THE BEGINNING - Today is the day of our Tongan Service Trip.  We woke up at 6:00 this morning and were so excited.  Heidi and I were commenting that it felt like Christmas.  We didn't sleep much last night just anticipating this trip.  The kids are excited and ready!  I'm sitting in LAX right now as I"m writing this.  It's about 10:00 pm and we have about a 10 hour flight ahead of us.  So far, our kids have done really well.
     We took off this morning around 8:30 AM and drove to Salt Lake University of Utah hospital to see a good friend.  We spent about 20 minutes with him and his wife.  We then drove to my Brother's house close to South Jordan and spent a few hours with them.  We had some good friends that helped drive us (John and Mary Lynn Call) to Salt Lake with all our luggage.  It was good to spend a little time with my Twin Brother and his family.  He's a great example and a great friend.
     We then went to the Salt Lake Airport and waited for our flight.  While we were there, I saw a couple Senior LDS missionaries and decided to go talk to them (we had some extra time).  It turns out that their names were Elder and Sister Jones.  They are going to Cambodia to serve a Family History Church mission.  What was most interesting is that Elder Jones (Elder is the title that your given as a missionary) taught Dr. Permann (my partner in our Dental Practice) shop in high school.  Talk about a small world.  They were from Rockland, Idaho and said they knew Dr. Permann from when he was a young "whippersnapper".  We had a good chat.
     Our children are not "well-versed" travelers.  There were  a lot of firsts for them.  One of them being the escalators.  Our little Ella (4 years old) was discovering them for the first time.  She didn't quite know how to get on and get off.  It was fun to watch.  She was like a brand new baby horse discovering her legs for the first time.  As the plane took off, both Braden (our 8 year old) and Ella were glued to the windows of the plane.  They thought it was so neat to see the "cotton balls" for clouds as we were passing through them.  Right now, Braden is telling us how his ears are feeling weird (popping due to the change in altitude).  All the kids really liked the "sip" of pop and the small appetizer of pretzels that they give you on the flight.  Maddi didn't get any though because she thought you had to pay for it.  She wasn't sitting with the rest of us on the plane, so she politely declined.  Poor girl.  We later told her that it's free.  We laughed about it.  Let's just say that that was our dinner for the night.  No, we got them some real dinner - some Panda Express.  HA!  If you call that dinner.  Now, it's time to medicate our kids with some Dramamine (good thing Heidi's a nurse).  I know what you're thinking.  What kind of parents give their kids..........  Hey, 10 hour flight ahead, we have to help them out somehow.  It may backfire on us, who knows.
     Next stop - Fiji.  We'll spend a day and a half there for a lay over.  Rough life huh!  More tomorrow.