Pat & Katie in California

So...

We're home!

We got home on the morning of Tuesday, October 19th. No one knew, well only a few people to help us set up the surprises for our families, so we came home and have been surprising our families. It has been so fun being able to see everyone's faces, seeing their shock, and how they register in their heads that they're actually seeing us :)

We actually left Kenya on October 5th and did a bit of traveling before we came home. We first flew to London and enjoyed a delicious dinner with our friends Chris and Amy, they were the two who we visited before we came to Kenya. The next day we took a train ride under the English Channel, rode along the French country side, and arrived in Brussels, Belgium. We then spent six wonderful days in Belgium with our friends Nils and Gil. They were two volunteers in Kenya with us during our first four months. We stayed with their families and they could not have been more welcoming, loving, and just great.

After our small visit in Belgium we then flew to Bangkok, Thailand to spend time with Katie's uncle, Gary. We really enjoyed our time with him, exploring the city of Bangkok, and going on hikes along the Sea of Thailand.

Then at 5:50am Tuesday, October 19th we flew back home with a lay over in Tokyo, Japan. It was a long day of traveling but really the trip only took 4 hours because we arrived in LAX at 9:50am Tuesday, October 19th. When we left Tokyo, it was day time, as we flew it became pitch dark outside, then we saw the sunrise, and then we landed in the beautiful land of America. We ended up flying around the world!

Now, you might be thinking, why are they home? Well... We felt it was time to be home. We truly truly loved our time in Kenya, we learned so much about so many things, met so many wonderful people, learned so much about ourselves, saw many beautiful/amazing sights, and we feel as if we've grown so much. It's not that we didn't know this before but our time there made us realize more, that being with the ones you love is most important. It doesn't matter where you are because you can be happy everywhere and find new people to love there, but the majority of the people we love are in Southern California. That made us want to be there...

We couldn't be more happy to be home. We want to thank everyone for their support, well wishes, and prayers that you blessed us with over the 9 months that we were away from home. THANK YOU!

We will be posting pictures and more blogs about our last days in Kenya and our travels around the world.

The blogs that have been going up the past 2 1/2 weeks had actually been posted (and post dated) around 3 weeks ago. We had to trick you guys somehow.

We want to eventually meet up with everyone so please let us know when and where! If you want to contact us, Pat's email is patrickecowan@gmail.com and Katie's is kacoolovich85@yahoo.com


:)