Days 43, 44, and 45: Our Journey Home

As I sit here in long pants under blankets with a Penel to keep me warm, I realize that I am home - IN THE COLD!!! :)  It may be cold, but it feels good to be home.

Let's back track a couple days.....

Thursday/Friday:

Last day in South Africa!  We were very grateful we decided to start packing on Tuesday!  I thought we would have room to spare since one of our bags had been full of donations.  HA HA HA!!!  Kevin knew better.  We had 3 very full check bags, one of which weighed 65 pounds, and one of our carry-on bags had all of the documents in it and likely weighed almost as much as the others!!  All I can say is....6 weeks!  We loaded all our bags into our teeny car, said goodbye to Stefan and the pups and headed to Auntie Bev's house one last time.

Can you find Nicolas?

We spent some time chatting and saying our goodbyes.  We had so much fun with them - now it's their turn to visit!!!  Next, we had lunch with Pastor Grant (from New Creation) and his wife.  I must mention that lunch was fantastic and Nicolas even got to top it of with a chocolate shake!  What a great close to our trip!

We headed back to the Oasis office for our last goodbyes (seriously hate having to say goodbye!) and we left for the airport.  We had booked Nicolas' ticket, but he didn't have a seat assignment, so we weren't sure what to expect when we arrived.  God was with us and the agent that helped us was able to get him a seat with us on both flights!  Thank you Delta agent!!  I did have to run away two different times to the ticketing counter to pay for things, but all-in-all, it went pretty smoothly!  Immigration was next, a minor wait, but moved relatively quickly!  Security was also quite simple, especially in comparison to the US!

Ready to go!

Once we were through all that, we grabbed some dinner and waited for our flight.  Learning from the nausea we experienced on our flight to SA, we proactively took dramamine this time. :)  We had received a text from Delta saying our flight was going to take 2 hours longer than they had anticipated due to strong head winds, but once we got on the plane the flight tracker actually had us getting in early.  We all stayed up until dinner was served and then called it a night.  We slept considerably well and knocked several hours off our remaining time in the air.  At some point, they came by with snacks.  I would have had no idea!  At one point, I remember a flight attendant holding a glass of water out to me and I remember thinking "Who is that?  I didn't ask for a glass of water, did I?".  I held my hand out and then pulled it back without taking the water.  She must have thought I was nuts!  By the time we were all awake again, we only had 4-5 hours of the flight remaining.  We occupied our time with cat naps and movies.  We did experience some turbulence on this flight, but we were so thankful that we were able to rest well and get back safely!  Flight one: complete.  Let's get home!

Nicolas is officially an American Citizen!! :)

We passed through U.S. immigration and customs within 30 minutes.  We had heard it could be complicated and drawn out, but that was not the case for us.  Praise God!  Next stop, security.  It was in the security line that we encountered our first inquisitive bystander.  He asked all the normal questions - Did you adopt?  From where?  What language does he speak?  How old is he?  Is this your first child?  How long did the process take?  Let the questions begin!  We rode the train to our terminal and settled in at our gate.


Of course, the entire trip couldn't be so simple.  Sometime right before we should have been boarding our flight to Grand Rapids, they made an announcement that the aircraft needed maintenance and our flight would be delayed by one hour and twenty minutes.  Oooook.  We ate breakfast at 8:30 and lunch at 10:00. :)  That's what happens when your body has no idea what time it should be!  After the delay and a gate change, we were on a plane and headed for home!  Another first, the pilot came on the intercom and let everyone know that it was going to be a rough flight and that we would want to remain in our seats.  Buckle up!!!

Ultimately, it wasn't that bad.  After his precautionary message, I was expecting some trouble.  Thankfully, the turbulence was tolerable and it was only our descent into GR that gave me the heebie jeebies.  We were lucky in that Nicolas seemed to enjoy the turbulence like it was a rollercoaster. :)

Landing in GR, FINALLY!

Finally, HOME!!!  Feeling so absolutely unclean, we headed off the plane.  Our family will tell you we were the LAST ones to come through.  Even the pilots came out before us!  Sorry fam, potty pit stop!  We were very warmly greeted by a big group of friends and family as we came past security.  What an awesome homecoming!  Thank you so much to everyone who interrupted their day to come greet us!!  A few tears, lots of hugs, and an overwhelmingly awesome rush of the love that surrounds our family!  It was so nice to see them all in person!  Skype, while awesome and much appreciated, is just not the same.  Nicolas was an absolute rock star.  He walked into that crowd of people ready to hug and be hugged!  Any nerves that he had seemed to disappear almost immediately and he was smiling and chasing after Sophia and Stella.  It was such an awesome sight to finally see them together!

After chatting for a bit, we packed our truck and headed home.  After six weeks, you can imagine how weird your home looks.  I went in quick to let  the dogs out to avoid any accidental excited piddles.  While I did that, Nicolas went out to do what he has been waiting to do, throw a snowball!!

Are you ready for this?

We all went into the house together for the first time as a family.  Nicolas, of course, was most excited about the 'man cave', the game room, and his room. :) We were also so excited to discover that we had dinner (well dinners) groceries, and gift cards waiting for us!  Thank you to our family and our church for saving us from having to go to the grocery store when we were exhausted!!!  You guys rock!!!!   Nicolas played with his trucks for quite a while (they are the original, metal Tonka trucks that was Kevin's as a child.  Thanks Grandma Mar for keeping them all these years!) and of course had to have a snowball fight with Dad!

We sorted our mountain of laundry and started attacking it.  The time change began to wear on us after dinner and by 7:00, we were all feeling it.  By 7:30, we were all in bed for the night!

Saturday:

As you can imagine (since we went to bed in the middle of the day!), we all woke up earlier than normal.  But, our exhaustion kept us asleep through the night and for that we are thankful.  We got up and had breakfast and then kept picking away at cleaning up the tornado that came through our house yesterday!  While Nicolas got ready, I sorted through all the clothes that we needed to return and we decided to go to the mall (crazy, I know) so that he would have warm clothes and shoes that fit!  Since we went in the morning, it wasn't awful.  Plus, when you are used to how busy the malls are in Joburg - it just doesn't seem so bad! :)  Again, Nicolas was a trooper, and made it through all of our returns and exchanges.  We then went to Target to restock the basics and ran into Bob and Masha Hauch!  Were they stalking us??? :)

We went home to have lunch and then went out to Allendale to get our Christmas tree!  Man, when yo wait until the weekend before Christmas, you get the entire tree farm all to yourself! :)  We wandered a bit, staking several trees as the one before we found it.  We, of course, had to ride around in the sled for a bit!  When he had had enough of the cold, we cut down our tree and headed for home.  On the way home he asked, 'Mom, when are you going to show me Wendy?'.  LOL.....we had told him in SA about Wendy's and he wanted to see it!

We got home and set up the tree and started making dinner.  After a quick visit with some friends from church, we had dinner and then hopped in the car to go see the Christ Lights display.  The fact that it gets dark here so early is affecting all of us.  Nicolas was practically down for the count in the backseat by the time we got to the front of the line.  Thankfully, Mandy and Alexis came to the rescue with candy canes!  We came home, read a bedtime story, and that brings us to the present!

It's amazing that this journey has brought us here, a family of 3 for Christmas!  While we expected that to be the case a long time ago, God's timing is indeed perfect and we couldn't have planned it better ourselves!  As we begin to celebrate Christmas tomorrow, we are reminded of how blessed we are and that we are cared for by a truly AWESOME GOD!

Merry Christmas!!!

The Longstreets