Complete and Utter Travel Envy

An ode to our birthday girl, who just turned two last Saturday

9:04 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010. I am sitting on my parents couch whilst my parents and Jayson watch the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox and eat Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake. I am feeling so “All-American”. Oh, a bald eagle flew by. And Betsie Ross and George Washington are having a conversation at the kitchen table. Hamburger and fries anyone?

Another all-American activity - the county fair

Ani's dream...being the seven-year-old girl she is gazing at in this picture

Okay, enough of my nonsense. I have two favorite parts of my day. Let me tell you about them. First one was between 10:00-11:30 a.m. this morning. A little background, today is the big pack up day, we take off at noon tomorrow. Okay, back to today, I pretty much had to talk Jayson off the ledge, several times... Yes, that’s my first favorite part. I know that can be traumatic for some, but not this ole’ girl. The kids were repelling off the furniture and each other and it looked like a big monster ate the stuff that we were supposed to be packing and then threw it back up and I could see Jayson slowly backing out of the house trying to make a run for it. So, I lassoed Jayson back in the house, gave him a pep talk about how life is messy, and this is one of those times, and the day will get better and he had to hang with me. Look how far we came today... Twins game and all. Aren’t you so proud of Jayson?

My second favorite part was when I was sorting through a suitcase that was set aside for St. Louis (Mike and Mel’s Wedding), and I was looking for a few sets of clothes for yours truly that were not for the important events (bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, wedding), but all the in-between clothes --- hang with me folks, this is getting a bit tedious, I promise I will tie it all together --- and I asked Jayson if he has seen them. He looked at me with complete innocence and said, “I packed them.” “Where Jayson?” said I. “In one of the 10 bags that are packed for India.” And then I slowly said, “Awesome.” I looked at my orange shorts and blue hoodie and told him to get used of this outfit because this is all that I have for the next five days. Underwear and all. He breathed deeply, and then went out to the mountain of bags and started looking, lightly, because, well, that’s all he had in him. I didn’t push it, and said, “Well, I guess we’ll just roll with it.”

9:27 p.m. So, our last few weeks in review. We had a great time spending a few weeks at my folks, doing northern Minnesota type things, which included a wonderful 24 hours spend with the amazing
Wolfe family, friends from Texas. Then we spent a week in Minneapolis with our church participating and teaching at Vacation Bible School. Definitely a great highlight of our summer. Doing life together every day with the people we love and miss so much. And now, the last three days, we have been shopping, sorting, passing-on, packing, etc. Tomorrow, Wednesday, we travel down to Minneapolis, spend the night at Sarah and David’s, and then bright, shiny and early Thursday morning, we head down to St. Louis for the wedding of the decade. All six of us are in the wedding, which is totally fantastic and I am curious, just curious, how quickly my children who will be donned in white, will get dirty at that outside wedding. Will it be 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 31 minutes...? Hmm.

The Wolfe and Palm kids, minus one Wolfe. Photo snatched from Sarah's blog: Pack of Wolfes

A bit of "Northern Minnesota type things" going on here. We think it was a lemonade stand.

9:41 p.m. On Saturday night, after the wedding, we will shove the kids in the car (like Jayson did with my clothes) not letting them out until we get to Minneapolis. We’ll drive through the night to get to the airport in Minneapolis by 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Then we’ll fly for endless hours back to India. I know, I know, complete and utter travel envy.

9:48 p.m. Well people, we are going back to India. Are we ready you ask? Ready like a woman just before giving birth. It’s all a bit painful, but you just need to do it. (Yes, there are some flaws in my analogy, but just go with it.) And likewise the packing and goodbyes and re-entry is all a bit messy, painful and tiring, but we have work to do, a great big work. And after a restful and filling two months, we are ready to jump in, to keep on coming alongside girls that long for freedom but don’t have the resources to do it on their own. Peace to you, see you in India.

Twelve bags. Packed and ready to go.

And we're done.