To Get Some Stopper-Uppers

This kid hasn't seen a remote control or a couch for a year.

I have tried to write this blog entry several times now, being that it has been three weeks since I wrote last - and it is stunting me a bit. I prefer weekly musings. Three weeks seems like too much pressure. Usually I can babble a bit and get away with it, but now I feel a high need to be super efficient (and efficiency and I get along as well as oil and water) with my words, lest I bore you with too many details or miss something that will alter your life forever. Are you already feeling stressed out for me? I am. So, I am going to release myself from any pressure, I may babble, I may miss something... but yo, I am going to reward myself with chocolate after I am done - so the prize is great. Go Team!

So, my mom said to us a few months before she came, “Would you like me to take you guys to Goa (the beach) while I am there?” Umm, we thought about it for about a second. The second was spent tallying up how many vacation days Jayson had left, and why yes he did... “Yes Mom, take us on a warm, sandy, seafood-filled vacation!”

It's a long, hard day at the beach

The kids loved the balloon guy

Jovie's balloon flower

And balloon hat

And that it was. The first day on the beach was great fun, but we were bombarded, with people asking to take the kids’ photos. Like, every 3-5 minutes. And after a few hours, it gets really old. So, the next day we asked if there was a quieter beach close by... Our taxi driver took us about 30 minutes up the coast and when we got there, we gave a sigh a relief. Super quiet and it was in a cove, so the waves were manageable for the kids to play in. We were getting situated and I started noticing that there was a something interesting going on with some of the other beach goers - they were topless. Awesome. I mean not like awesome, it’s my dream to go to a topless beach with my kids and husband... but more like hmm, awesome. The beach in and of itself was so divine that we stayed for the next six hours. And just diverted our eyes here and there. Oh, the memories we have made.

Grandma's special birthday dinner (Sydney sure thinks it's impressive)

A truly souped-up cow

One of the reasons I haven’t written is because I have been busy. I haven’t been busy for a year. And I was (and still am) having a hard time managing anything outside of what is right in front of my face. My days have been the kind of days that you take a deep breath at the beginning of the day and say, “I have been given this day by God, and so I am not going to freak out by what lies ahead of me for the rest of the week, but just think and do my best today.” It didn’t always go as smoothly as that, but for the most part there were only a few freak out moments. I think my life was so crazy leading up to our move, that I really acquired the tool of not getting too far ahead of myself with details, because if I did, I would still be in the fetal position in Mpls...

I counted the other day... of the last 82 days, 62 of them we have had guests. Crazy, right? Especially since we live in India. It’s not like, Oh the Palms live in Paris, let’s take that trip we have always wanted to and visit them while we are there. It’s, The Palms live in India... Enough said. A few days before my mom left, my friend Betsie from college came for 10 days with her sister Ali, who is volunteering with Freedom Firm. Betsie left this morning. I haven’t spent consistent time with her since college. And oh my, a part of me came out that hasn’t been seen since college. It was great. I think the kids especially liked having her here, to witness crazy mommy. I cannot express to you how saturated with love we feel from all of our visitors.

Ani and James had their birthdays on the 12th and 14th of February. I now have a seven and a five-year-old. We partied hard this weekend. Remember me taking one day at a time, it really culminated when yesterday I woke up and said, “I have seven five-year-olds coming over in four hours for a birthday party, and I have no idea what I am going to do (oh, and sydney has a fever and all my kids have had the runs for a week, so we should all go to the doctor today to get some stopper-uppers)...” I think I am taking the living one day at a time a little too far, ya think?

Birthday joy

More birthday joy

James has informed us multiple times that he will one day marry Emma (sitting to his left in this photo)