s. asia
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morning at the gardens.
This morning Priya and the kids joined Alison and her gang at the Botanical Gardens.
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honey wallah cum mobile phone thief.
Yesterday, Julie and I had one of our favorite visitors – the local honey wallah. The young man in the video comes every three or so months to our neighborhood to extract honey from one of the dozens of hives drooping from building overhangs. Our quest for pure, unadulterated, local-as-possible honey landed us in our own block. It is amazing. And dirt cheap. This cache is part of 110 pounds of honey from one comb. Since a pound of honey demands visits to two million flowers, that’s quite an accomplishment. We bought 31 pounds for $40. Our neighbor has been buying from this man for a decade. Our knowledge of…
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thursday.
What a week. David’s surgery went well, and he’s at home limping around, looking great. He has a follow-up appointment with the surgeon tomorrow so we’ll see where he stands (no pun intended). I’m still laid up, sick, and on top of that I just starting a medication that makes me completely out of it right now. Apparently so out of it we had both our cell phones stolen from practically under our noses yesterday! But don’t worry, they’re back now. Ha. That’s a whole story in itself, one I’ll let David share. No good news on the doctor front. Priya and the kids and I went for my appointment…
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our little princess.
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kick’n it in the village, part 1.
Over the weekend Judah and I (David) took an overnight train 750 km southwest to the beautiful southern state, known as “God’s Own Country,” by locals. We were there to attend our dear friends’ son’s baptism. Literate, lush green, water-logged, tsunami-swept, rioting Communists, coconut-oil-in-every-dish, entrepreneurial, choking humidity thick with mosquitos, cheerful village spilling over with extended family, cashew capital, living Hindu goddesses, it is more of a country than a state. We had a blast. Judah slept like a champ on the train and the bus home, mixed and mingled with kids speaking multiple languages, ate almost nothing, and made it back with nothing but smiles. Wedding season is in…
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monday.
The boys are home safe and sound, and we hit the ground running today: 1. We started school! David and I sat down last night to have a look at Week One (there is really almost zero prep work . . . everything is planned out for you), then this morning, after swim class, we gathered in the school room for our first day. It was brief and simple and involved mostly reading books aloud, and my heart just melted watching David cuddled in the Reading Corner with our kids. 2. Priya came back to us after a week off, and boy, am I ever happy! 3. David had his…
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girls’ weekend.
David and Judah are spending the weekend in a Kerala village for friends’ son’s baptism. They took their first trip on an overnight train and are having lots of adventures. I stole a couple hours to myself yesterday before they left . . . roamed around downtown and explored some new streets and ended up at a favorite cafe for a caramel cappuccino. It is way to hot to be sitting outside drinking a caramel cappuccino, but there was a fan blowing on my face and the chatter of lazy afternoon conversation around me, and it was blissful. Amie and I are having a girls’ weekend. It’s so fun, we’re…
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first swim class, check.
Today we finished our first month of swim class. Well, technically there’s two more days to go, but David and Judah are going out of town for the weekend (more on that later), so today was Judah’s last day. Overall, it’s been a good experience. Six mornings a week felt like a huge time commitment at first, but it’s not a big deal if we miss a day here and there, so it’s turned out to be fine. I’d say Judah really enjoyed the class about sixty percent of the time. Okay, maybe the whole month was a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for him and Joshua. It…
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play date.
One of the hardest things about moving somewhere new is making friends. You don’t realize how varied and deep your friendships really are, until you leave them all behind, and have to start from scratch in a brand new place. I think that’s true whether you move to a different state or to a different country. I’m pretty sure that every “foreigner,” no matter how introverted or extroverted, would tell you they’ve struggled with loneliness moving overseas. You can find people you click with and enjoy one another’s company, but building real relationships again from the ground up simply takes time. Lots and lots of it. Some weeks I’m so…
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an exciting day.
It’s an exciting day in our house . . . Our first homeschooling curriculum package arrived! I really have no idea how it got here so fast, since I ordered it less than two weeks ago . . . but I’m not complaining. I should back up a bit . . . the last time I posted about homeschooling, I don’t think I was anywhere near deciding on a curriculum. Two things made me choose Sonlight. 1. I just wasn’t doing a good job of piecing together a plan for Judah on my own. I mentioned before that in the busyness of our lives right now, homeschool-preschool was getting pushed…