Back home again!

Obviously, by the title of the post, you can see that I'm home again. We got back to Mechanicsburg around 2:30 on Monday, the 15th, after a 9 hour flight from Montevideo to Miami, a three hour layover in Miami and a 3 hour flight to Baltimore and a 2 hour ride home. I slept very little on the plane - there was a young child (under 2) in the seat ahead of us that slept very little and cried some and I was in the middle with someone on either side of me, so I was conscientious of not moving around too much. By Monday night, I was really, really tired and went to bed around 9:30, but unfortunately, I didn't sleep well last night either. I came home with a sniffle and it's now a full blown sinus congestion. I'm not sure if it's the weather change, allergies triggered in Montevideo by all of the Eucalyptus or what, but I'm not functioning too well. My hubby was kind enough to stop on his way home from work today and get me some decongestant - hopefully it works and I get some sleep tonight!

I just wanted to update on what we did the last day we were in Montevideo with Stephanie and Bruce. We went to church at Christ Church, which is an English speaking church in Montevideo. The pastor was a guest speaker since the regular pastor was on vacation. He spoke on grace and used Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 3:24-26 as his scripture. It was a very good message, but it was almost like a step back in time. It reminded me of the messages I heard as a child in the Baptist church where I grew up. There was nothing 'contemporary' about the service or the sermon, which was really cool! It took me back to my childhood. There was a time of tea and coffee after church and we got to talk to some of the members who were interested in what we were doing in English camp. After church, Jackie and I took Stephanie and Bruce out to lunch as a "thank you" for their hospitality and Ceci, the girl from the Y who we had befriended met us there. Fortunately, Bruce had the foresight to make a reservation for us because Sunday was Uruguay's Father's Day, so the place was packed! Originally, we thought the place offered asedo, grilled types of meat, but they had a different menu because of the holiday. So Stephanie got chicken (she wasn't feeling too well), Bruce and Jackie got steak, Ceci got breaded beef and I got spinach ravioli with a white sauce. It was sooooo good! We went home, I took a little nap and then we spent the evening just visiting and chatting until it was time to go to the airport about 6:45. Bruce took us and helped us to get through the check-in. Our fun began when we got to Miami (about 5:15 am) and had to go through customs. It took us an hour and a half to go through all the checkpoints, pick up baggage, recheck our bags and go through security. Jackie had to go through a "pat-down" because the pin in her knee set off the alarm and without there being the full-body scanner, they needed to be sure she wasn't hiding anything. I felt uncomfortable for her because, even though it was a female TSA, it still looked awkward. Once we made it through that, everything was pretty routine. We met a young man in Montevideo who was on his way back to Kentucky, and I was joking that it was nice to be able to have a conversation in English. He said he understood, because he didn't speak English either, but he was visiting his girlfriend who was doing an internship at the Embassy. Then on our leg to Baltimore, a young man who was born in Brazil, was on his way home to Maryland. He sat next to Jackie and they talked most of the way to Baltimore while I slept. Harry, Jackie's husband, was waiting there and helped us get our luggage and to drive us home. While we had a great time in Montevideo and helping with English camp, I was happy to be back home and seeing my husband, as I think Jackie was too.