Finally one from C.J.!

Ok, so now we are Nicaragua so I can begin to let you all know what´s going on. Obviously since I am writing this Jenny and I arrived safely. Actually, our trip went so smoothly that I can´t explain it any other way than to say that God must have been watching us. Mom, the cake message Vaya con Dios really worked! So our trip starts in Dulles airport yesterday moring. We get to check in and the accepted all of our enormous bags (some slightly over 70 lbs) and I was able to persuade them to give us priority baggage handling! We got to our gate and had a scare, the connecting flight to houston before us was delayed by over 5 hours. I was supposed to be a 7 am flight and ours was 12:30 and we left before them. It turned out that the previous houston flight had a damaged engine and was grounded for repairs. I could have booked that flight but I decided to pass on it and take the later one so we would have more time. Worked out good because I don´t know if they ever left. (that´s 2 all too lucky things) Next, we get to houston and I had an old northwest $10 voucher for a miserable trip to Michigan last week that they managed to mess up. The voucher was supposed to be only good for the day of the inconvenience but there was no date on it and I saved it till now. The first restaurant we went to accepted it, so Jenny and I had lunch for free. You know how I love free. Now for number 4, Jenny and I got upgraded to first class for our 4.5 hour flight to Mangua. Oh baby, it was so sweet! We got hooked up with free drinks and a steak dinner and had those big cushy chairs and a row to ourselves. There´s nothing like going from complete luxury to the opposite in a few hours. The icing on the cake was that the priority baggage handling actually worked and we were one of the first people of the plane (cause we were first class baby!) then our bags were actually the first 4 to show up on the carousel. then we walked outside and Grupo fenix had 2 people and a pickup truck already waiting for us. They recognized us right away, from that handsome pic of the two of us on this page and we were on the road to a place we´ll call home for 3 days within 10 minutes of our flight landing. I couldn´t believe it, defintely the best flight experience I ever had. I have also included a couple pictures of Jenny and I living it up in first class. Not bad for day one.