We are officially back on American soil! Our blog is about to get a whole lot more boring since we no longer live in a country on the other side of the world. What a journey it has been. Hez and I finally both slept through the night last night, and it’s beginning to feel more normal. Although I was pretty shocked walking through the cheese aisle at Hy Vee. You guys, there’s a lot of cheese options here.

Our journey back to the states began about a week before we left with Nathan’s mom and sister coming to visit and help us get ready to move. Guys, there is absolutely no way we could have done it without them. From helping us pack, to bringing us extra suitcases, to cleaning our whole apartment—they were a lifesaver! We got to explore the city with them a little bit, but most of the time was spent wrangling Hezekiah and getting organized to move.

We left right before the Lunar New Year celebrations started, and we were pretty sad to miss the festivities! BUT, we’ve heard the busiest day at the airport was the day after we left, so we were okay with getting out of there (I was also ready to get out of the coronavirus territory).

We left Tuesday morning, getting to the airport at 3:30 in the morning, and we ended up getting to Des Moines at 5:00 at night. Somewhere in between there we had 24 hours of travel—I’m still not sure how timezones work.

We brought a carseat for Hezekiah to sit in in his own seat, which apparently wasn’t allowed on one of our flights but I just kept telling people “Oh, they told me it was okay” and eventually they stopped telling me I couldn’t do it. We also brought lots of snacks, a couple of bags of new little toys for him and a shoe box (because I guess that’s his favorite toy now).

We survived, and we learned that traveling with a one year old is significantly more difficult than with a six week old—and we were so grateful to finally land in Iowa.

The last week has been full of visiting family, eating a lot of good food, and celebrating Hez’s first birthday! We’ve learned that Hez isn’t the biggest fan of  shoes or pants, but he’s adjusting pretty well.

 

 

I’ve already hit up my favorite coffee shop twice and we are thoroughly enjoying all of the grandparent time. The transition has been surprisingly easier than I expected, and I’m just so thankful for a loving family and an easy going baby. We’re excited for the plans God has in store for us during this next season, and if you didn’t see my picture yesterday, we’re pregnant!

Each time I went to the doctor in Vietnam, they gave me a different due date, so I’m somewhere between 14-15 weeks along! I’m happy to have some more energy and to be getting out of the first trimester “blah”. We can’t wait to grow our family and have a new sweet babe to love on. We are so thankful!

Maybe this pregnancy I’ll take more than the two bump pictures I have with Hez. I’ll make that my (late) New Years resolution, sounds pretty doable.

Thanks for reading!