Sunday, March 4, 2012

Arrived safe and sound


Tired boys at Dubai airport!
We have finally arrived in America after travelling for 36 hours! We left Zimbabwe, flew to Zambia for a 1.5hr stop over, then arrived in Dubai after 10 hours. We had a short wait and then caught a flight to New York city. They served us dinner at 12:00am and then breakfast at 2:00am and then we sat for another 7 hrs - not sure why they gave us breakfast so early! The boys watched movies most of the flight and I had to tell them to PLEASE SLEEP!
Our first view of snow from the plane


We then caught a flight to Rochester after a 9 hr wait in New York city. The flight was quick, just over an hour. By this time the boys were struggling to keep awake and even at the J.F.K airport, they were catching quick naps between customs, waiting in queues, wherever they could find somewhere to sleep. I reminded them that that was why I had told them to sleep on the plane and to not watch so many movies!! Hopefully, they have learnt a lesson for next time?!

After 14 hrs, we arrived in New York city. But, alas, there were no bags waiting for us on the carousel! We were bleak when they told us that our bags had not been put onto the flight from Dubai! Anyway, Emirates dealt with it very well and promised that we would get our bags by Saturday lunch time. We then had to take a taxi to a shopping mall to buy some clothes and toiletries for the next 2 days, compliments of Emirates.

Trying to find out what happened to our luggage?

At J.F.K airport in New York 

We then caught a flight to Rochester after a nine hr wait in New York city. The flight was quick, just over an hour. By this time the boys were struggling to keep awake and even at the J.F.K airport, they were catching quick naps between customs, waiting in ques, wherever they could find somewhere to sleep. I reminded them that that was why I had told them to sleep on the plane and to not watch so many movies!! Hopefully, they have learnt a lesson for next time?!

We arrived in Rochester at 12:30am. The holiday Inn shuttle was waiting for us and took us to the hotel which was only 5 minutes away. We had a quick bath and eventually fell asleep at about 1:30am. We had a really good sleep and felt refreshed by the morning.

We were so excited to finally meet our friends - the Miller family! Linda arrived with 3 of her 5 children to collect us and to show us the way to their house in New York state. This was such a high light for me and  a dream come true. Linda has been my special "cyberspace friend" for about 5 years and we have always wanted to meet one another. We met on a South African home schooling site and she has been such an encouragement to me regarding home schooling, parenting and spiritual encouragement.

The boys with Levi (16), Abigail (13) and Elias (11)

We had such a warm welcome with flags and a welcome message above the door. Thank you to Abigail for dong this for us! We truly did feel very special.

We finally arrived at their home around 3:00pm and the boys ran outside to see if they could find some snow. Alas, all they could find was a melted patch by the drive way! This has been a very mild winter and there is hardly any snow around at the moment.The weather report says that there should be some cold weather on the way so maybe we will get some snow before we go to Bristol mountain on Tuesday so we can go ski-ing?! But, here in America, if there is no snow, then they will make it!


View from our bedroom - no snow





This is the our view from Abigails bedroom. We have had NO SNOW since we arrived but we have been praying for snow since we arrived so we can go skiing this week?








We finally had some snow this morning! The boys were so excited to finally see some! What a transformation of scenery from when we arrived. After 15 minutes, everything appeared white.
I couldn't believe the car was covered in snow so quickly!


Thank you Lord for snow!

Well, there may be snow next week after all! We plan to go to Bristol Mountain on Tuesday where the boys will get some ski lessons. 

View from the front porch


 I will send photos of the rest of the Miller family next time!

3 comments:

  1. Looking all good, hope you got your bags. Love Tara

    ReplyDelete
  2. We got our bags back after about 30 hrs so we were very relieved!
    Love Mandi

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy holidays!! Thinking of you. Love Debs

    ReplyDelete