The Trip

Trips for our family are never boring.

Our trip to the states last week was no different.

We were blessed to have lots of people tell us bye. The day before we left we had 6 people come to our house to give us hugs, hang out for a while and tell us bye. One sister stayed with us the whole day to help us get stuff together for our trip.

The next day we were then blessed to have Matt and Leni take us to the aiport. It was pouring down rain and just a gross day to get out but they both wanted to help us as well as tell us bye.

We then had some people come and hang out with us at the airport.

Bronwyn's buddies.....

......and Garrett's soccer coach. He and his family are becoming great friends to our family.

We are blessed by lots of people who care for our family. It was harder to say goodbye to our church family and friends this time than it's ever been before any of our past furloughs.

We almost missed our first flight.

I got into a small discussion with a couple of airport workers about one of our carry on bags. We were taking a tent to our great friends from São Paulo. They left it at our house when then visited us in January so we told them we would drop it off to them when we had our layover there.

I put it on the x-ray machine and they told me that I had to check it in. When I went to go check it someone else told me that I didn't have enough time. If I did I would lose my flight. I complained that no one told me that I had to check in a bag full of long metal spikes. I have no idea what I was thinking. Finally after much discussion a guy from the airlines took it and ran it onto the plane.

We were the last ones on and were seated on the last two rows of seats on the plane. All 90 people seemed a little upset with the delay because of our tent problem.

Our flight to São Paulo had a lot more turbulence than anyone (except Anderson and Carys who thought it was like a roller coaster) wanted. A little bit scary but God took care of it.

We got to São Paulo and our tent didn't come off the plane. We found out that they had sent it to Memphis. Bronwyn found a friendly person who worked for the airlines and after a little searching she found it.

We then got to hang out with Mark/Ali and Big Garrett for a few hours in the airport. We took over a small section of the airport......

......ate supper together (this photo was taken by a guy that we met who was a American who also grew up in my old neighborhood......small world........even better he was our brother in Christ)....... ........and got an autograph and picture taken with an NBA player. This is Leandro Barbosa. He plays with the Phoenix Suns. He was super nice to the kids.

If you think he was the only famous person we saw you would be wrong. Our flight to the states was awesome.

The guy who gets our tickets every two years was able to get our family in two long rows of 5. They were together. We literally had 10 seats for 7 people and a baby. The bigger kids sat together and really relaxed.....

......and Benay and Giovanni were able to lie down in 3 seats. We've never had that luxury before. It was great.Not so great was the fact that Ansley and I had the chance to use the airplane barf bags two times with Anderson. It wasn't fun but we think it was airsickness or something like that because he's been fine ever since.

The flight from Dallas to Memphis was a little bumpy. We blame it on the pilot and co-pilot.

We then got to Memphis and were able to see a grandfather hold his grandson for the first time.

All in all it was a blessed trip.

Some of us are battling colds now. Benay has the worst of it. We would appreciate prayers for better health.

Now that we are in the states come look us up.