Ready to go!

I can’t believe the time has come for us to begin the next phase of our journey. It’s amazing how God has opened doors for us and taken care of us every step of the way. We sure couldn’t have done it without His guidance or the help of our family and friends. We are so tremendously blessed!

Thankfully we got all our suitcases organized (somewhat) and packed (tightly) and loaded in the car (thank goodness for suv’s!). We just hope they all fit in the rental car we get in NZ! We may be like the Griswold’s going cross country to Wally World. (without granny on the top of course! lol!)

Checking-in we had just one bag over the 50 pound limit. (Thanks, grandparents, for mailing all our extras!) It meant so much to have our family send us off. We just missed our Papaw (Ben’s dad). A few tears were shed despite my “no crying til we are gone” rule.  I guess how can you not shed a few tears when you won’t see loved ones for such a long period of time. It’s wonderful they understand how important this is to us and how wonderful an opportunity we have been given.

Going through security wasn’t bad at all. The kids are so cute with their little rolling suitcases and are doing well with keeping up with them. (we haven’t made it to our 2nd stop yet but so far so good!)

We waited a little bit before boarding the plane, made our several trips to the water fountain, restroom and escalators. MaeMae was quite ready to board the minute we got settled, declaring over and over, "OK, I’m ready to get on the plane now!”

Boarding was interesting since we were in the 1st 2 rows of the plane and backed up traffic for several minutes. Thank goodness we had patient people behind us. Calvin and MaeMae sat beside each other and enjoyed a nice cheez-it/juice snack while watching UP and Caroline had a great nap. Can you believe she slept through her first take-off ever on a plane?! Oh well! At least, I have pictures to document her special occasion