the adventure has begun

I had these visions of grandeur to write all through the summer and up to the point of us leaving on this adventure but who was I kidding? As you can see nothing has been posted since we left Michigan in August and we are now coming up to the 2 week mark since we landed in Africa.

And I am only getting this done now because my husband has threatened to take our blog address off of his FB page because nothing has been posted. So apparently I am the one that is to do the blog?!

To catch everyone up to speed, we have been nomadic since we left CO in July. We spent the summer driving thousands and thousands of miles across the United States to mission training, visiting friends and family and preparing for our move to Niger, West Africa. We left Los Angeles at 6am on October 1 and arrived in Niamey, Niger the afternoon of October 2.

In hindsight I think we survived the flights fairly well. In the moment however, hauling 8 carry-ons and two tired children, through 3 airports and 3 security lines, did not make for a good situation. And I wish i could write about my first impressions as I was disembarking in our new homeland, but since I had managed to smash Rian's finger between the chairs armrest in the plane and her brothers suitcase and it started to gush blood, my mind was a bit preoccupied as we stepped into the overbearing heat and into the tiny airport.

Once we had made it through the visa and yellow fever line, it was on to the conveyor belts to see if our luggage had miraculously made it from LA to here, without us seeing it once. And believe it or not we collected all our bags, minus one booster seat (that we still haven't located and since neither of our children are using car seats, guess won't worry about). How happy we were to see Beth and Jason Brooks on the other side of the glass doors!

The last two weeks have felt simultaneously in slow motion and fast forward. Maybe jet lag has something to do with that? I do know that on more than once occasion I have thought to myself, what have I done, bringing my family clear across the world? But on the other hand, I have also thought, what an amazing experience this is for us all! I am guessing I will have those thoughts more than several times as we start our life here.

Now that I have caught up to the present more or less, I hear by swear that I will try to blog on a regular basis so all "wandering" with us can join the adventure.