Venturing Home...

As much as I wanted to hurry up and get home to Sarah as soon as we left Neema House, I still cried as we drove away and cried even more when we flew out of Dar to leave Africa on Sunday (Nov.25). We were so blessed to finally, the 4th time we flew over it, see the top of Mount Kilimanjaro as well as the Ngorogoro Crater...

We had a couple more long layovers ahead of us, one in London overnight where we stayed with my old Youth With A Mission friend Sheniz and her family :) then another overnight stay in Chicago where we crashed at a hotel the airport gave us a discount on (fell asleep for the evening at about 5pm...OOPS!). Needless to say, we were too tired to really go see the sights there so maybe we'll return someday.

Of course we couldn't get home easily! Once we landed in Sioux Falls a fire alarm went off in the airport and we were all escorted back out onto the landing pad to stand in the cold and wait to be allowed back in (at this point I'm practically laughing like a mad scientist saying we're NEVER getting out of here!!!! and then we saw a tumbleweed roll by and just died laughing... guess we're home!)

Being away from Sarah for 2 weeks was absolute torture so I'm very thankful that we kept ourselves so busy & were just exhausted by the end of the day so we could both rest and not worry. She stayed with my mom and dad in Alvord the whole time & had a lot of fun spending time with them and getting hooked on 'Dora'. It was nice to talk with her via Skype (online video chat) as well. When I saw my baby at the airport once we were home, you all know I was a mess! I'll never leave her for that long again - she's coming with next time we're gone more than a couple days!!! I just covered her with kisses and gave her a huge hug a didn't want to let go of her EVER! I was SO thankful (at age 2) that she wasn't too mad at us and still gave us hugs and kisses and chatted away with us about... well who knows what, I was just happy to hear her babbling to me! 

Afterward we ate at the pancake house with my parents and then steve and I took her to the washington pavilion in Sioux Falls to see an imax movie (lots of fish, she loved it!) as well as play with all the learning toys, camp out at the awesome water table, and even pet a couple turtles! It took us all about a week or so to figure things out again once we were home - We were so tired and Sarah was desperately clingy and dramatic with us (as I write this we've been home 3 weeks now and everything is wonderful - we have both noticed that she still enjoys giving extra hugs and making sure we sit next to her while she plays or watches a move... which we don't mind at all). All in all this has been a life-changing experience we will never forget!