Tired, Bored, and Jetlagged

(This was written on Monday, 28^th J)

Normally I wouldn’t be bored here in England, its an absolutely beautiful country, and with so many places, and family to visit there’s a lot to do. However, seeing as I slept for 2 hours after dinner this evening (stupid, I know L), now at midnight I am unfortunately wiiiide awake. And with almost everyone else in bed, no internet at the house that we are staying at (we can only get a connection at my grandma’s house),  and having already read an entire book since lunch time, there’s not much for me to do. So I’m sitting here at 12:30am, drinking Ribena, listening to music on my computer, and writing this blog post on Word which I will publish tomorrow morning.

First of all, here are a couple of pictures from when we were saying goodbye to everyone at the Vancouver airport on Saturday. It was so great of everyone to come out to see us off, although that did mean that there were quite a few more tears L

Last time in our l.o.v.e.l.y. old van :S

On our way!! (this is after the 9 hour flight from Vancouver to London, about to board the flight from London to Manchester.... we don't look too bad for having just gotten off of a plane!! :D)

We were met at the airport in Manchester by absolutely everyone in our family over here, minus a couple of cousins… it was almost as big of a crowd as the bunch that saw us off in Vancouver.

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Alright welllll I eventually fell asleep while writing that last night, so I’ll have to finish it now. Its now 10pm the next night (Tue 29^th) but this time I’m exhausted. I didn’t let myself sleep at all during the day today, and I’m trying to last until 10:30 tonight in hopes that I’ll be able to sleep all night and finally beat the jetlag! Last night I didn’t actually go to sleep entirely until 2:30 in the morning… and then slept until nearly noon. Which definitely didn’t help my jetlag at all! I’m hoping that once I beat this, the next stages of our trip (Santorini, Egypt, Uganda and finally to South Africa) won’t be bad at all, as they are all within 1-2 hours of each other time-zone wise.

Anyway, in case anybody happened to be wondering, transport is a little tricky for us over here. The last time we were here we all just piled into my grandma’s 5-seater car (Josh sat on the floor :P). Now this time, with Ayana and Moses added into the mix, there are 8 of us (including my grandma), which wouldn’t really be as easy to fit into 5 seats. So we had to rent a car.. which means that someone has to drive it. And since my dad isn’t comfortable driving on the right side of the road yet, and I definitely am not up to trying it (plus I can’t drive standard), its up to my mom. She did get her license here, and obviously drove around all the time before she moved to Canada, but its been years since then. She wasn’t too excited about it, especially since our rented car is quite big, and very long, but she’s done so great, I’m jealous :P I miss driving already, but there’s no way that I’ll be able to drive standard and right-hand drive for quiiiiitte a while. I wish I could, and I will have to learn eventually if I want to be able to drive in South Africa, but for now I’m just nervous about it!

Well yesterday we all went to take my grandma’s dog Mac for a walk, and then went to the library. Haha it doesn’t sound very interesting as I’m writing it down, but seriously, England is so so beautiful!! Everything here in Congleton is so old and historical, with cobbled streets and black and white building, and little shops like “Mr Simm’s Old Sweet Shoppe”.  Just walking around, in the park, or the streets, or just down the road is all so gorgeous. And everyone’s accents here are so great too. I just love accents, and here you can’t walk down the road one step without hearing someone’s accent, I love it! And going to the library was great… since I packed up all of my books for shipping, I haven’t read any real books for about 2 months. I was so sick of having nothing to read that I found myself reading my brother’s “Ancient Rome Puzzle Story” book. Quite thrilling. So getting some good books was great, even if it doesn’t sound as fun to other people as it does to me. :P

Anyway, its almost 10:30 and I’m barely awake enough to be typing this right now, so I guess that’s all for now. I’ll post this tomorrow in the morning/afternoon when we go to my grandma’s house for more internet connection. And hopefully all the pictures will work as well (the pictures underneath are from Congleton, just walking around J)!

Well, goodnight for now, I’ll post some more another day. <3 

haha so cute.... major jetlag :) 

haha I thought this sign was funny :) 

beautiful little church.. 

this is where both my great-grandad and my grandad's funerals were 

Hello from England :)

Well I'm not going to post a lot because we're about to go out somewhere, but I just wanted to say that we arrived in London England yesterday (Sunday) at 1:30pm British time, and then took a shuttle flight up to Manchester, where we finally reunited with our family, whom we hadn't seen for 5 years!! And no one except for our Grandma has ever met Ayana and Moses so that was especially exciting. Everyone is so grown up and different, its weird to be back! But its good to see everyone again.

Leaving on Saturday night was so horrible.. so many people were at the airport, and while I was worried that I wouldn't cry, I definitely didn't have to worry. I was fine until suddenly when everyone started to take pictures of us (perfect timing Erin) I suddenly started bawling my eyes out. Saying goodbye to people, friends and family, some who I have known for a couple of years, some my entire life, was one of the hardest thing I have ever done. Two years, while I'm sure it will go by super fast, seems like forever to not be seeing my best friends. I guess everyone will just have to come out to Africa to see us!! :) 

Pictures and stories to come later, whenever they happen :)

We're Leaving, on a Jet Plane...

Not much to say amidst all the chaos, but just wanted to quickly post to say that... we're leaving today!!! Last night Megan and I had a 'last sleepover' with our friends (3 sisters) who we have known for 15 years.. we're all pretty much sisters, so while it was a fun time all together again, it was also sad knowing that it was our last sleepover/hangout for a very long time. 

Many other goodbyes over the last few days, very bitter sweet, very hard to leave.. but so very exciting as well!!

So seeing as there is still so much to do before we leave, I'll end now just by saying that in 7 hours we will be done with sad goodbyes, and will be taking off, and finally on our way :) 

Surprise!

On Friday I headed out to the get together (planned months in advance), which I thought was a reunion for our outreach team from this past March, but actually turned out to be a surprise goodbye party for me! 

I walked into my friend's kitchen to see a counter full of food, a poster saying "We'll Miss You Erin!", and my friend's (who was not on our team) head sticking up from behind the counter before they all jumped out from hiding. :)  I was a little confused, but very surprised, and so so grateful to all of my amazing friends, both for organizing, and attending. I felt very loved :) 

And also for the book they made me, which is super cute, and full of cards and notes for me inside to say goodbye, which, I'm told, I don't get to have until the airport, as apparently people are still signing it. So that was so so nice and I was so grateful (and very excited to read the book, its super cute) :) 

Even though it was a goodbye party, and very sad to actually say goodbyes when people were leaving, it was so much fun, and I'm so glad I got to have that experience. We didn't take a ton of pictures, but here are a couple from that night :) 

Me and two of my best friends.. one I've known since we were three, and one is my "twin" :) (Carissa, on the left, is joining us for two months of our trip) <3 

Chatting :) 

Two great friends behind, and two great "sisters" in front (Megs is my real sister, and Ashley on the right, who I've known for all of her life, is practically a sister too <3)

It is now only 5 days before we leave.. this is our last Sunday in Canada for a very, very long time. There are going to be approximately 104 more Sundays before I'm back here; so crazy!!

Its been full of goodbyes lately, and just tonight we had three more goodbyes; a family gathering goodbye party (although we'll hopefully see most of them again at the airport for a final goodbye), goodbye to some new friends, and goodbye to some other friends, who just happen to own one of our favourite African restaurants ever. So it was a pretty sad night, and I'm pretty tired.. and also pretty excited to finally get going next week!! So despite how very sad it is to leave everyone behind, I'm also extremely excited to finally be back in the place I love.. Africa!! :) 

Makeover!

I'm going to do another post today, but I just wanted to point out (for those of you who hadn't noticed :P) my amazing new blog design!! It was done by Louise at Adori Graphics, and I'm absolutely in love with it. 

Thanks Louise!! :)  

The First Goodbye

Tonight we had to say goodbye to some amazingly good friends. They live in Calgary and are out at the moment visiting friends and family, and tonight we went out for a bunch of people to say goodbye. They have a little boy who was also adopted from Ethiopia, and Ayana and Moses looove him, he's one of their very best friends. It was sad when they left for Calgary, but this goodbye seemed even harder, knowing that it will be at least 2 years until we see them again :(

Looking at how hard it was to say goodbye tonight, I can't even imagine how I'm going to survive the next couple of weeks saying goodbye to everyone... and especially the 26th, our Dday, there will be maaany tears that day :(

Anyway, here are some pictures of Ayana and Moses and their very special friend. <3 

Me and the boys, love this one!

Moses chose the most practical shoes for climbing of course!

Being goofy....

so happy :)

Gone so Soon

Well since I last posted we have now packed up our entire house and moved to our extremely generous friends' house, while our tenants have moved into our own house. 

The problem is, our rather large family (7 people) combined with our friends' pretty big family (6 people plus their nanny and dog) makes for a very full house. And seeing as they don't have enough bedrooms for 14 people, someone had to get the shaft. Any guesses as to who it was? That's right, me! Well me and Megan. So we are now living in our friends' RV trailer which is parked in the backyard. And while my friends like to laugh at me for that fact, its actually not bad at all. I mean, this is a very nice trailer, and its all hooked up to electricity and everything, so really my sister and I have our very own mini little house to retreat to whenever we need privacy. And with my insane addiction to One Tree Hill (best show EVER!!!! :D), the TV and DVD player in there comes in very handy :) 

 The one negative thing is that the running water isn't connected so we have to use the bathroom back in the main house, but really its not that big of a deal. Of course at 3am in the pouring rain and pitch black it seems slightly more of a hassle, but in the long run its not bad at all. 

Anyway, just thought I'd do a quick post to keep you updated, and to say that we are now leaving in 21 shorts DAYS!! And I will be away for 9 1/2 of those days so my time with friends is getting very very short :( 

Enough writing, here are some pictures of us and our amazing friends, who are really more of an extended family to us than anything... I've known them since I was three, and my siblings have all known them their whole lives. Josh and their oldest son have grown up together, and have always been the best of friends, while Moses and their youngest son, while having only known each other for the past 2 1/2 years are also best buds. And since I've babysat their kids since forever, we all know each other pretty well. So its been good staying here :) 

Moving

soo organized of course :) 

Goodbye to my little room :( 

Our New Home :)

Living With Our Friends

My sister and I going out for my birthday dinner :) 

Hunting for moles haha :)

And just because he's adorably cute, here are a few pictures of our special little 6 month old friend who came to visit the other day with his mom and big brother :)

And a couple pictures of some new friends :) ...