Traveling with 7 kids to the third World

It has taken this long to get the internet up and running so I will catch up with my 365 blogs for 2012.

We left early Sunday with the 15 passenger van all packed up. Eleven check-ins, 8 little black suitcases and 9 bookbags for carry-ons. Oh did I also say 7 kids. We had a 7 hour drive to Atlanta where we were to catch our flight. on the way we stopped in Charlotte to go to church with daughter Sarah's family. I got to publicly thank the woman there who has been collecting formula for us for the last year.

Then on the road again. Got to Atlanta airport hotel at 7 pm, unloaded all of the above,kissed our son Bryan [ who had driven us down and was going back to Charlotte to spend the night at Sarah's house] and checked in the hotel.

We were up by 6am the next morning for the 7 am shuttle. By the time we got everything together at the airport and got to our gate it was time to load the plane. Jorge who we use for shuttles in Guate picked us up at 1 and took us to Pricesmart, the Guate equivalent of Sam's club, where I spent money loading up on cheeses and meats from the states and other neccessities of American life that can not be found out here at the Lake. Then on to our new house. Boy was I tired by then, both physically and emotionally. I kept asking myself " Why am I doing this?" Do I really care whether kids get fed, or are malnourished. Why don't I just stay in the states and be a wife, mom and grandma?" Hopefully it was just culture shock. But needless to say, there was too much to do to hang onto those thoughts for long.

My daughter Erin and her husband and 3 little ones were in Guate for the week. We had rented them a small vacation rental for the time in the same gated community that our newly bought house is in. When we got to our house at dark, they were just leaving and turned around to help us unload. Our old time maid Juana was there also. The house is about 20 years old and had this funky stucco thing that we hated so we had the construction guy who added our master bedroom to redo the walls inside. They now look nice, but apparently take time to dry so are wet some of the time. Because the house had been closed up they were very wet when we arrived and the sheets and blankets were damp. We started a fire in the fireplace and it smoked up the whole bedroom. So much for a new master bedroom. Luckily I was too tired to care about anything and crashed on the bed. Did manage to get some dry sheets on before and the smoke out of the room.

The next day was spent working with the builder to get the fireplace working, airing the house out, drying out the sheets, putting away some things and spending time with our visiting family.
We finally made it down to Pana and dinner at Chanitas. Time to just enojoy the grandkids and kick back for some great Thai food.

Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com