We spent our last days in Tacoma with sweet intentionality, visiting favorite places, taking long walks, remembering the spot where Ariel had sung nursery rhymes, Judah had first kicked a soccer ball (excuse me, a football), and OJ and I had frolicked in fields of flowers.  We shared our hearts for hours with soon to be missed friends over lattes and macchiatos (oh, for a decent cup of coffee!!!), hugged each other tightly, and journalled our feelings in preparation for our long journey.  Oh, wait, I haven’t done any of those things since I was an unemployed young adult.  Let me think back…it would have been in college, and probably most of those conversations with friends would have revolved around complaining about being too busy. 

No, actually, our last few days were manic, with a thousand details that had not or could not have been addressed previously.  Wow, moving overseas with two toddlers is a trip.  In the psychotic drug sense.  We moved (mostly) out of the condo the weekend before.  (In case you’re wondering, “the condo” refers to our abode for the past 8 mos, a place that was graciously provided by some dear friends since we sold our house.)  In another more removed graciously provided abode, we took a couple days to sleep, and then continued on with the preparations.  What preparations, you ask?  Mud masks?  Theology courses?  More like painting over the spots where the kids had drawn on the condo’s walls, throwing away thousands of dollars of we can’t remember what (man, I thought we purged after we sold the house!), trying to figure out how to pack me approximately four wardrobes to cover the many climates and growing-baby belly sizes we would encounter on the trip, handing over our business to be run by a cat called “Rusty,” selling furniture on craigslist, and not writing this blog.  Suffice it to say, I only just now cancelled the DSL online.  Well, sent them an email asking them to, anyway.  We’ll see how it works out. 

During that time, Ariel and Judah subsisted on chicken nuggets (I believe these have been mentioned in previous posts), cheeseburgers, and daily servings of Veggie Tales.  Those poor kiddos were champs, coaching semi-insane parents through the ups and downs and reminding us to eat fast food regularly. 

It was a marathon to the end, Monday, March 24, the day our plane would take off at 10 in the evening.  OJ and I put the kids in the tender care of some good friends, and danced the day away in a delicate tango of phone calls, packing, and twisting our ankles.  No, I’m not kidding!  Both of us!  So when Brian Moberg (aka B Mobes) dropped us off at the airport that evening, Ariel was pushing Judah in the stroller, and OJ and I were both limping behind smart carts loaded with more luggage than we could see over.  We winced and pushed our way over to the desk, and prayed that our bags would not be too heavy.  The attendant had mercy and pretended that the airline didn’t charge for overweight bags, and so we hobbled through security and began to pray for our ankles.  By that point, we were just laughing.  Laughing at how many balls we had dropped, how badly we had failed all our own standards, how decidedly unglamorous we were, how rediculous our state, and the fact that in our exit we may have let everyone down we knew in one way or another, but we had managed to obey the Lord.  And that was all we could say on our own behalf.  And it was good.   Getting here was a birth, with all that entails, but as we got on the plane, there was such a relief.  “Here comes the good part.”

  And so we flew through the night, loving the British Airways hospitality, stretching the kids out on the empty seats next to us (thank you for empty seats, Jesus!), and feeling the post-partum high.  To Heathrow, England!