! Did we have some wait in store! This time a passenger got so sick that they had to be taken off the plane and ofcourse, with all the security in place, all their luggage had to be taken off too! And this passenger had apparently boarded from PHL, so their luggage was probably stashed away all the way in the back...so that was taken care of, then we had to wait for a connecting flight that was coming from Vancouver with about 60 some passengers. Ofcourse, we could not take off without that many passengers! This was getting to be so incredibly gruesome. The only good thing about this wait was that the entertainment system was turned on so the kids could keep themselves entertained.
We got to eat dinner (kids too!) Technically it was lunch because our flight was originally supposed to leave at 3, it was now 5:30 before we were in the air and then another hour wait before food would be served, hence lunch was dinner! They started serving from the back so all the non-veg meals were gone by the time they reached us, we were promised non-veg for dinner, which was never served (I think, we slept through!)
So we finally reached Delhi at around 7, about 2 hours late. Now comes the wait for the luggage. We traveled with 8 suitcases! Yes, we like to travel light! Remember when I said we had checked in at 4 at PHL? Guess we were one of the first few people to check-in, so guess where our luggage was? ALL THE WAY IN THE BACK!! Well, at least we got all 8 pieces intact. My brothers and mother were there to receive us...it was one of the most wonderful moments of my life!!