Arrived

As I write now, all three girls are asleep in the guest apartment where we are staying.  It is almost noon, and they are getting some well deserved rest.  This’ll be a short message just telling of God’s provision in our journey.

1. Arrived at Portland International Airport with 17 bags to check (each packed almost to the 70 pound limit), 4 wheeled carry-ons, two backpacks, 1 computer bag and 1 double stroller
   • Arrived three hours before flight time
   • Though the United ticket agents we all there, no other passengers were
   • We had between 2-3 agents working with us for about 45 minutes to get us all checked in.  They were all very helpful, and even upgraded us to economy plus for our international portion of the trip.  We had also underestimated the number of checked bags by one (we checked 17 instead of the 16 we had thought) and they waived it through telling us not to worry about the excess baggage fee for that last bag
   • Ate lunch and said our farewells to our parents
   • Left on-time to Chicago

1. Arrived in Chicago
   • Had 40 minutes to get a bite to eat
   • Left on-time to Sao Paulo

1. Arrived in Sao Paulo
   • At immigration we were almost immediately directed to the short priority line (only used for airline staff, pregnant ladies and families with small children)
   • The guy who directed to the shorter line, was waiting for us at baggage claim with three of his friends
   • I showed them the yellow MTS Travel Agency bag tags that were on each of our bags
   • They pulled each and every bag off the conveyor belt and loaded them up onto the carts
   • Our trains of 5 baggage carts, lead by Marla and the stroller went through customs
   • We all got into a couple elevators, and went up to check into our domestic flight
   • Our baggage train pulled right up to the counter and we took about 30 minutes to check in
   • From stepping off of our flight, going through immigrations, baggage claim, customs, re-checking our baggage back through security into the waiting area took 1 and a half hours!
2. The flight to Londrina was delayed about an hour
   • The reason they told us from the cockpit was that there were too many heavy bags.  Some of them had to be transferred to another flight
   • All of our bags arrived.  We were greeted at the airport by several people who formed a sort of fireman’s line into the awaiting van.
3. The girls traveled great!  Both Noelle and Samara slept most of the first night, and they made friends with people around us everywhere we were.

Thank you for your prayers.  The whole journey was so much smoother than I had expected.

The girls are now awake and getting started on breakfast… I mean lunch, so I better run.

For the only cause that matters,

M&M

This is us at the Portland Airport infront of all of our bags

Noelle passing the time