Mr. Twiddle

Helping to get ready for her brother's birthday

My throat hurts.  From bed time stories.  I quite like reading out loud to my kids.  I really get into it.  Tonight it was a story about this gentleman named Mr. Twiddle (of course his name is Mr. Twiddle, brilliant name...) and he’s fantastic really.  I was howling during the story, howling I say.  I won’t repeat the premise of the story, that wouldn’t go well, you wouldn’t think it was funny, blah, blah, blah... just remember the name Mr. Twiddle and the name alone should make your throat hurt.

Since our last blog we have a newly crowned eight year old daughter and six year old son.  Ani’s birthday was on the 12th and James’ on the 14th.  We had a fantastic weekend celebrating and trying to squish a little Valentine’s Day in there.  We do V-day on the 13th... well, I say that like we’ve been doing that for years.  We did V-day on the 13th this year, and I kind of liked it.  It may be our new thing.  If you want to try it, go ahead.  We won’t mind. 

Ani's Birthday

James' Birthday

Breakfast in bed

Another happening this week was that Jayson resigned from Freedom Firm.  Say what?  Some of you may already know this and have started processing this with us, but for those of you that haven’t, we will tread the waters with you.  I do want to keep the “why” quite short and talk more about “how” this week has been.  The why is that we just know that it is time for us to come home.  This decision has not been taken lightly.  So not lightly.  This decision has been very deep in our bones.  It’s been surprising as well.  We thought at the onset that we would be here for 3-5 years.  And yet at 2 1/2 years we will be going back.  The anticipation of this week was a bit shaky.  Shaky like “big, deep breathes, this feels really big” shaky, not, “oh geez louise, we are making a really bad decision” shaky.  It brought back memories of us deciding to move here... 

Jayson started the week telling the staff.  That was hard.  They, and we, will miss working with each other.  The staff are so incredibly strong and courageous.  We then told our kids on the 15th.  They all had mixed emotions.  Surprised really.  Ani has been walking around the house saying, “I can’t believe we are really moving back the States.”  Ani understands the reality of this transition more than the other kids.  We then started emailing people back in the States, and then a flood of emails came back to us, and we literally were saturated with kind and warm words.  You see, we feel sent from you all to be working here.  A delegate of sorts.  So, when we decided that our time was done here, we feel the weight of the decision in all sorts of ways. I see the weight in mostly positive ways.  Keeps us accountable for our actions.  Our decisions. Whew, I feel the need for a good joke after all this serious talk.  Mr. Twiddle anyone???

So, we are here until May.  We are here. Fully here.  Engaging here.  Working hard here.  Loving and enjoying life here.  And we continue to love the journey that we are on here...

P.S.  Thanks to all that posted comments and sent us emails from my blog entry about the kids.  You are all so encouraging and I did feel like I put our whole family out there and you really did well with it.  Thank you.