And the Adventure Begins!

The Uganda Crew

It's official, my better half is at the airport and due to depart at 3:40pm today for Uganda! The Jude man and I got Joshua all loaded up this morning, grabbed a quick bite to eat at Chick-fil-a (because let's face it, it may be the best food my man gets to eat for the next two weeks), headed to the church to meet up with the rest of the incredible Uganda team and pray (10 of them in total), and then loaded up into 5 vehicles and caravanned to the airport. Jude and I opted to park and go inside with daddy so we weren't as rushed to say bye at the drop off zone (the cop guys that monitor that area always make me all nervous & I always feel like I'm getting the evil eye to hurry it up when I'm saying my fair-wells, so I just avoided it all together today, for the sake of my emotions!) Everyone made it there safe and sound, unloaded an insane amount of luggage for the airport dude to stack up on the dolly, and then got in a long line to check all the bags.

The team getting ready to pray and head to the airport 

I could feel the lump in my throat start to creep up on me, knowing that it was that time- the time to hug and say goodbye to my partner in crime. Sigh. The realization that I wasn't tagging along on this trip suddenly was upon me. This go around, it was Joshua's turn to go on behalf of our little family, and I'm finding it a bitter sweet thing. You see, we do everything together- so this is all new to me. The only time we've really ever been apart in 7 years is when he's gone twice now to grade essays at this AP reader thing in Colorado for one week out of the year. I'm not the wife of a traveling business man, so this is all out of routine for me, my emotions run high at goodbyes. Maybe that's why God knew that I needed to marry a teacher who would be home all the time! Go ahead, you can roll your eyes at me- clearly I'm needy. (o;

The teams luggage all stacked up!

As most of you probably already know, Jude is quite the daddy's boy! They are such buddies and Jude truly adores Joshua! We've been talking about Uganda and daddy going on this trip for a while now and so Jude has a pretty good understanding of why he's going and what all he's going to be doing when he's there. I think the more important thing to Jude frankly is that "Daddy is coming home, right?!"... anytime we mention Uganda, Jude will always follow it up with that question- to which we respond with a resounding YES! Talk about tugging on my heart strings though! As a mama, you want nothing more then for your child to feel secure and loved- and I knew that his reaction today in saying bye to his daddy would make or break me! Thankfully... Jude kept it together! He gave daddy the sweetest little hug ever and kiss and was his shy little self, knowing that everyone in line was looking at him. It wasn't until we were walking back out into the parking garage, holding my hand, that he softly said, "Mom... I want daddy" in a genuinely sad voice. Then, as quick as that thought was there, it was as if it triggered him to remember that daddy accidently still had his new Finn McMissile toy car in his pocket, "Mom! We have to go back! Daddy has my Finn in his pocket still!!!". At this point, going back, weaving our way through long line of people and luggage for a toy car was not an option! I quickly came up with a story about how Finn would be on an awesome adventure in Africa with daddy and how daddy would bring him home safe and sound! That once Finn was home, Jude would be able to tell everyone that his Finn had been to Africa and on a plane and all sorts of fun. Sure that this would sound so super cool to him, I paused... to which Jude said, "I don't like this story". Ha! Well, I tried. I had a little chat with the hubs letting him know that Finn was in fact still in his custody and he let Jude know he would take pictures of him and Finn in all sorts of cool places throughout the trip & that Jude could buy a new one so that daddy could give this Finn to a little boy who doesn't have any cars to play with. Jude agreed, that this was a great idea.

One of the guys just sent this picture of their plane for the first leg of the flight
Praying for safety! 

And so.. that leads me to now. Jude's nap time is over and we are headed to Walmart to buy a new Finn or some other Cars 2 vehicle of his liking! My man's plane should be taking off in about 10 minutes or so for his first stop in Amsterdam and then onto Rwanda and then Uganda! By 2pm tomorrow the team should arrive, hopefully not too jet lagged!

If you want to keep up with the trip you can follow them on Facebook under Uganda 2011!

I'll post more soon!