Family

Traveling is wonderful but ... of course we miss our children. When we are in Richmond, we are 600 miles from Helen and her family. When we are in Nashville, we are 600 miles from Sarah and her family. There are iPhone and Face-time though. When we are out of the country it is a little more difficult because the internet is not always reliable. The girls are really great though!

Sarah sent videos while we were gone. We had to watch them a lot and laugh out loud. The first one especially is so very very funny.
VIDEO: Caleb mimics ice skating on TV (45 sec)
VIDEO: Caleb dances and laughs (20 sec)
VIDEO: Caleb in slippers (19 sec)
VIDEO: Caleb makes lib music (34 sec)

Helen and Ben are very good. They looked at the blogs together with William and sometimes wrote his comments to me. When he learns that we are coming back he wants to know where Omi and Papa are.

 

 

Isn't he a sweet boy? Helen says William took this photo by himself when he was alone for a moment.

 

Helen calls flight tracker up on her iPad and he can see where the plane is. Saturday evening she tells him to put his pjs on and brush his teeth and when he is done Omi and Papa might be on the other side of Japan. He was very eager. She was afraid he might not want to go to bed at all. Next day when he wakes up his first thought was to look at flight tracker again to see where we were. We were half an hour from landing.

 

 

We did FaceTime Sunday evening and I thought I had taken screenshots but I can't find them. Sigh.

I Before we had gone on our trip Papa got plane tickets for Helen and William to come in their spring break. Time is very difficult to understand for an almost 5 year old so Helen had printed a calendar page for him. Only three more days now (Helen just sent these photos on my request). William is not the only one excited!

 

 

 

We have been back now for a week and things are full swing again.
Sarah and Wade sold their house in the first week it was listed just when we left. That was fortunate and they were happy. Now they are looking for one to buy and can't find one. They will move into a month by month rented little place and put as much of their things into storage in the meantime. We try to help.

I used to get over long flights and great time-differences much faster telling myself "just shake it off". Not so this time. Couldn't sleep in the nights and was tired in the days. I managed to get all the Asian trip blogs updated e.g. links and videos put in which makes me happy. Such wonderful memories!
I went to the monthly CR quilters meeting which was on Tuesday. I had not expected to but was surprised to accomplish a good amount at the Stitchers on Thursday (for quilt pictures you need to click on the "lace and quilt" tab at the top).

Also, James had an appointment with his ankle specialist on Thursday. They took an ex-ray and the bones have now all healed. Basically he can do whatever he feels like (within reason at our age ha-ha). Great news.

We have seen thousands of Buddhas on our trip but couldn't go to church so we felt it was high-time and went to St Martin's Wednesday service. We had felt the need to say silent table prayers during the trip whether others saw it or not. Actually several times others joined us in a quiet prayer which was great.
I also picked up the big envelopes to catch up with 5 weeks of Sunday deposits and I am almost done posting those.
Friday evening we had fun hosting the yearly new church council dinner which James and I had started several years ago. 8 of the 9 vestry members and the priest gathered around our table. James and I served wearing the church aprons. The menu (so I don't do the same thing next year):
Pumpkin-Ginger-Soup
Chicken-Wildrice-Casserole and Salad
South-East-Asia dessert in banana leaf baskets = Sticky rice cooked in coconut milk and mango pieces
(also banana bread and cranberry bars)
I was asked for recipes. The casserole is in the church cookbook on page 66 (I had to look it up). For the other things I had no recipe. I definitely will do the soup again and will measure and write it down.

The plan for next week:
Getting ready for Helen and William to come on Friday. He has outgrown the baby bed! Plan B? I admit, my fault that the house is a bit a disaster area at the moment. I must sort out!!!
And of course neither he nor Helen should be bored.

And that is that.

 

 

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