Chiang Mai, Thailand!

Well, we have finally arrived! After years of planning, months of paperwork, weeks of packing, and days of no sleep, we have arrived in Chiang Mai again! 

The last two days of packing were pretty hectic, but God helped us to get through it. And, everything looked SO empty when we left!

Organizing my stuff (including junk that was YEARS old) with my good friend Megan.

My empty closet with all the hangers arranged...I got  bored :)

The hallway. It was even worse a few hours later, I couldn't even walk through without jumping over piles of boxes!

Dad's desk. 4 days before it could have won the "Messiest Desk Ever" award. I can't believe it looks this good! 

Mom was SO tired. This was her only nap in the last 4 days of packing. 

6 of our 17 pieces of checked baggage. 

Storage room #1. This was before more masses of boxes were added. 

More suitcases....

Storage room # 2.

So, after hours and hours of packing and cleaning, Friday night came. We had a lot of people over to help us finish loading things into the large van of one of our friends, people there for moral support, and people there to say goodbye for the last time. I went to bed at 2:00 am, and woke up to my alarm at 5:00am. Took a shower, did my hair, and threw the last few things into my backpack by the time the first people got there at 6:30am. WE loaded the rest of the bags and all of the people into about 4 cars, then drove to the airport.  Once there, we spent from 7:15 to 9:15 in the check in line. Our family alone took 45 minutes to check in, with 17 bags, and all the different things that had to be weighed, checked, and so on. We said our goodbyes at 9:30 and went through security. The guy checking boarding passes gave me this funny look and said "are you okay?" It took me a few seconds to realize what he meant; I had tears running down my face. I didn't want to lie, so I said "not really." My mom then took a minute to explain we were moving to a foreign country. Then he was super nice. :)

We flew to Chicago, then from Chicago to Seoul, South Korea. That flight was about 14 hours. The seats were really uncomfortable so sleep was difficult, I probably got 4 hours or so. They had a bunch of movie selections so that kept us entertained. However, after 10 hours of movies, and 10 hours of NOT sleeping when my body was saying to, my eyes were completely bloodshot once we reached Seoul. From there we took a 5 hour flight to Chiang Mai. I sat with Kendall. I watched this gory PG-13 movie for his sake, because he said it was so good....however, it was fine, but not really my favorite. Haha. Oh well. The things you do to please your little brothers... :)

We arrived a little early and had to get through customs, then headed to baggage claim, where we put all 17 of our bags plus our 8 carry-ons onto carts and wheeled them out to where we had about 6 or 7 friends who were there to pick us up. We drove to our new, mostly empty house, and went around oohing and aahing at it. It's really a great house. Pictures will come later, I promise! I was most pleased with that shiny yellow moterbike sitting in our carport, and the beautiful white helmet with a slide visor that will be my lovely possession for leisure trips with dad. And non leisure rides too. Be jealous. :) I can technically get my license in November for it, but my mom is a little....well, let's just say she has a major fear of her need-for-speed daughter on a motorcycle when two people die every day from motorcycle accidents in our city. Ouch.

Anyhows, I am now sitting in the VERY comfortable bed in the guest house of a family from our agency who live in our neighborhood. It's actually the middle of the night but oh-so-frustrating jetlag is preventing sleep. And I had to write this anyways! So tomorrow we will do more furnishing of the house and should be sleeping in it by tomorrow night. I am so stinking excited! :)

Well, I better get some sleep, so please comment if you want to know more, or are curious about anything!! Missing all my friends from the States SO much!!

Christ has been SO good to us these last few days, and I am so grateful for all the prayers headed our direction.

~Kristen~