The Walsh and Dalton families arrived safely in Honduras! But not without a little drama. The Walsh family was delayed in DC for four hours, spent the night in Houston and arrived with only three of their eight bags. But we are confident the rest will show up tomorrow. The Daltons came via Atlanta. All was going smoothly until someone tried to board the plane with improper documents and they had to take every bag off of the plane to search for the man's bags. Did I mention it was pouring rain and they left all of our bags on the runway in the storm for half an hour?  So we arrived late with all of our bags -- but most of our stuff is completely drenched.
I'm working on a "gently" worded letter to Delta suggesting a donation to El Hogar might make up for the damage. Feel free to send Delta your own thoughts on the subject. . .

But the truth is, none of us really care about the bumpy journey.  We are here, and it is amazing! We were greeted by a bunch of smiling faces and warm hugs. Who really needs dry socks anyway? The few things that made it safely and dry were the hand made Christmas cards and bracelets donated by the kids from Belmont Day School, the school supplies they collected and the stockings we stuffed for all 50 kids at El Higar for Christmas. I'm pretty sure someone was watching over those previous valuables. (Although I really wish my clothes had been packed in that bag)

After dinner we had a great evening with the kids. Sean, Everett, Matt, Pete and Bill ran themselves ragged trying to keep up with the kids playing futbol. Matt and Pete set up a race car track, and Betsy launched a spirited game of Uno. Meanwhile Bronte, Mikaela, Chaney and Julie brought out some art projects and floss to make friendship bracelets.

We all practiced our Spanish as best we could, and the kids were very tolerant of our improvised grammar. Lots of goodnight hugs, and the kids were off to bed.

What a great day! We are tired and bit soggy, but so happy to be here. Tomorrow we are expecting a visit from some US Marines stationed in the area. They have collected Toys for Tots and are bringing gifts for the kids.

I can't wait to wake up to all those little faces tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty blessed to be here, and to share this experience with my family and dear friends.

Besos!

Julie

A few shout outs:
Selenia: hola Claudia!
Freddie: When is Kate coming back?
Cristofer: Jenny!