Dana’s Avenue

The last thing you heard from us before today was that we were at the Charlotte airport. I’m happy to report that we have moved on.

Our flight to Chicago left an hour late which left us with a one hour layover. We made it to our gate 10 minutes before it closed. The luggage though didn’t stand a chance. Our first 3 hours in London were spent in baggage claim. First we waited for our luggage which didn’t come. Then we stood in line and filed a claim. Finally we waited to see if our luggage made it onto the next flight coming in from Chicago. And it did!

With all of our bags in tow we made our way from the airport to the train that took us to central London then to the tube that took us the rest of the way to the Eurostar train station. After another wait there we boarded our train. I’m not sure of much else after that except that the Asian lady beside me would wake me occasionally with her snoring. Finally after 30 straight hours of traveling we made it to Paris. Then slept 12 straight hours.

The 2 days we spent in Paris were great and full of mishaps (hopefully we’ll share those later). Yesterday we took the Eurostar again to our friends’ home in Aix en Provence. We’ve had a great time so far and feel extremely relaxed. (They’re gifted in hospitality. How lucky are we?) I have to say… I love Aix. I really enjoy smaller, less touristy places so I prefer this any day to Paris.

Well, I’m off to enjoy some baked goods from the local bakery. Yum.

 French women don’t get fat.  :)
 

I’ve had many, many good days as far as morning sickness goes.

Until.

I lost my breakfast on the Eiffel Tower. Yes, it really happened.

We got halfway up and then stood in line well over an hour to catch the lift to the top. It was almost our turn when I realized I wasn’t going to make it. So close and yet so far away.

But the morning sickness has been better since. Funny timing. Well. Not ‘ha ha’ funny.

I do also want to report that this is my third good day as far as morning sickness goes.  Hooray! 

Well, we’re at Charlotte Douglas Airport.  At this moment we should be in the air but we’re flying American Airlines and with a record of being on time a little over half the time this delay is no surprise.  The screen shows our new departure time as 3:00 although we haven’t begun boarding and it’s 2:40 right now so we’ll see.  We have a 2 hour layover in Chicago before taking the overnight flight to London so as long as we’re not delayed here for that long we should be fine.  (Jonathan’s optimism is wearing off on me I guess.)

I will say though that getting here was easy.  Checking in was a breeze even with all the excess luggage.  And security, suprisingly enough, was wonderful.  Everyone here has been nice and helpful.  My theory is that if you’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to you.  After all they’re just doing their job.

As you can see I haven’t really begun thinking big picture yet.  I’m more focused on each leg of the trip as we’re upon it.  It’ll all sink in eventually…

Everyone is asking, “So, are you packed yet?”

The answer:  No.

But we’re working on it and come tomorrow morning we have to be packed.

I had a pretty good day yesterday so I spent the evening packing, packing, packing.  And there’s more to do.  So as long as today continues to be good for me that’s how I’ll be spending my time again.

We also have errands to run which have to be done this morning because this afternoon the new owner of the Civic takes it off our hands. 

It’ll be a busy day but not too bad I hope.  We’re both up early so that’s helpful.  I’m just tired of looking through my stuff and trying to figure out what I’ll need in Africa and what I should leave behind.  It’s hard to know these things when you’ve never been there.  I’m saving some things for our first furlough since I’ll be more informed by then.

So there you go.  That’s what our last full day here looks like.  Nothing surprising, I’m sure.

I’m still so sick.  I never thought it would be quite like this.  I did finally get some medicine that helps but apparently not 100%.  Today has been another rough day.  I’ll be back up to blogging soon…

For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with heartburn.  I get it almost on a daily basis.  To counter that I take Prilosec and that takes it away about 99% of the time. 

Now that I’m pregnant I can’t take Prilosec.  So you’d think I’d be in constant pain but I’m not!  I also cut out chocolate.  Not as a conscious decision.  If I ever even think to eat chocolate it doesn’t sound at all appetizing to me.  (They do say weird things happen when you’re pregnant.) 

So I guess I’d be free from my heartburn problem if I just cut chocolate out forever.  Yeah, right.

I went to the doctor today (losing my breakfast in the car floorboard on the way) and got a great report.  I look healthy and so does the baby.  The heartbeat was good and the baby is as developed as he/she should be.  We even got to see him/her as well as listening to and watching the heartbeat.  It was a very surreal moment in my life (and Jonathan’s)!  As the nurse was showing me on the screen what everything was it made perfect sense and you could definitely make out the baby.  Now that I look at the ultrasound picture it’s not as clear.  I’m just relieved to know all is well and progressing normally.  I’ll be at 8 weeks Friday so hopefully (HOPEFULLY) I only have 5 weeks left of this morning sickness.  Ugh.

I’m the type of person who can’t figure out what size tupperware container to put leftovers into.  So all this packing seemed impossible to me - especially when Jonathan taped off the size of the pallet.  It looked tiny for all of our stuff!  But today Jonathan took me downstairs and showed me what all his hard work has accomplished. 

Everything we need to airfreight is in the taped off area with some room left over for any items we’ve missed.  This is huge to me!  I never thought it would fit!  Jonathan is a master at this sort of thing though and got it done.

He also created an area for our long-term storage.  It’s not too much really and it’s ready to go so that’s done too.

Now we just have to finish putting permethrin (bug repellant) in our clothes, clean the missions house up, and pack for our initial trip over.  If we have any excess baggage it won’t be much at all.  That’s huge for us because it will save us an expected expense and it will make traveling over so much easier.

I’m so grateful that my husband is so good at these things and that he doesn’t mind picking up the slack I’m now creating.  I knew it would have to get done eventually but it’s great to know we’re already so packed up.  I feel like I can really breathe and relax from now until time to leave.

Oh and did I mention that along with working so hard on packing he’s taking tremendous care of me?  He’s really helped to make this somewhat hard time much better for me.  He’s the best husband ever!