Guest Blogger

This is for all of Larissa's friends...Her thoughts on departure day. It's a little late in coming, but it is her words verbatim. Enjoy.

To get to the airport, we rode in a big van. Both Grandpas and Grandmas came and my Aunt Abbie, Uncle Tyler and my little cousin Tanner came. I didn’t get bored because I brought a lot of things to do. When we finally arrived, I was excited and sad. I had to leave my Grandpas and Grandmas, aunts and uncles and cousins. We unloaded all our stuff out of the van and went inside to the airport. We went up to the desk and did some things. Tanner was getting a little squirmy, so my uncle had to take him on a little walk to check things out. When it was time to say goodbye, I felt so sad. I gave everyone hugs including Tanner. Then we had to leave. 

This is me heading in to O'Hare airport

We had a lot of luggage!

I went with mom. We went down this hallway thing and then a guy was standing at a desk. We had to show him our passports. We walked through, then my mom lifted me up so I could see my aunt and uncle and grandpas and grandmas one more time before we left. I waved. Then we went through security. Then we had to wait a long time for our flight.  It was  a few hours. We ate supper at the airport.  It was finally time. We got in a big line for people to check our passports. When it was finally our turn, they  checked them and we went through this tunnel thing. When we got to the plane they showed us where to sit.

When we first got on the plane before takeoff, I felt  very excited and halfway scared. Finally it was takeoff. I was really excited. It tickled my tummy when we lifted off. When we got into the sky, I felt really good and comfortable. Once we were completely in the sky, we were allowed to get unstrapped. So I unstrapped and figured out how to watch a movie. Soon it was bedtime. I fell asleep on mom’s lap for a little while. I woke up in the middle of the night.

Can you tell I am excited and scared?

I pretty much stayed up all that time until morning. When it became morning, mom said I slept only about an hour and half and had been awake the rest of the night. They brought us breakfast. After breakfast, I watched another movie and then it was almost time to land. When it was time, I had to strap in. We made a few circles around the airport before landing because other planes were landing before us. When it was our turn, we landed. I did not like it. I thought I was going to throw up. When we hit the ground, there was a little bump. We waited for a little for the plane to slow down, then we unstrapped and got out. We walked through a tunnel into the airport. We were in London! I was super tired because I didn’t get any sleep. We left the airport. Mom and Dad had to drag me around. We rode the Subway into the middle of London. We saw Big Ben (that giant clock)

(( Interjection in middle of story…Hey Mom, can we just skip ahead to when we get back on the plane?))

It was finally time for takeoff again. When we got on the plane, I sat there waiting to take off. I don’t remember much probably because I was so tired. We rode on the plane a long time. Then we landed in Lusaka. We got off the plane and we went to get all our luggage. We waited outside the door for the people from Lifesong to come pick us up. When they finally got there, there were so many of us and so much luggage we had to ride in separate vans. I rode with Mom, Claire and some other people. We had to drive a long time, we even stopped to get food. We kept driving and driving. Finally we arrived around supper. Our friends made a big welcome sign and were waiting for us when we arrived. We played with them for a while, they showed us our new house we would be living in. Shortly after, they had to leave. Once they left, we got all settled in and ate some supper.  I felt good. After supper, we stayed up a little bit longer before we went to bed. Then we went to bed. I slept under mosquito netting for the first time. It felt a little weird. But now I am used to it.