Trying This Leaving Thing Again

Hahaha. For those of you who have Facebook and saw my status yesterday, you know that we are still here in the states. :) I'll get to that, but first a quick update of the past few weeks.

OK, as I warned you before...it's been a long time since I updated. Over a month...quite a long time. We've been traveling a LOT of course...packing in as much of the United States as possible. I do love this place.

Joel's training in Canada went well. My training in Seattle went well. Then we wrapped up things in Saline and tearily (is that a word?...just go with it) said goodbye. We headed to Pennsylvania and after 24 hours of driving straight through, we arrived in Ephrata to Joel's grandparents' house. We spent a great few days there, headed to 'the mountains' for the Martin family reunion that weekend, and then drove another 9 hours to Boston (Beverly to be exact). We've been here since the 11th and were supposed to head out yesterday. Ahh, the joys of travel. Hahaha.

Here's what happened: Back in September or so when we bought these tickets to the U.S., we scheduled our return to Brazil on the last possible day we could. We could not book our return any further out than July 20th. Airlines just don't book things farther in advance than a certain time that they determine...July 20th was the date for that at that time. So, July 20th it was and fit in well with when we were needing to get back anyway.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Joel called to confirm our flights back to Brazil and they said that flights had been changed...totally normal. Back in September, in reality what we got were reservations for tentative flights. Just the way it is when you schedule so far in advance...things change. Fine. That's why we were calling to confirm. So, the agent said that she would fix it all for us...reschedule our flights and fix our itinerary, etc. Joel got the itinerary and everything looked good. Bada bing, bada bang, let's go.

So........

We get there yesterday for our evening flight (6:30pm) and it is a mess. Hahaha. Poor people behind the ticket counter. Of course, we weren't completely filled with glee concerning the notion that we would have to reload all of our bags (70 pound bags...13 of them...plus carry-ons and stroller). But, we were fine given the notion of spending more time with family, even if only a few hours more. So...we spent a couple of hours at the ticket counter getting things ironed out for a flight today. Basically, the agent that handled the rescheduling of our flights a while back just didn't complete the job. She made it to the itinerary change, but never processed the tickets. Tickets are now processed. :)

Thankfully, I had packed a carry-on with an extra set of clothes (like any good traveler should), so that alleviated the need to get our baggage out of the vehicles. Whew. And, of course we are back at Joel's parents house...and they have a washer and dryer. :) So, it hasn't been all that bad, but it has been a very interesting 24 hours.

Not only all that, but Hadley got a doi doi (portuguese for bo bo or boo boo or ouchie or whatever you call it in your house) and we thought for a while that we were going to have to take her in to get stitches. In the end we just butterflied it all up (steri-stripped it), but it all involved a couple of hours of debating about ER...and screaming. ;)

Then.......oh my gosh.......

I stayed up talking to Joel's aunt last night. Then after I went to our room, I did some computer stuff there. I went to bed about 2:30am. Joel woke up and we talked a bit, then I was starting to doze off. We are sleeping in Joel's parents' room on the 2nd floor and they have a door that leads outside to a small deck overlooking the back yard and then has stairs leading down to the ground. The wooden door had been opened all the way leaving just the screen door closed (but not locked) when I was heading to bed...I closed the wooden door a bit, but left a crack. As I was dozing, I hear a noise at the door. At first I thought it was just the wind pushing the screen door open a bit. But, when it did it a second time, Joel got up. He made a sudden movement when he got to the door, at which point I said, "Is that a raccoon out there?" Hahaha...a couple of nights ago I saw multiple raccoons out in the yard. Then I hear Joel start talking and knew that a raccoon it was not. Hello!! At that point I turned into the person watching a scary movie. I was literally saying, "What are you doing?" So many thoughts ran through my head, but I think other than that statement, "Babe..." was about all I got out. Hahaha. I heard Joel say, "This is private property, my friend." It was just really freaky...I could see nothing, so I had no idea who was at the door, how many were at the door, if they were holding a gun, etc. :)

Joel then went out the door...HELLO!! Then he came back in, locked the door, and came back to bed. I asked him if he was sure the guy had left and then he got out of the bed and went downstairs. Again, I became the scary movie watcher...yelling at the 'TV screen' named Joel. "Don't go down there." "What are you doing?" "Babe, don't go outside." Again, my fave of the night..."What are you doing?" Because, he was not discussing these things with me beforehand. :) Hahaha. Of course, the whole thing lasted probably about 8 minutes total, so it's not like he had time to plan a course of action with his wifey poo.

Anyway, he went downstairs and looked out the front door. He saw his brother's car light on, so what did he do? He went outside!! Hasn't he ever given advice to scary movie actors...you just don't go outside when you see something suspicious!! :)

Well, he opened Danny's unlocked car door, turned off the light, locked the doors, and came back in. Then went straight to bed like nothing ever happened. HELLO!!

It was really funny.

Who was the guy? Basically, Joel thinks that he was either really high or somehow mentally challenged. Probably really high just given the circumstances and time of night (or morning...close to 3am). Joel said he didn't seem aggressive or like he was trying to rob us or anything...more like he was confused.

But, needless to say, it has been a very eventful few hours here. We are hoping for a much calmer day today.

We leave Joel's parents' house to try this all again at 2:30pm and are scheduled for a flight that leaves at 5pm here in Boston. We'll go to Atlanta and then from there head to Sao Paulo in Brazil, then on to our last stop in Goiania (then we'll drive the rest of the way to Anapolis, our city). We should be getting to our house tomorrow night. We arrive at the Goiania airport around 6pm their time (which is about 4pm central time and 5pm eastern time). We'll get baggage and travel back to our house. All in all, over 28 hours of total travel.

Keep us in your prayers as we go...that travel would be smooth, kiddos would be content (they usually are), we'd breeze through customs, that pick-up arrangements in Brazil will go off without a hitch, that transition into our house for the next few days will be smooth and easy...and any other prayers God brings to your mind are welcome. ;)

We will be in our house for the next few days...unpacking and repacking for a move down south for a couple of months at least, which involves another 15 hour (or so) drive. We leave next Wednesday (tentative plan) and I begin language school on the following Monday. So, you can definitely be praying about that too. That the next few days of preparing for yet another move and time of transition would just be smooth and easy.

I'll be updating you all again once we get to Brazil and settled in. I will no longer have internet capabilities with an iPhone once we leave the states, so no mobile updates or texts anymore. :( But, as soon as we get settled back into our house, I will let you know.

Of course, as usual there are lots more things to tell you all about. But, again...those will have to wait for another day when I have more time. Can't wait to tell you all about them though. Lots of good stuff coming your way. ;) (this paragraph is especially for you, Angela and Kristin...don't worry, I think you already got updated on most of it) ;)

But, I'll leave you with a fun pic of Cass and a great one of the kiddos. More pictures in coming days/weeks...I promise.