Mom and Dad and Jen and Lily left a few days ago. It was VERY sad to see them go )-:
September is usually a busy month and this one was no exception! We had the extra craziness of the fact that our residence visas were being renewed and my passport was expiring and needing to be renewed all during their visit! Our town developed after the border lines between two countries were drawn....so you can actually exit one country, drive through town and and out of town for another 30 minutes before "entering" the next country. It is a hard concept for people to grasp at first.
Consequently, there is ALWAYS something about visas that come up in conversations.....like I was going to have a few friends get together at a nicer hotel for tea for my birthday. Even though it was in the same country I am, the border is between us and I had to check who was on what visa from which side of the border.....or like me, because my passport AND visa were in progress you can't "leave" the country even though I wasn't trying to leave the country.
Anyway - I share all this so you get a sense of the complexity of just doing normal things here. As a result we just pretty much stayed in the house almost the entire time. The heat was a bit much for my sister and little niece but suddenly the second week the fall weather kicked in! It was really lovely.....(I realize I need to state that I mean it went down to about 95 degrees.)
So we meet with some of my local friends and Jen got to see what we do on a normal "visit" to local ladies. That was fun. She is always full of good questions. We don't have any pictures to show which is so irritating - both of us forgot our phones/cameras!
We went to our glorious park with some other families.....we had a birthday party for Layla, a small one for me (this one without kids!!) and we went to the grocery store about 100 times (= We got to swim in the pool a few times (getting COLD!) and run around with the neighbor kids and ride bikes and Jen cooked with Layla and
It was a great visit and I have tons more pictures (= I will spare you all of them! I'm shocked that I don't have a picture of feeding Lily....she ate prolifically and took great lengths of time to do so. Mom probably spent half her time here feeding her!
September is usually a busy month and this one was no exception! We had the extra craziness of the fact that our residence visas were being renewed and my passport was expiring and needing to be renewed all during their visit! Our town developed after the border lines between two countries were drawn....so you can actually exit one country, drive through town and and out of town for another 30 minutes before "entering" the next country. It is a hard concept for people to grasp at first.
Consequently, there is ALWAYS something about visas that come up in conversations.....like I was going to have a few friends get together at a nicer hotel for tea for my birthday. Even though it was in the same country I am, the border is between us and I had to check who was on what visa from which side of the border.....or like me, because my passport AND visa were in progress you can't "leave" the country even though I wasn't trying to leave the country.
Anyway - I share all this so you get a sense of the complexity of just doing normal things here. As a result we just pretty much stayed in the house almost the entire time. The heat was a bit much for my sister and little niece but suddenly the second week the fall weather kicked in! It was really lovely.....(I realize I need to state that I mean it went down to about 95 degrees.)
So we meet with some of my local friends and Jen got to see what we do on a normal "visit" to local ladies. That was fun. She is always full of good questions. We don't have any pictures to show which is so irritating - both of us forgot our phones/cameras!
We went to our glorious park with some other families.....we had a birthday party for Layla, a small one for me (this one without kids!!) and we went to the grocery store about 100 times (= We got to swim in the pool a few times (getting COLD!) and run around with the neighbor kids and ride bikes and Jen cooked with Layla and
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| We made cupcakes for Layla's school party.....typically weird for our small town....I could find no ROUND cupcakes...only semi circle so each one looked like someone had taken a bite out of it and then frosted over it! |
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| This indoor scooter is a life saver for us - our house has a long hallway where the kids can really get up some speed and have fun even when it is too hot to be outside. It is also a major mover of toys and babies! |
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| Playing trains! |
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| We tried not to snap pictures EVERY time they were sitting close enough but we couldn't help ourselves! |
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| There was LOTS of opening of gifts! Whohoo! Thank you everyone! Thanks for the colored construction paper Sue! and for the book (= |
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| Baba holding little Lily above the fray.... |
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| All crammed in the car! |
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| In our culture you only go to the park at night....never really during the day. This is our new park that is so wonderful! |
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| Layla got a bike for her birthday! She did such a great job on the bikes in Holland this summer and her old bike was really tiny. Tom had to search in 4 cities in two countries to find something girly-enough (girls don't really ride bikes here) and at a decent price and decent quality. |
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| Lily is a Florida kid with her cool sunglasses! |
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| Running in the heat! Tutu Lisa - layla has FINALLY passed this dress on to Lily. I think you gave it t her when she was 3 years old! I am completely convinced that high-quality kids' clothing is easier to clean and it really does last forever!! |
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| And if you visit out here you need to buy a bucket of dates at least once! I think this is 6 kilos and was $8. |
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| Our last day together we went to the crazy kid-zone in our fancy new mall that was built this year. Fancy looking and totally poor quality with only half the stuff working (= Gotta love it. Mom and Layla drove around and Dad and Ryan were EXPERTS. I was super impressed at Dad's driving skills! |
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| We had lily stick to driving things like this hideous plastic camel...... |
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| This is more her Florida style! |
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| As usual Tom ran into someone he knows....this happens everywhere. |
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| Nana gave this to us ages ago but we looked at it while Ahma was here (= |
It was a great visit and I have tons more pictures (= I will spare you all of them! I'm shocked that I don't have a picture of feeding Lily....she ate prolifically and took great lengths of time to do so. Mom probably spent half her time here feeding her!
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