From N. Ireland... Through Airports...To Australia

We had a great time in N. Ireland and then had to say some more goodbyes to loved ones......we got up early Saturday morning and headed to the airport.  God provided in many amazing ways for us as we flew over 21 hours and sat in airports for more than 15 hours from Belfast to London, Hong Kong, Melbourne and then to Cairns, Australia where we are now!  If you want to see more details about that, you can look on our ministry blog at http://ntm.org/benjamin_hatton or go to the link to the right of this post.  We arrived in Cairns almost two days ago and were able to stay up that first day until night time here.  We got a good night sleep and although we felt a little tipsy yesterday, we managed to keep ourselves on a normal schedule.  We slept again last night, but the jetlag is showing a little bit as all of us were wide awake around 3:30 this morning!  So, we finally got up an hour later and had breakfast.  The sun is coming up here now but I think we will all try to sleep again for a couple of hours!  When we wake up mid morning, many of you will be cleaning up after supper!  If we are calculating this right, we are 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard time (home in Michigan).  Of course that will change as you 'fall back'.

We are in a tropical climate here in Cairns, which is strange, because when we flew here from Melbourne, which is a 3 hour flight south, the climate was very different.  It seems that Australia is much bigger than I thought!  It is spring time here right now and it reminds us a lot of Florida.  In the next day or so, we will post some pictures of Australia.  Thanks so much for thinking of us, praying for us and keeping in touch.  There is no turning back now, but we miss home and all of you very, very much!! 

Beautiful Creation

I had to post one more blog before I go to bed.....We took a very pretty walk today at a place called Whitehead.  I hope you can get an idea of some of what we saw today.  God has given us great weather since being here and it is supposed to be beautiful all week...an answer to prayer because we really didn't have room to bring too many jackets or cold weather clothes.  We were given a gift to buy a new camera so we are trying to figure it out a bit, but I had some lenses from years past that fit the camera and they helped to make some good pictures...hope you enjoy!

That white lighthouse on top of the cliff is where we walked to...

We stopped part way to have a snack to give us energy for the rest of the hike up there....it was quite a walk!

The lighthouse was nothing to write home about (although I am writing home about it, aren't I!!), but the views were spectacular!

Finally, after much walking, the kids were able to pick up shells and rocks!

I know there are a lot of Silas, but he was so cute!

They filled their bags with treasures.....what a lovely day!

Traditions At Nana's

We popped in at Nana's house unannounced early last night.  Nana is Benjamin's grandma on his dad's side.  As we pulled up to the house, we heard the music of an icecream truck nearby.  I had always wanted to stop one of those in Michigan, but they always seemed a bit creepy, so I never did.  This one was new and bright looking and children from the neighborhood were running towards it as we pulled up.  So, I quickly pulled out some British Pounds from my wallet and we ran up to the truck.  Each of us ordered a "Ninety Nine" - that is a soft serve type cone......don't ask me what the significance of a that name is - they stick a "flake" in the icecream, which is a rectangular piece of flaky chocolate.  Can anyone relate to this?  I had never heard of it before except when we were in Ireland 5 years ago.  Anyway, the kids (and I) loved it....and they ate it in Nana's living room.

 Then we made supper!  Have you ever had a Crisp Sandwhich?  I hadn't either, but it was very simple and pretty tasty.  Benjamin grew up eating these whenever they were in N. Ireland on furloughs - it is a common school boy/girl's lunch here I am told.  It is basically a bag of crisps (or potatoe chips) squashed between buttered bread.  I am not sure what the kids thought of it....kind of strange, but it is potatoe chips, so who doesn't like that??!!  I have some pictures to show the different stages of assembling this interesting tradition.  This is something that even your kids can make at home with not too much fuss! Enjoy! :)

A lot has happened since my last post.  We went from being busy getting ready to go overseas to getting everything packed up and being halfway to our final destination!
 It was a very busy last two weeks in Jackson for us.  We spent time with family, friends who we were able to connect with, and more time with family.... plus some very busy days of sorting the remains of our stuff, selling things, sending ourselves packages (because we still had too much stuff to pack in our suitcases), getting our house cleaned......THANK YOU to the many people who came over and helped us!!!  I was laughing outloud on Monday, the day we were flying, as we were literally running around our house, along with Scott and Becky and their kids and Martha....we were all quickly trying to tie up loose ends, clearing off counters, floors, the dining room table and upstairs rooms of leftover stuff and garbage that we had not been able to deal with yet.  We had to leave in about an hour for the airport and there was still stuff everywhere!  We looked like a bunch of ants running around doing busy work and no one was really talking except me who was every now and then barking orders...it was just quiet, fast work!!  Going from laughing together in our house one last time, to wailing together at the airport (literally wailing....Becky's Maggie started it!) and then being absent from one another.....just plain old wierd and hard!!

We are in N. Ireland now, and although I have very much been missing home, family and friends, we are really enjoying our time here with Ben's parents and being able to see again after five years, his Granny, Nana, two sets of aunts and uncles.....we still look forward to seeing Uncle David!  We enjoyed fish and chips today and a walk by the sea!  The kids enjoyed picking up sea shells, or "She sells" as Judah keeps saying.  Thank you so much for praying for us and remembering us these days!