The end of the sky...

Our journey home was wonderfully unremarkable. We packed on Thursday morning, and since we had brought an entire suitcase of baby clothes to leave at Jeremy's baby house, we had an huge suitcase to put in all of our souvenirs. Packing went quickly and easily and we had lots of room for all of our belongings.

We arrived at Durban's airport well ahead of time, despite the fact that Geraldine our GPS, failed us completely by trying to make us take an extremely hilly and almost impassable dirt road (poor Geraldine had been so faithful this whole trip, to fail us now...) We opted for the six lane highway instead and followed airport signs.

In the airport we bought a few last minute souvenirs, yes, even a Vuvuzela, those super annoying and loud horn like things blown by thousands of fans at soccer games. Marc thought it might come in handy with his youth group!

The flights were long, but not unbearable. Our plane from Durban to Capetown was not full and so we ended up having three seats together. It was nice to have Jeremy on the seat between us instead of having to hold him. It was on this flight that I started adding up the amount of hours we'd be on the plane and the hours we'd be waiting in different airports. Two hours to Capetown, a three hour stopover, eleven hours to Amsterdam, a two hour stopover, and eight hours to Canada -- 26 hours all together. That's when I realized our mistake. We had told our family to pick us up at the airport on Saturday, but 26 hours would have us arrive in Canada on Friday -- some how something went wrong when we calculated the time change. Excited at arriving home a day earlier than expected, but frantic that we wouldn't be able to get a hold of our family, we called our parents from Capetown with our South African cell phone. No problems.

The flight from Capetown to Amsterdam was long, but fortunately, we had the use of a bassinet for Jeremy. He fell asleep during takeoff, and slept almost the entire time on the plane. He woke up near the end and made friends with a cute little 10 month old from Gronigan. She couldn't keep her hands off him. They made a cute pair!

Another cute pair was made in the Amsterdam airport when we ran into my childhood friend Michelle Kooy. She was on her way from Jakarta, Indonesia and was traveling to her parents who live in London and are good friends with my parents. Her eleven month old, who had just endured a sixteen hour plane ride was headed into the eight hour one and without a bassinet!

Jeremy slept again most of the flight to Toronto and we arrived tired, but grateful, in Canada, Jeremy's new country. Sporting our Bafana Bafana shirts, we met my grinning brother, Eric, and drove with him to our parents' home.

And there were our girls!

They came bounding out of the house to meet us with huge grins. "Mommy, Daddy, Mommy Daddy!" It was a joyful reunion. It felt so good to hold those little girls again. I couldn't hug them enough. But, there was more...they were meeting Jeremy!

We pulled his car seat out of the car and the girls saw their little brother in person for the first time. They couldn't stop touching him. Right then and there, in the driveway of 34 Masefield Cr., Sara sat down. "I want to hold Jeremy", she said, arms ready in a circle the way we'd practised at home. So we spent an extra five minutes right there on the driveway so that Sara, and then Leah could hold their little brother. They'd waited long enough, now it was time!

We stayed the night at my parents, enjoying their hospitality while enduring our jet lag. Oma and Opa and brother Eric got lots of chances to hold Jeremy and talk to him. And hundreds of pictures were snapped, literally.

That night Marc, Jeremy and I all slept well. We awoke early on Saturday, after a good sleep and enjoyed a quiet morning with our parents and children. Then, our new family, all five of us, drove to Sarnia, and finally, brought Jeremy HOME!