The trip from Virginia Beach to South Carolina went without incident. All 3 kids are still doing so well. It helped that this was only a 7ish hour drive, rather than the day before’s 16 hour journey! We watched a couple movies on NetFlix and on the “new” Zune 30 that I’d had shipped to Jason and Brooke’s house – 100 hours of video on a $50, 5+ year-old device!
We’re running a little low on “mum mums” – Eli’s quick-dissolving rice snack that rescues us any time she gets a little emotional about being stuck in a car seat. We’ll have to ration them for the last day of the trip!
This evening we had dinner with friends in Columbia, SC. They were about to move to England for missions work last year, when their baby girl became suddenly very ill while in Belgium for pre-field training. They rushed home to confirm the local hospital’s diagnosis of Leukemia. Then spent the following months trying treatments to save her life. During that time they established a pretty neat ministry in their hospital and online through telling their story. Simi had quite a ministry of her own, but despite everyone’s best efforts, she passed away. Obviously they’ve been wrestling through what comes next, and how they should proceed. It was encouraging to see that their faith and their commitment to missions has not wavered, despite everything they’ve been through. Their other two daughters are close to Ben and Abi’s age, and Elizabeth and I knew each other in Germany many years ago, so it was great to visit with them. We look forward to seeing them sent out to the field!
The final leg is 9 hours, 20 minutes – plus pit stops, which will probably put us up to nearly 12 hours. But at the end of it, we’ll be “home” in Florida for the rest of the month! The weather has been cold all the way down, due to the arctic chill that has our home in Canada buried in snow and freezing, but we anticipate that temperatures will climb as the weather system passes – and as we get further south. We certainly hope we get to put on those shorts we packed soon!!

Sunday night, everyone went to bed early — mom and dad, after cleaning the house and packing the van. Monday morning we got up at 3am, climbed into the van, and hit the road. Everyone slept until about 7:30, while I drove. The border was a breeze — not that we expected issues, but with a month-long trip, you never know what kinds of questions they’ll ask. Another 12 hours after that, and we were pulling up to Jason and Brooke’s house in Virginia Beach.
The kids did extremely well — NetFlix on the van’s flatscreen helped, I’m sure. Ben and Abi did some colouring, and played a little of their new Nintendo DS. Everyone napped a lot, Eli not as much as we would have liked. She screamed when she was hungry or poopy or tired, but otherwise was as pleasant and happy.
We hit weather once, and traffic once. The weather was in Pennsylvania (no surprise there) where lake effect snow had us in white-out conditions for a while. This was the start of an arctic front that was supposed to hit our home neighbourhood later in the day, so we were pleased to be ahead of the majority of it. The traffic was a mysterious total stoppage in Virginia on I-64, where we were stuck for so long that people just shut off their cars for awhile. Suddenly it started moving again, and that was it: smooth sailing the rest of the way!
Its been great to visit with old friends from our time in New York. Our kids are close to the same age (Ben and Alivia used to take baths together as babies!) — in fact, Ben stayed with Brooke and Jason while Abi was being delivered! And encouraging to see that they’re the same awesome people, just living in a different place. Its been a short visit, as we need to be on the road in an hour or so, but we have 2 more legs to this journey, and more friends to see.