Skip to main content

brunch bunch

Yesterday was a great day. The brunch was a highlight of the day with so many delicious dishes. I'm enjoying some of the leftovers this morning.

Madeleine really enjoyed the day and her gifts. We got her a doll house, Sylvanian series. Miriam (Phil's sister) had Sylvanian stuff growing up and so we thought it would be fun to start M's collection. So far she has the house, a dalmatian family, and a kitchen set. She loves it. I was afraid it might be too old for her but she really likes it.

She was the life of the party with our friends. She kept everyone entertained with being silly and showing off her Chinese. Whenever she'd get a reaction out of folks she'd say or do the same thing over and over. It's been fun for our friends to see her personality develop since last year when we arrived here.

As I type, a beautiful white bread maker is sitting to my left on the desk, my big present from Phil. I was too tired last night to get it set up (it's all in Chinese) but I think later today we'll be having our first loaf of fresh bread. I love the smell of baking bread - who doesn't? - and break makers make it so very convenient.

Phil loved his gifts and was especially surprised and excited by the box of Raspberry Pop-Tarts. It's so fun to find rare, import products like that and give it to someone. The hard thing will be for me to let him eat them and not eat them myself! Funny what we give as gifts when we can't just pick up anything we want at the grocery store.

This morning is our team xmas party. More gifts and food.

This season I've been struck by the miraculousness of His birth. At our fellowship on Sunday the youth and choir put on a program telling The Story. As Mary gave birth -off stage - they played a recording of a babies cry. Everyone chuckled a little but then I was so moved by hearing the baby cry and just realizing that He did become flesh and dwell among us. It's so incredibly beautiful and incomprehensible that He would become a baby and grow up here, for me.

I love it when things you've always known hit you in a new and moving way.

Tomorrow I fly away with Mara to our friends wedding in the NE part of the country. I'm looking forward to seeing Rhoda and going on a short trip but I'm already missing my little family.

But as they say, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Popular posts from this blog

It's simply  the break in the clouds the huff up the mountain the cover of yellow leaves the toast of the sun that brings the swell of the spirit.

Fickle ol' solidarity

At some point in March when this virus deemed that it had spread so far that it could be called a pandemic, I told the girls they should do video journals to remember the days of living in a pandemic. Here now in the middle of April, I realize that I need to write for myself and the girls can just have lots of regret when they're older because they didn't do what I said. When the whole world started moving to stay-at-home orders, I felt such a strong sense of solidarity.  I looked at all of us (literally all of us - okay, most of us) in our different areas of the world facing this beast together.  Jimmy Fallon's wife filmed him hosting from home.  John Krasinski started SGN in his home office.  Everyone was joking about toilet paper, sweatpants, and cutting your own bangs. Italians were singing from their balconies.  Wuhan folk were singing from their high-rises.  Hospitals in NYC were being surrounded by patrol cars each evening with lights flashing and ...

All these posts

Somewhere in space are all these posts that people write.  I've had this blog for years now and I hardly ever use it but it's still always here.  Who is that person that finally says, "Okay, enough is enough. Your blog is gone."? I'm tired.  It's Saturday afternoon at 4pm.  I'd like to nap longer or watch a movie.  I don't want to play chu chu train and I don't want to take a slow toddler paced walk outside.  I don't want to start making pizza but I should, which means I need to go buy tomato paste, make the sauce and make the crust.  I'm feeling lazy and a hard thing with being a parent is that when you're lazy, others in your life have the potential to starve. We're looking at buying a house.  It's not an easy thing to do when the house is on one side of the globe while you're on the other.  When I want to get something done, I want it done now.  So, that's making this process hard.  We're at the mercy of east...