Day UNO

Today has been one "situation" after the next! But, all in all it has been an amazing experience so far! We have cried, laughed, and LAUGHED some more! We were all so excited to begin our journey. It's hard to believe that we signed up for this trip a WHOLE year ago and we are already on our way to Africa! Time flies!! We departed from Searcy at 11:00 am and headed by van to Memphis.

Mrs. Fisher, Mrs. Traughber, and Ms. Lowry came to tell us bye! how thoughtful!


Jaimie, Ian, and I before departure!

After arriving in Memphis, we unloaded our bags from the van and truck. This was QUITE an ordeal considering we each had two bags totaling 50 pounds each. (This was def a sight to see Kaylee and I trying to drag them around. . . not the two most coordinated people I know! haha!!) After we all got our bags into the airport we had a couple hours to play, grab a quick bite to eat, and relax before boarding our flight to Atlanta.


My luggage. . . I'm a girly girl, what can I say! :) hah


A few of us, waiting on the rest of our team to arrive!

Kaylee, Ian, and me in the gift shop goofing around. as usual. "getting ready for the monkeys in Africa." ;)

With this being my first flying experience, I was reallyyyyy nervous! Growing up, my family always took our motor home/RV on family vacations so today was my first day on a plane! CRAZY, I know! But, I actually REALLY liked it and didn't have any problems at all or severe anxiety attacks as expected. Kaylee and I were in a two seater in the back of the plane and the flight attendant was conveniently sitting right next to me. This guy was a card...and VERY feminine. He was dressed to a "T" with matching glasses and the whole nine yards. Of course he asked about our shirts and where we were headed, so naturally I made small talk with him while trying not to freak out during take off. He was very excited to hear about our journey and actually announced us and our trip to Africa over the speakers to everyone while landing in Atlanta and wished us a safe trip! he was awesome! He made my very first flight experience a lot easier!

After we arrived to Atlanta, 6 of us girls made a beeline to On the Border for dinner. Everyone was starving and excited to be able to sit down and relax, eat some good food, and chat. While sitting in the restaurant we kept seeing people running by outside the restaurant, rushing to catch a flight. We all thought this was quite humorous and kept cracking jokes saying how goofy people looked as if they were on the movie "Home Alone", etc. Dinner was awesome as usual at OTB. We stuffed our faces with cheese dip and salsa, considering we didn't know if we would be getting this type of meal for six weeks. We were just finishing up eating at about 9:10 when Rachel received a text from Dr. Weaver that asked where we were and that we were boarding. Our flight did not leave until 9:40, so we were not prepared to be boarding so early and had kind of lost track of the time. Dr. Weaver then sent a text to Rachel that said to "RUN!!!" We quickly paid and grabbed our backpacks and purses and jetted out the door! We ran as fast as we could for what seemed to be MILESSS, all the while laughing the whole way! We were on the COMPLETELY opposite end of the airport so we had to run, ride the train for about 4 stops, and run some more. Carrying huge 30 pound backpacks while running up the escalators was definitely not our idea of fun! haha! I guess that is what we get for making fun of all those other poor people in the airport running past us at OTB. When we finally got on the plane we were all sweating and laughing hysterically causing a scene-of course! Dr Weaver, being the awesome and calm lady that she is, just smiled and nodded with relief. Gosh, I LOVE her!!!!
After we all sat down and were recapping this funny event play by play for her and Dr. Tullos, the flight attendant and another woman came and stood by our seats. Apparently Delta had over sold the flight and sold 3 tickets for the same seat. (which just happened to be the same seat number I was sitting in) After much confusion, the flight attendant had to ask one of the other passengers to leave the plane and our precious Jamie volunteered to take a different seat in the back away from the group in order to resolve the issue. We were finally set and ready to head to DC!

The flight from Atlanta to DC was REALLY short. With it being 10:00 and being tired from traveling all day, I enjoyed just winding down and listening to my Ipod. We finally arrived in DC and went to pick up our luggage and go to the hotel for the night....

Rach and Catherine carrying their "babies". haha.

When we got to luggage claims we were APPALLED to see Dr. Weavers bag was melted and looked like a dog had completely eaten it! Or as Jamie would say a dragon! haha! Our audiometers were in this bag so we were all really worried that we might not have the tools for our hearing screenings once we got to Africa! Here is a pic of her bag!

Isn't this CRAZYYYY???! we were so lucky it didn't catch fire and cause even more problems on the plane! Dr. Weaver's scrubs were also melted to the bag! NO BUENO!! Needless to say we were not happy about this!! AT ALL!

After arriving to our hotel by taxi, Kaylee and I quickly headed to our room! I am exhausted! We have a FULL day of traveling ahead of us tomorrow! I am sooooo excited! But, I am somewhat scared of flying over the ocean for 12 hours! AHHHH! Hopefully, since we are only running on about 4 hours of sleep, we will sleep most of the flight tomorrow and just wake up in Africa safely. Thats the plan! Please keep our team of 12 in your thoughts and prayers as we start our longgggg journey to Africa tomorrow!