The Adventure Begins

I can't even begin to express how crazy and stressful life has been since we returned from our five week trip to London in Nov/Dec.  We had so much to accomplish in such a short period of time. We made an international shipment with Avery's crib, toys, rocking chair and some clothing. This shipment will take between 4 and 6 weeks to arrive to us in London.  We sold Josh's truck and my almost brand new Acadia.  The house was packed up and completely moved out into storage. With the help of our neighbors and friends Greg and Tiff we were able to clean out the last items left in the house and refrigerator/freezer.  Greg got the house in good shape with touch up paint on the walls and repainted front hand rails in hopes that the house will sell or lease soon.  We even stayed with them for our last two nights.  Avery and I left Austin a day later than planned to tie up a few loose ends.  Hmmm, how much do we owe our wonderful neighbors?  Thanks Greg and Tiff!

Avery and I got up early in the morning to catch our 7 am flight.  We flew from Austin to Atlanta where we connected to our flight to Grand Rapids.  Kalamazoo is getting harder and harder to fly into, so dad (Gramp) was picking us up in GR for the 1 hour drive back to Kazoo. We were on our approach into GR when we were put into a holding pattern for over 30 minutes.  They finally told us that we would have to fly to Cincinnati to land because we had a mechanical issue and we needed a long runway with no snow.  The flight attendant even told me to hold on to Avery tightly because we would be making a very fast landing.  The landing went just fine and we were rebooked in Cinci and arrived in GR over 4 hours late.  This was all exhausting, the weather was and is frigid and to add to it I was traveling with way more luggage than I have ever traveled with, with Avery.  The helpfulness and concern of other passengers and flight crew was greatly appreciated.  Many, many people helped me with the stroller and bag.  With that said, I will never travel with so much stuff again.

The plan was to stay with my parents for a few days and Tonya and the kids would come to stay as well.  Early this afternoon that we got a call from Tonya telling us that Chris' appendix was about to rupture and he was headed to the hospital for surgery.  So, mom, dad, Avery and I packed our bags as quickly as possible and headed to Angola.  Surgery went great and Chris is in recovery for the night.  

I'm really hoping for a relaxing few days...