A Windy Welcome to North Yorkshire!

Okay... so I left off with us arriving at Leeds. We were just about there when the pilot came over the intercom saying that they might have trouble landing because there were 60mph winds blowing on the runway!! 60mph!!! They decided to circle a few times to see if there was a break in the wind. At that point, I started praying, and a few minutes later, we were told that the pilot was going to try to land. Well, let me tell you... that landing was a little scary! The plane was tipping back and forth! I was so glad when we touched ground. To make us all feel a little better, they had a fire engine right there on the runway waiting for us! (I found out later, that our plane was only one of two that had actually landed there that day; all the rest were sent to a different, local airport. Thank you God!)

After we arrived, and gathered all of our baggage, we were greeted by Mary. Mary is our sponsor, and is responsible for helping us adjust to British life. We love Mary!

The next task was to push our luggage carts out to her car. Sounds simple enough, but factor in those 60mph winds, and one screaming, wanting-to-be-carried Maddie, and the task got a bit more challenging! I was trying to hold Maddie in one arm, and push the cart with the other. At one point, I just had to give up. I found a place out of the way, and just braced myself and the cart from the wind as best I could until Ethan could come back for us. I had never felt winds that strong in my life! I kept saying to myself, "Welcome to England!" and then proceeded to question what on earth we were doing here. It was not fun.

We eventually made it into Mary's car, a Toyota Sienna just like our old one. I tried to push the button, and close the side door of the car, only to find out that it was an automatic door, and I had just basically broken the door. Now, the door wouldn't close. For the whole drive to our apartment, I had to hold the door shut, and we had to listen to an alarm going off. (Repeat chorus: "Welcome to England! What on earth am I doing here??!)

We finally made it to our apartment. A lovely woman named Lisa greeted us, and showed us where we were staying. All I could do was try and keep a smile on my face. All I wanted to do was eat and then sleep!! (We hadn't had a meal since we had some fruit on the first plane earlier that morning). Ethan left with Mary to go get a pizza, and the kids and I raided the bags of junk food that Mary had thought ahead to get for us. Again, we love Mary.

When Ethan returned, we all ate, and went to bed. The kids went to bed at 8:30, and we went to bed at 10:30 (England time). We fell asleep right away, and didn't get out of bed until 10:30 the next morning!!! 12 hours of sleep... thank you Lord!!!