Arrival-21 March, 2009

Mom and Mike’s arrival day began a little earlier than it was supposed to. Mom and Mike were delayed in the Atlanta airport due to mechanical problems with there plane. I received a text message from the States at 2:00am informing me of their status that jump started the day. Heather had spent the night at my flat the night before their arrival to help me finish up last minute preparations of cleaning, and rearranging to make space for 3 in a 1 bedroom flat. We finished up all the last minute stuff in the morning and continued on into our busy day.

I went to Bible study while Heather took Lerry and Bongani to Ruth’s house with her to back some cookies for the visit. When I returned from my Bible study, Heather & I picked up a rental car that we reserved so we could all fit in the car with luggage (It was STILL quite a stretch but we managed!). We fed our two bottomless pit, tag-alongs a full lunch of two grilled cheese sandwiches each, two hot dogs each, barbecue potato chips, a can of soda, and cookies. Shortly after lunch and a movie, we headed to the mall to attempt some last minute arrands. At the mall, all errands were unsuccessful, except for the ice cream stop where we attempted once again to fill the stomachs of our or growing boys. At last we were finally ready to head to the airport.

Upon our arrival at the airport, we began our search for the observation deck so our boys could see the planes landing and taking off. We all spent some time there checking out the plans and visiting with the other observers. When finished with our time on the observation deck, we decided it was time to try to feed the boys AGAIN! Heather took the boys to Wimpy ( a burger joint) while I went to Nandos, the slightly more healthy chicken option for us. When dinner was finished, we quickly picked up some good, old American Subway for Mom and Mike so they would have something familiar to eat when they got off the plane. We then headed down to the gate where we were to meet the weary travelers after they had made their way through passport control, baggage claim and customs. We waited there for about 30 minutes (Well, Lerry and I waited…Heather and Bongani’s ADHD kicked in and they went for for multiple walks around the airport 8).) until we saw the board say the plane had landed. About 30 minutes after that people started coming out from the gate and the boys were starting to get excited. 40 minutes after that, the boys were getting bored and started using the flowers we had bought for my mom as a play machine gun and started shooting each other.  About 10 minutes after that, Mom and Mike finally popped around the corner with ALL of their luggage (Heather and I were quite convinced that the long wait for them on the outside had meant they would NOT be arriving with luggage…we were wrong…YAY!).

After all the greetings were finished (Heather managed a hug from Mike…go figure 🙂 ) we headed for the car. Somehow, we managed to get all six people, four large suitcases, two small suitcases, two large backpacks and whatever else we had picked up along the way into the car and headed out. In just a few minutes the two Bethesda boys were out cold and Mike’s mouth was in hyperdrive. He was just a little bit excited to be off the plane and actually IN Africa. After dropping off all of our passengers, except Lerry, we unloaded all the bags into my once clean flat. Lerry then went home for the night and Mike began question and answer about the specific species, character traits, and calls of the various birds on the Bethesda property that could not really be seen as it was DARK! We finally got Mike into the shower and to bed about 11:00. Mom and I followed about an hour later, thus ending, the seemingly never-ending day.