Here I am!

Here I am with Marian, near the end of our final flight. This is me, after 27 hours of waiting in an airport, followed by a 7 hour flight, 2 more airport hours and another 8 hour flight. This is me, after sleeping on an airport floor, waiting in too many lines, after no shower for 48 hours and I'm so nasty, I can't even stand myself! This is me, having worn the same clothes for waaaay too long, looking forward to some sleep and a shower. This is me, not caring because I'm on a trip with only ONE child and it is glorious!!!

Its taking too long to load pictures, so this is all you get for today. I assume you know that since I am blogging, then we have safely arrived in Nairobi and we are alive and well, but very tired. so I'm off to a much needed shower and then to lay down in a real bed! I'm too excited about clean underwear and deoderant to deal with pictures, so you'll have to wait.

Why I am not in Nairobi

Last night, we got to hear Virgin Airlines announce their flight status, and we paid close attention because it seemed to be a prelude to ours. The difference we noted though, was in their attitude. I would totally chose Virgin Airlines over any other right now. Last night they kept their people updated, and when they cancelled their flight, they explained why, and then told their people what they could do for them- meal vouchers, taxi vouchers, blankets, snacks, and they offered assistance in whatever way they could. 30 minutes after their terminal was deserted, our flight was canceled and the announcement went something like this: "The flight is cancelled. Go to the ticketing desk to get the number to call to rebook." No offer of help, no perks, no nice attitude. Our airline sucks.

Fortunately, I already had a phone number to call and we were rebooked before we left the area to go collect our bags. We still got to wait in line, because we wanted to see if we could get perks. We did get vouchers for meals and a taxi. the taxi line was over 3 hours and the drive would have been as long, so we didn't take a taxi. We found an untaken spot of floor and camped out.

I have discovered the USO and am making use of it. If we stay much longer, I may post the pictures of Marian having a blast in the airport. I do not think she slept at ALL last night! She ran all over the deserted airport. That's why she is sacked out right now on a chair with Aunt Deborah. And I shall go join them after I grab some snacks!

This takes the cake!

The Boy Scouts made mini cakes last Mother's Day. Since Dan was in charge of the project, I got to purchase about 10 mini cake pans. I was quite cross when Dan returned home without my pans. I wanted those pans! I harassed him for a few months and yesterday, Dan got in the car after church with pans in hand! Yay! I was so excited to have them that the kids and I made mini cakes after school. I let them eat half their cake and the rest was saved for dessert after dinner tonight. They enjoyed their confectionary delights and it was a lot less messy than I expected. Well, with the exception of Delaney, who opened all the lids on the sprinkles and dumped them all on at the same time.

This was Marian's pose of choice. Such a silly pickle!

At least Marian's pose is better than Joshua's. I was just happy he didn't grimace!

Delaney was in rare form! This is what she did when I said I wanted to take her picture.

Then she was so busy gobbling her cake she forgot to keep her eyes shut.

Such a cutie pie!

Why I love making the kids walk to school, even when its really cold!

Oh, and look who came to visit last night!!

Random Shots this week

A few weeks ago, I heard something invading our recycling bin and when I poked my head out to see what was making the rukus, I was pleasantly surprised to see 3 fury little raccoons running away. They were really cute. I must have scared them, because I didn't hear them again. One night recently, I was excited to hear the clatter of glass and cans and I thought to grab the camera this time. Unfortunately, THIS is what was scrounging for scraps!

EEeewwwww! Ugly, overgrown rat. And Now I know why its called "playing possum". I turned on the outside light and took several pictures of this ugly guy, and he just backed up and froze. Like we were just not going to notice him sitting there!

This is what I awoke to on Tuesday morning. THIS is what they cancelled school for. I know, seriously?!! If you can't play in it, its not worth missing school for. Plus, the high temp of the day.... yeah, 43 degrees. We better not have to make up snow days this year, that's all I'm sayin'.

The chiropractor loves Rylee's little mullet. I couldn't get a great picture of it, but she has a pretty good one going on. See, business in the front.....

....... Party in the back!

And THIS is Joshua's Pinewood Derby car... er, skateboard. He chose the design and did most of the work. I did a very poor job of putting the wheels on, but he's very pleased with this.

They set the track up at church and let the boys come and practice on it. I really just needed to make sure the car met the required specs. It met them well enough. We were also able to weigh it and see how much more weight we could add. Joshua had a marvelous time!

They got to do some practice races, which was great for the boys, especially since it was a pretty good free-for-all.

Joshua's car did fine in some preliminary matches.

And not so well once the left front tire flew off. I wanted pictures, because I will miss his Derby, and I'm taking the camera with me to Africa. So these may be the only pictures documenting all of his hard work.