Hard day saying goodbye.

Tuesday, July 30th 

Poor Caleb’s stomach was in knots. He couldn’t even enjoy his last meal in America. He had two bites and it and the malaria pill came right back out.

We did height pictures to compare how much everyone grew when he comes home. 

I’m gonna miss having my kids height in ascending order! I’m not sure how much longer that will last! 

Bryan gave him a sweet father’s blessing before he left. 

He had to get a picture with Cuddles too. 

Bye house. 

Bye Daybreak. 

It was so stressful trying to fit all he needed in these few bags. It killed me how much he had to leave behind. We still ended up over in weight. 

We met up with other missionaries going to the Ghana MTC. It was easy to spot them they were all in short sleeve white shirts and tie! No suits for these guys! 

We stayed until his plane took off. I couldn’t leave until he did. 

This sweet girl in our ward who is from Côte d’Ivoire and her mom made these braclets. They have the flag of Côte d’Ivoire colors. We LOVE them it’s a reminder of our sweet Caleb everyday. I had Christa make me one too because I loved it so much. 

We tracked the flights the whole way. We even stayed up until he landed which was 1am our time. He had a 6 hour layover in Paris! They saw some USA olympians and they came and said hi to the elders, so cool! He can say he went to Paris for the Olympics, he just never left the airport! 

We put air tags in his bags and I think he lost one at the airport in SLC because it still says it’s there but the others all show he is in Paris. 

It was a 10 hour flight. Caleb said he didn’t know what he could watch and the guy next to him didn’t watch anything. He had a hard time trying to sleep. So he just sat there for 10 hours! He said that was a LONG flight. 

Then he headed to Ghana! It was a 6 hour flight and he said he slept pretty good on this one. He flew over the Sahara desert! 

He finally made it! August 1st. He called us at about 3:30pm our time, his flight left SLC 3:30pm the day before! That is a long 24 hours of traveling! He was in a van with a whole bunch of other elders taking turns calling their parents saying they made it, so it was a quick call. But it was so good to hear his voice. They picked up pizza on the way to the MTC because it was 10pm. They slept that night then up bright and early the next morning! No rest for the wary!