Week ONE

We have been in Florida for one week now. We are starting to get a routine down and settling into life.

Flying was uneventful, the girls enjoyed the plane rides and only complained a little bit about the pressure on their ears. The only time it was a problem was one flight where Nora and Emma were both sleeping and the pressure change woke them up. But some mints and gum helped quickly. Only one out of 5 planes were full so we were able to claim an extra seat for Emma and that made for a much easier time! The flights were less than 2 hrs long so I’m still apprehensive about our international flights!

Speaking of flying we have our tickets for Malawi! We leave Florida on May 28th and arrive in Malawi on May 29th. Our total travel time will be just under 24 hrs with our longest flight being 13 hours. Which is a much shorter itinerary than the ones that I saw when I was researching them myself. We also booked our return tickets and will be coming back January 29th.

We are staying in a double wide trailer by the teen missions base. We feel like we are getting the full Florida experience! The weather is actually fairly nice. The humidity hasn’t been too bad and it has been breezy and tolerable to be outside. Robby goes to chapel in the morning and then works from 8-5pm. I get the girls up and feed them and we go to the pool to swim and play on the playground. We eat lunch with Robby and the other staff and then head home for naps and some light school/play. School ends for the other staff kids this week so hopefully there will be more kids to play with because both Abby and Nora are feeling homesick and have been asking to go home and play with their friends. This is probably the longest they have been away from home. We were able to have another family over for lunch today and the kids all played together so I think that helped the girls a bit.

Robby and I will spend a few hours each day next week doing cultural training and preparing to leave. I’m not sure what this entails but I’m looking forward to sitting down with the staff and getting all the details nailed down. I like things organized and planned out and although teen missions is very organized, the information isn’t always communicated to me as soon as I would like. But I’m learning to take it slow and trust.

We spent Saturday looking for work boots for Robby because that was somehow left in CA. Something had to get left behind right? We drove around the Orlando area trying to find something that fit but the were all sold out of his size. We ended up finding the boots at a store 15 min away from our house (insert eye roll here). Thankfully we were close to the beach and we spent a few hours playing in the sand and enjoying the warm water. There was a space X satellite launch that we got to see since we are right next to the Kennedy space center.

I’m going to try to update the blog every weekend even if it’s just a short update. I will also post small stories on IG and FB. Thank you all for your prayers and love!