Skip to main content

neighbors

We are about to lose some really wonderful neighbors. They're moving back to Holland. We've known for a couple months but it hit me again last night. Madeleine kept wanting to pr*y for them. She kept saying "Pr*y" and then saying each persons name in the family. It made me sad.

I don't know how many cups of sugar, eggs, milk, peanut butter and garlic have been borrowed from our house to theirs and theirs to ours but it's a lot. They also have our spare key. Once M is in bed we've used their baby monitor to be in their house and and hang out while she sleeps soundly in ours. We're really going to miss them.

Madeleine's first word was "bye". It was so fitting since it started when we were moving from the States to here. I realized again today that our lives have more goodbyes than I want. The wonderful thing about this lifestyle is that you end up having friends all over the world and it's great for vacationing. The bad thing is that your heart often aches.

It was in college that I first felt the pain and loss that comes from having dear friends move out of your life. It strikes me now, as it did then, that the beauty of loving someone is worth the pain of seeing them go. Without one you could not have the other.

So, blessings on you dear Koks. Xi'an won't be the same without you.

Popular posts from this blog

facebook killed the blogger

Well, it's that time again.  The time when I remember that I have a blog and think about writing something. With coffee in hand, I've sat down in front of this screen and, I'm not joking, within seconds Abe is crying in his room.  Fortunately, for me, I can ignore him. We have a mountain behind our apartment.  It's literally behind our apartment.  I walk out the back gate, up a short road and BOOM, there's the mountain.  I like our apartment but I sometimes think about all the other apartment complexes that seem better.  Some are closer to the girl's school. Some have lots of other expat kids that the girls could be out playing with.  But none of them have their very own mountain.  And so, even with the things I'd like to change about this complex, I'm praying we can live here for a long time.  Phil tires to climb the mountain everyday.  I was inspired and I try to climb it every other day - I don't want to get too buff.  I never...
Read more

sun shiny days

This past Friday, 6 days after arriving home from Thailand, we finally had a sunny day.  Thank goodness because otherwise I was about to pack up the family and head south.  It is amazing how sunshine can affect our moods. Lilian is 8 months old.  She was extremely busy in Thailand.  She began crawling the day after we arrived.  Within just a couple days of her crawling her first pearly white started poking through. Then 2 days later another started pushing through.  Her hair had a growth spurt and it all grew straight up.  Her funky hair was the delight of many. Madeleine has said a couple really fun things lately.  1 - "Why does Lilian have that on her forehead?" (a red, speckled birthmark in the middle of her forehead)  "Did she fall out of you?" --2 - " Shhhh , I hear snowing, I think" (said on a particularly cold evening while playing outside). Getting back home after vacation seems to be difficult no matter who you are or where you live. I don't ...
Read more

happy birthday

Today I am 29 years old. I don't mind being a 29 year old. It has it's advantages, I'm sure. It's only 7:33am so I don't really know how my actual birthday is going to be but yesterday was great. After a meeting here at home with the other Seminary English teachers, Phil told me that Terri (coworker) wanted to see me the office. I knew something was up and when I walked into the office everyone was standing there, Terri was holding a cake with candles, and they all started singing "Happy Birthday". I wasn't surprised that they did something but I was surprised to have everyone there at that moment singing to me. I'm enjoying a piece of the spice cake right now with coffee. They also made me a really sweet card that was very encouraging. Terri and Buddy(dog) came over around 5pm last evening so that Phil and I could go out. I knew we were going to a restaurant and I knew we should dress a little nice. We both looked nice but we couldn't...
Read more