We left our house in Minnesota on Jan 7 at 5:00 pm. We got to our apartment in Puerto Rico on Jan 9 at 6:30 pm. Yes, that’s a total of 49.5 hours of traveling. No, it wasn’t supposed to take that long.
Before it all began, I offered the “travel prayer,” which is something our family does almost every time we leave the driveway. This time, I felt inspired to say Please help us stay calm and think flexibly when things don’t go the way we planned or expect. I was mostly thinking about Tanner when I said the prayer, but Heavenly Father was certainly thinking about all 4 of us when I was praying, and boy was he getting us ready for an adventure!
We arrived in Minneapolis at 8 pm to spend the night in a peculiar airbnb basement, with wood paneling everywhere and a bathroom that had a raised floor and a lowered ceiling. The stay there was mostly uneventful, other than realizing we forgot night-time pullups, which Jeremy heroically ran to the store to save the evening.
We woke up very early, I mean super early, to make our 6 am flight, and we got to the gate with time to spare. But… the flight was delayed, and delayed some more. Then we were asked to find other flights because our plane was now un-opperable! Come to find out, a baggage car crashed into the plane. Go figure! We got diverted to a flight that left at noon and put us in Charlotte, NC for an overnight layover.
Understandably, Jeremy was having a very hard time with all of this. Not only did he arrange for us to stay overnight near the airport to make our morning flight which was now pointless, he was spending an entire vacation day that was supposed to be with us in the tropics by merely sitting at an airport.
I was handling it pretty well, fully recognizing that losing one day out of the thirty-something days that I would have with the boys in PR was nothing to cry about. But I did grieve for Jeremy, it totally sucked to be in his shoes! I tried to focus on the prayer I had given earlier. Afterall, one of the big reasons we were going to PR was to practice staying calm when it is hard to stay calm. Well, there’s nothing quite like trying to keep calm when you’re sitting amid 37 confused customers trying to keep 8 bags of luggage and 4 winter coats under tabs while keeping 2 bored boys from climbing on airport furniture while one very frustrated husband simultaneously handles 3 conversations with American Airlines representatives that I would only exacerbate if I was a part of.
I guess I handled it pretty well because curling underneath the airport seats in fetal position and covering my face from all the noise with my coat seemed a lot more mature than wigging out at my family.
Well, God helped us keep it together because Jeremy reached out to our dear friends, the Beauchamps, who live in Charlotte, NC. Without even a pause in their text replies, they said yes to us joining them for dinner and crashing their evening on a school night. It took a couple “discussions” between Jeremy and I to agree on a mode of transportation to their house from the airport and hotel, but we eventually made it to the Beauchamp home!
Our kids got to play with each other, and we got to join in on their family scripture time! I got to have some special moments with their oldest daughter at the piano. After all our kids fell asleep, we spent a few hours talking each other’s ears off, reminisicng, sharing stories of traveling, laughing over the pains and joys of parenting, sharing wisdom and faith, and reflecting on all that God’s love has blessed us with. The night went by all too quickly, and before we knew it, we were settled in bed at our hotel.
It was so special to be in their home again and to just bask in Chelsea’s and Ryan’s amazingness. What a perfect boost of inspiration for me as I geared up for a lot of tough work to strengthen our bodies, minds and souls in PR. It was also neat that we ended up seeing them before getting to PR, because on our way to PR ten years earlier we were also fortuned with the opportunity to be at their home. Thank you Ryan and Chelsea for a wonderful evening together! Thank you for bringing so much light and joy into our very long travel scene and for giving me the boost I needed to be a better mom for my kids.
Our flight the next day was on time, and the boys did great during the flight. Phew! It was like Heavenly Father really just wanted us to take a detour to the Beauchamps place.
We got our rental car and headed to La Casa de Vereda Del Mar. It is about 45 minutes east of the airport. Here was the exciting view on the top of the hill in the neighborhood of our home away from home! The coqui frogs were chirping away and the humid hot air blew in our faces as we cruised down the hill, through the jungle to our new place!
It was a big deal to go inside the apartment for the first time! To say we were all thrilled is an understatement.
We put our bags down, got a quick peak at everything inside, and then booked it down the path to the beach. It was after sunset when we arrived. The boys ran straight for the water and swam around in their clothes. Such an exhilarating feeling to finally be on the beach! I think all the challenges of getting here helped show the boys how truly far away we were from home. And it helped all of us appreciate being there so much more.
The biggest life lesson learned from getting to Puerto Rico is that God often has a different path for us to take than what we plan for ourselves. If we can trust and embrace His plan, especially when we don’t understand it, we can benefit from experiences that we never thought possible! No doubt, our time in PR would yield many more memories and life lessons like this one!
