Day 1 ~ Friday Dec 31st ~ Happy New Years Eve!

Actually, our trip started Thurs evening. We left our house around 5:00 pm, made a couple pit stops, then headed up to the cities. We have some wonderful, generous friends up there that kindly offered a room to us for the night, along with cookies, milk, homemade bread for breakfast, and a ride to the airport at the dark hour of 4:50 AM Friday morning.

We just barely snuck on the plane around 6:45 and we're waiting for take off here...

 some of us were very awake and excited!

 We met Aunty Tiffany at the MPLS airport, then flew to Atlanta where we met up with this cutie for the next leg of the trip.

 This girl just "had" to have PINK ear buds to listen to her stories or airplane music. Lucky for her, she had allowance money to spend.  Here she just has the cord tucked into her pocket to look like she's listening to something. I'm positive she's seen other girls do this.

 I'm not sure what the deal is with the blanket of the head, but he was quite goofy at this point. Someone next to him decided to take a nap. When she woke up, we went and rescued Mikayla from her parents. We had sooo much fun with her for the rest of the flight! Wish I had pictures of that part...but, well, she's a busy little one!

 After we landed and put our 2 checked suitcases and 900 backpacks into the hotel room, we went in search of some food. Oh....wait, it's New Years Eve and most restaurants close early. But, look here, we found an authentic Puerto Rican place to eat at.

 Listen with caution when a native tells you a food to try while you're visiting. Here is Mofongo. It can be made with chicken or beef or seafood. Kyle and Jess loved it! Just ask them! It's a mashed, fried plantain-based dish.

After this, it was another taxi ride back to hotel and I think most of us were sleeping during the ringing in of the New Year.