We're home

well, we made it home. barely. The trip started off to be very promising. Security was a breeze at the airport, no body scan or pat down. Then there were extra seats on the plane meaning we had three rows of 3 seats to ourselves. The girls spread out and slept the whole time. When we got to LAX we only had to walk about 5 gates and we were at our gate. We didn't even have to change terminals and go through security again. What a blessing!! However, once we got there we heard the words "extremely overbooked". ughhh!!! They not only didn't have a bassinet for Nathan but we didn't get an extra seat either. BUT they did upgrade us to premium economy. This was a big help. Because while we still had to hold Nathan the entire time at the least the seats were bigger with heaps more foot room and they reclined more. The girls slept pretty well and Josh and I even slept some in spurts. Nathan slept for about 10 of the 13+ hour trip. But he was pretty wired when he woke up and did not want to sit down. or eat. or have a drink. or play with toys. He just wanted to run around. But we made it. And then within a few minutes of getting off the plane we got the news that Gympie was flooded and Grandpa and Grandma couldn't meet us at the airport. And we might not be able to get home. After making it through customs where we realized 1 suitcase was lost and the customs officer took heaps of my stuff =( we made it out into the wet mugginess that is QLD. It only took us 2 hours! We headed to Dan and Jen's house and prepared to be stuck in Brisbane for a couple days. Josh kept looking online and we found that someone had made it through Gympie and we should be right to make it home. So we packed up quickly and started driving. The rain was pouring down, we could hardly see in front of us. As we got closer to Gympie we could see where the water was right up to the edge of the highway but it wasn't on the highway. And in Gympie we were detoured around a low spot but it was all good. The rain cleared after Gympie and we soon came to Maryborough. We had heard one of the bridges was closed so came in a different way. We made it all the way through only to be turned around on the MAryborough/Hervey Bay road because a bridge was under water. So we backtracked a bit and got back on the highway and came to Torbanlea. There was a bit of water on the road but it was safe to drive through and about 20 minutes later we were home. HOME!!!

This week has been crazy. We found out Monday morning that Jason was a couple hours behind us from Brisbane on Sunday but the road had flooded again and he had to turn around. VBS started Monday morning. And we invited friends for lunch that day. A short while before they came we realized that there was mildew on all our chairs and table, the doors and baseboards, the pillows on one couch and on the arm of one of the recliners. I also opened up the dishwasher to realize that the once clean dishes in there were all moldy too. I washed the dishwasher again on it's hottest cycle and Josh wiped up the chairs. On Tuesday some girls staying with Floyd and Gwen because they couldn't make it home to Gympie offered to come over and help clean up. They scrubbed the table and chairs and doors and baseboards and helped sweep/mop the floor. They also took care of Nate so I could finish unpacking. This was such a big help. The girls have been so excited to go to VBS each day but they are SO tired. Nathan is loving all the "new" toys he found. He plays so well by himself. And he just jabbers away as he plays. We found out how blessed we were to make it home on Sunday as Brisbane has been majorly flooded this week and we wouldn't have been able to make it home for quite awhile. Thankfully as far as we know all our friends are safe. We are blessed that we haven't had any flood waters but we are experiencing some panic buying and the grocery stores and fuel stations are pretty much empty. Thankfully it didn't happen until Monday afternoon and we got most of what we needed on Monday morning.

So here it is Friday morning. I'm a week behind on memorizing Philippians. We're already half way through the first month of the year! But at least the house is tidy and we have another week before we have to start school. My big goal for next week is establishing some sort of routine for school and chores.

Ta Ta For Now!! =)