{"id":7248,"date":"2014-06-19T23:22:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T23:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7248"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"goodbyes-and-hellos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7248","title":{"rendered":"GOODBYES AND HELLOS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hugs all around for Mikenn, Johnny and Ruysdael.\u00a0 These three gifted young men will be watching over Buddy, the rabbits and the house and yard for us for the next two and a half months.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Even Daniel made a special trip to say goodbye.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Unfortunately, travel plans did not fall smoothly into place.\u00a0 We were hoping by the end of the day to fly to Fort Pierce, rent a van, drive to Orlando and meet Grandma Trudy at a resort there – where we would then spend a couple of days relaxing before returning to Grandma’s house in Indiana, our home base for the summer.Our Missionary Flights International flight was delayed so long that when we arrived in Ft. Pierce, Florida, the Budget Rental office was already closed.\u00a0 MFI folks were super accommodating and put us up for the night in a trailer home the ministry owns close by.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Not quite Orlando!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

The next morning, though, we were on our way.\u00a0 With only stops for necessities.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Did I mention that our final night in Haiti Melissa came down with a fever?\u00a0 Turns out that it was the onslaught of this Chikungunya disease that was making headlines.\u00a0 Imported from Africa, it is a mosquito-borne virus that is sweeping through the Caribbean at a quick pace.\u00a0 Fever. Rash.\u00a0 Headache.\u00a0Pain in every single joint of your body.\u00a0 Hannah had had a mild case the weekend before and I had developed a medium case.\u00a0 But for Melissa it was full on.\u00a0 This made the final packing process excruciating and the airplane ride highly uncomfortable. By Wednesday morning when we stopped on the way to Orlando for a few supplies, Melissa found riding in a wheelchair to be much preferable to walking.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Before long, though, we were reunited with Grandma Trudy at the resort.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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By Friday we were up for a full day’s drive back to Indiana.\u00a0 With only stops for necessities along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n

Over the next several days, it seemed our main concern was reuniting our kids with their friends.\u00a0 And what joyful reunions they were, too!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sarah with Ellie and Megan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Hannah with Anna.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Caleb and Samuel with Matthew.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Samuel with Thomas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Sarah with Lindsey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

And, of course, there were reunions with FAMILY as well.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sarah with Uncle Spencer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Seems that friends and family are pretty much as we remembered them.\u00a0 The kids are all a little taller.\u00a0 Or missing some baby teeth.\u00a0 Or their voices have changed.\u00a0 Oreo is a LOT fatter.\u00a0 The kids said, “I don’t remember her head being so small…” She waddles now.\u00a0 A friend suggested she’s now “double stuffed” Oreo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately, travel plans did not fall smoothly into place.\u00a0 We were hoping by the end of the day to fly to Fort Pierce, rent a van, drive to Orlando and meet Grandma Trudy at a resort there – where we would then spend a couple of days relaxing before returning to Grandma’s house in Indiana, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7267,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions\/7267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}