heading home

Here we are in the flower house.  I told JP I want a flower house for my birthday!

 Once our suitcases were all packed and weighed and our goodbyes said, my mom drove us down to the twin cities to spend a fun weekend before we needed to go to the airport to head back to Mali.  We got to eat a few last really delicious American meals, visited a huge church on Sunday morning, made a quick stop at a store for some last minute necessities, and spent several enjoyable hours at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory.  I love seeing animals, and this zoo is awesome because it's not too big and it seems like you really get to see the animals close up compared to other zoos.  The conservatory is filled with trees, plants, and ka-zillions of flowers. Oh, and I also like that it's free go to there!  Of course they are glad to accept donations, but everyone is welcome whether or not they pay.  So cool!

This picture is in the Japanese garden part at Como.  It was so beautiful to walk through.

My favorite animals to see at the zoo were the monkeys, but here's my mom and JP with the zebras.  The giraffes could be seen close up like this too. The African animals were inside because it isn't quite warm enough yet for them to be outside.

Sunday evening my mom had to go home and we stayed at a hotel that had a shuttle to bring us to the airport very early Monday morning.  We flew to Washington DC, and we've been hanging out all day at a hotel here, its a very long layover!  We thought of trying to go into the city and do touristy things, but it is really kind of nice to have some quiet time to be alone and reflect on our time in the states and mentally prepare to arrive back in Mali. Tomorrow we will be on airplanes for a total of 20 hours!  Add that to the time we will be in the airports, and we are sure to be exhausted when we arrive in Mali on Wednesday afternoon.  We will fly all the way to Ethiopia and then back west to Mali.  After a few days in the city, we should be home on Friday.  It will be so nice to be home and sleep in our own bed after 6 months of traveling around, but we aren't ready to stay home and settle down quite yet... but I'll write more about that  next time.