Atlanta to Honduras

Saturday, July 29th

We left our house around 7 Am in the morning, and we arrived to our volunteer house in Rio Viejo around 6 PM in the evening.  After getting to the airport and having to wait in a long check-in line, we were told that they could find no ticket on record for our infant in arms.  After momentary panic, and 30 minutes of checking through our records and trying to find a paper trail, we ended up having to purchase another ticket for him.  I am so thankful it was only his ticket that was missing, and not an actual seat ticket, or we would have been in trouble.  We still aren't sure what happened, as Hubry made all the flight arrangements over the telephone (because we had an infant in arms!!!!!)  But I am thankful for a helpful Delta representative who spent a lot of time on our behalf.  And I am thankful that we still got to the gate in the nick of time.

After fighting loopiness for the first hour of the flight, Cuatro finally fell into a deep sleep.  The other children enjoyed having their own TV's and watching multiple movies.

When we landed, someone was waiting with a sign that had Hubry's name on it, which was very much a surprise to us.  He said he was there to take us to the ferry, so he took our bags and told us to follow him.  We did happen to see my sister in a crowd of people as we were rushing to follow Frankie, and called her hither.  Aside from Cuatro somehow wriggling out a leg hole of the backpack and almost choking himself (thank you kind lady in line behind us for catching this before it turned into a tragedy!!) we made it through customs without any issues.

Once we were safely in the van with all our luggage and Frankie, we were finally able to ask hime who he was and how he knew we were coming.  I, for one, would have like to know this before we got in the car with him, but it turned out for the best.  Apparently the school had arranged this ride for us, and we thought they were arranging our ride from La Ceiba.

The most exciting part of our journey was on the ferry.  Our two girls boarded the ferry with wiggly teeth, and left the ferry having lost their teeth!  Raindrop lost her tooth first, and after it came out she said, "This is such an important day for me.  It's my first time to lose a tooth, and my first time to go to Honduras!."

For Songbird it was her 10th tooth to lose, and she decided to throw her tooth into the Caribbean Sea!  "I think this would make a romantic story to tell my Grandchildren someday..."  We thought it would make a fun creative story as well - the eccentric travels of Songbird's 10th tooth...

The ride from La Ceiba to Rio Viejo is about 1.5 hours of extreme bumps going on average 15 miles per hour.  I had to strap Cuatro into the baby Bjorn and then hold his head steady to keep him from jostling around too much.  He was not happy about the situation, but finally fell asleep 15 minutes before we reached our destination.

Our hosts, Cindy and Dave, who are the school administrators, were so welcoming and had the volunteer house all ready for us and a delicious dinner as well.  There is another group from Mobile Alabama here this week as well, and within the group are three generations that have been coming to the school every Summer for 8 years now!

Because there's a 2 hour time difference, and it was a full day of travel, the kids were all asleep by 7:00, and we were asleep by 8:40.

Deboarding the plane on Roatan

Spotting their first exotic fish outside the ferry

Aboard the Roatan ferry