Day 1- Mark's Departure / Denver Botanical Gardens for us

The team- 15 teens
4 adults- Mark, Britta (blue shirt)
 Trish and Davin are not pictured because they were still checking in 

 We got to the airport at 7am to drop Mark off. Things went pretty smoothly over all and by 10am they had boarded a plane to Washington,  D.C. They arrived at 3pm (eastern time) and then had a 2 hour layover. Mark called me as they were boarding the plane to Brussels. 

They will be on the plane to Brussels for 8 hours and then have a 2 hour layover and then a 10 hour plane ride to Nairobi. 

Our goodbyes were hard and a few tears were shed but not TONS from the kids like last year:) 

 It was so very nice to have Mark's mom there to enjoy the day with after the goodbyes were said.

She took us to the Denver Botanical Gardens where the kids had a BLAST in the new kids section.

They had so much fun hunting for bones, pinecones, bugs...

 Of course, they loved the water and the sand pit.

 And they put on a very nice play in the kids theatre. 

This afternoon we are just relaxing and tonight I plan to take them to kids Night at Fazolis:) They have free kids meal tickets for reading 5 books and Fazolis does a craft with the kids so I can just eat and read for a good half hour while they are busy crafting!
Please pray that the team has safety as they fly through the night and most of the day tomorrow!