Coming to America, Part I

We went to the States in late December, and we wanted to share a few highlights of our trip there.

5:00 am at the airport, getting ready to go to the US!

Traveling with small children is hard. Should be no surprise here, but as a parent who has traveled quite a bit, I fell into the illusion that we had somewhat gotten this figured out. No. Wake up and smell the puke from the kid who gets sick as you land during the first flight. Got a potty-trained kid? Good for you. Caveat: once you deplane, there are no bathrooms until you go through customs. That's an average of one to two hours, after a four hour flight during which your kid was too busy watching all the Sesame Street videos you could get on your phone to go potty. At least you can walk it off, right? Maybe next time we will remember to bring the stroller, because walking around with a three-year old, a two-year old, and a 30-week pregnant mama was not our idea of fun family bonding time. At least we made it back! We flew out one day after a major snow storm had shut down airports during the weekend.

Four days before going to the States...

Aside from the challenges of traveling, being about a month outside of our normal surroundings was hard for the kids. We are really lucky to be able to base out of grandma and grandpa's house. They are terrific with the kiddos (and us, too). The tricky thing was that these Caribbean boys are used to spending most of their day barefoot and outside. That becomes a little hard when you're in the middle of winter. So, cabin fever was a common occurrence, and I think the McDonald's with the indoor playground considered giving us a frequent customer card.

Four days before coming back...

Tough as it was being inside longer than usual, the boys got to see snow for the first time! This was David's wish for weeks. At some point, before Christmas, we had watched a movie where there was snow. So, he kept asking for it, and I said maybe when we go to the States there will be some... And sure enough, there was plenty of it to get a first taste of winter fun. 

Mama and Papa got to travel alone! For the first time ever, the husband and I got to travel together at the same time without the kiddos. I had traveled, he had, but not the two of us at the same time - not even for an overnight. So, we did what smart really conscientious parents would do: left cold turkey for an entire week. Kids stayed with grandparents, and we got to attend the Young Life Celebration, which is the conference YL organizes every four years for their US staff, and this year we got to celebrate 75 years of the ministry. It was truly a treat. We got to hear great speakers who challenged us in our walk with Christ. Roy got to meet with folks about the next steps to continue development at Pico. We got to see and spend time with old good friends. And finally, even in the midst of workshops and sessions, the husband and I got to spend some sort of a baby moon before #3 arrives.

There were plenty more amazing things we got to do, hoping to write more about that later!