Well, thought I'd start with a fun one today. It's been about 2 months since I added a blog. Not that we've been up to anything . . . We're going to try to catch you up. We spent the last month in the U.S. with the Adamows for 2 weeks and the Twidells for 2 weeks. We spent so much time with the family and doing fun things that we didn't get pictures of everything that happened during these stays, but I'll try to remember things as best I can.
It was great to just get to spend some time around the table with our family. We did a lot of this. Here are Grandma Adamow, Uncle Jeffy and (almost) Auntie Melissa. They are getting married this April and we're excited to have her as on official member of the family. Jed remembers her in his bedtime prayers.
We had a few outings together as a family. One day we went to Aunt Donna and Uncle Ken's lakeside campsite. The boys loved the sand and trying to fish -- Jed was more interested in casting the pole than catching anything. If you ask him, "What did you catch?" He'll answer, "Seaweed." Jed and Abe also got to go to a kids amusement park with Aunt Donna and Aunt Candy and the Children's Museum with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Amy. They had so much fun on these outings.
Chris and I also got to have a special outing. We spent our first full weekend away from the kids since they were born. We spent 2 nights at a hotel in downtown Chicago and saw some of the sights that we never take time to see when we are in town. Our first stop was a clipper ship that sails on Lake Michigan. We took the pirate cruise and enjoyed the views of the shoreline. We also got wicked sunburns.
After the ship, we went on the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier.
Then went to the skydeck at the John Hancock building.
That night, we hung out at the hotel, watched a movie and went to bed early! The next morning, we headed out for our museum day. We took in the Field Museum -- which could be a day in itself -- and the Planetarium. Here I am with the largest and most complete T. Rex skeleton in the world. Jed would have loved this!
We went for a walk downtown, ate at a really tasty Tapas restaurant, and then headed to Millennium Park.
At the Park, there was a free symphony concert, so we got to sit in seats and listen to a great concert. We also met a couple from St. Louis who is now praying for us. God does some really cool things. Here I am by 'The Bean.' I promised a friend we'd take a picture of it, but it's hard to see since it was so dark.
It's funny that the best part of the trip for me was the free concert. It was great to get to have such a fancy vacation, but the best things in life are free!!!
One other major event of our time with the Adamows was our trip to Medieval Times with Aunt Donna, Uncle Ken, and Aunt Candy. Jed was in awe most of the trip. One of his new favorite movies is A Knight's Tale, so he just ate up all the jousting and sword action and everything.
Here are the knights lined up ready for competition.
He also got the chance to be knighted by the king after the show. He was a bit dwarfed by the robe and sword, but he tells many people he meets about this trip. He likes to tell people he is a real knight. I don't think he needed a ceremony. He's always been a warrior.
We'll end our stay with the Adamows with a picture of Aunt Amy. She came home one night from working at a family movie night with a bunch of Glow-in-the-dark stuff. Abe and Jed had so much fun the next morning when they discovered it! We loved our visit with the family and miss them a lot already. It's hard to believe it's been just over a month since we left.
After our trip to the Adamows, we headed west to the farm. The Twidells were ready to greet us with a lot of fun outside, and some great farm time.
Here's cousin Naomi. Every other story Jed tells has to do with the games he plays with Naomi or the things she says, etc. She's sure a special friend for them.
Jed was a bit whiny this day and I put this picture in here to show you what we see when he gets this way. Also, it will be a good picture to show him someday when he outgrows this stage . . . will he outgrow this stage?
The whining went away when we got out Ginger, the horse. Jed has ridden her before, but it had been awhile. He got 2 turns!
This was Abe's first time on Ginger. Anytime he sees a horse, he doesn't say 'horse,' he says, 'Ginger!' Anytime he wanted to go outside during our visit, he would come up to any adult who was around and say 'See Ginger!' He loves this animal and loves being outside!
We got to visit Grandma Margaret and Grandpa George. True to form, Jed and Grandma got to make donuts together. Abe even got to lend a hand this time! We're going to have to figure out how to make some donuts in our new house once we get settled in.
Back at the ranch . . . Jed and Abe both loved Naomi's t-ball set. Jed has a pretty good swing and could launch the ball most of the way across the yard.
Abe, on the other hand, was content to wear the helmet backwards and throw the ball in the wrong direction. He'll get there. That helmet was also a great prop for jousting matches. Not sure why we didn't get a picture of it, but Jed liked to put the helmet on backwards, look through the ponytail hole, and pretend it was the helmet for his armor. Then he'd take his bat or some other straight object, climb on the bouncy horse in the living room, and go to tournament. He was always very concerned if anyone walked in front of the horse -- even if they were across the room -- he'd yell, "Look out, I don't want to hit you!"
We had a very special day at my parents' church -- now our church. We became members, the boys were baptized, and they prayed for us as we left the country. I'm so grateful to have such a wonderful community around us. After the service, there was a potluck downstairs. Oh, how I shall miss potlucks!!!!
Here are a few pictures of the boys' baptism. We didn't get a lot of good ones. Some of the ones of extended family and such turned out fuzzy or someone was covered up in the pictures. If you have better ones, we'd love a copy!
Here are all their sponsors. All the Aunts and Uncles!!! Apparently, I asked Jeff, Amy, and Melissa to be Godparents, but forgot to ask Caroline, Valerie, and Paul. I seriously though I asked them -- I can even remember the place we were sitting together when I thought I asked them -- but I didn't get it done. I walked up to them before the service and was handing them the orders of baptism that the pastor had printed out for all the sponsors. Caroline asked me, "Am I a sponsor?" I answered, "Well, yeah, didn't you know?" "No! I thought you just asked Chris' family." We had a good laugh and cry about it, but I guess this illustrates how completely lost my head has been the last few months.
We went that night to a concert where Caroline and Mom played in the community band. Papa Bill got to be there, as did our friend, Sarah, who came all the way from Minneapolis. It was a great concert despite the heat. There is a market here called 'Delhi Haat' that has a lot of cool handicrafts in it, but the weather while we were visiting the Twidells is what I would call "Delhi Hot!"
Even though it was hot, the kids still spent some time outside. Here's Jed with his other best friend, Joshua! They loved exploring outside together.
Here's Abe trying to keep up.
One of Jed's favorite shows on TV is 'Super Why'. If you know the show, you will know the quote: "Let's give ourselves a big thumbs up!"
Here they are swinging in Grandpa's hammock.
Here we are at our goodbye dinner with Uncle Paul and Aunt Valerie and Joshua. We ate pizza. Surprise, Surprise!
And here's the complete photo with Caroline and Naomi, too.
On one of our last days in IL, Aunt Kay, Uncle Greg, and Jerome took the kids on a tractor ride. They had both tractors out and gave the kids a chance to sit behind the wheel and help drive. They also got to take a couple of toy tractors from Uncle Greg's collection with them. They see a lot of action here.
Even though it's been about 20 years, I got behind the wheel and drove Jed around. He wasn't so sure about the noise the tractor was making.
And now, we're ready to depart. This was Chris' picture of all our luggage right before he packed the car. These are all our worldly possessions that we took with us to India. Notice the bathroom scale. We meticulously packed everything to the specifications we found on the airline website only to get to the airport and find out that the airline had changed their policy. We had to frantically repack and refit everything into different bags to avoid paying ridiculous charges. Still, we got on the plane just in time and were off!!!! Here we go on the craziest adventure of our lives thus far!
Enter: Jet Lag. Wow! 12 hour time differences stink! Also, getting over jet lag with 2 little ones stinks. We couldn't try to recover until they recovered. They took almost a week and then it took almost another week for me to recover.
We started our adventure with a conference in Thailand. The next two pictures were the left and right views from our room's patio.
It was a gorgeous place and very peaceful. We participated in what we could of the meetings, but spent a lot of time just recuperating in our room or around the grounds with the boys.
We also visited our first official tourist trap. An elephant camp! These were no ordinary elephants, though, they were Thailand's working elephants. They lifted heavy logs, played soccer, even painted pictures!
If you can't tell, the tall guy is Chris challenging an elephant to a game of darts. He barely beat the elephant. I'm so proud of him!
After the show, the elephants came and greeted us and we over-tipped the trainers because we didn't have any small bills. Then, Chris and the boys got to take a trip through the jungle on one of the elephants. What adventurers!!
To top off the day, we bought a fresh coconut and drank the coconut water. The boys loved drinking it.
Here we are back at the hotel. I just put in this picture because we do have a lot of fun together.
Touchdown! We finally made it to India! We also got to spend our first visit -- face to face -- with our friends Kevin and Suzana. They were very helpful and encouraging to us as we prayed about, got ready for, and came to India. Here is proof that we finally saw each other!
Here are Jed, Abe, and I as we are heading out of our apartment building. I have a bag with me, so we must have been going to the market down the street.
And this is what the streets look like by our house -- and in most areas we've been thus far.
Not everything is strange and new, though, I made chocolate chip cookies and the guys enjoyed them thoroughly -- as evidenced by Abe's face.
And here we are walking through the park by our house -- I think we were on our way to the metro station.
And here we are walking by some kind of temple that is also right by our house.
This day, we got tickets on a tour bus and did some sight-seeing around the city. Here we saw some of the government buildings -- I think this is the parliament. The flag on top means the president is in.
We got off the bus and went to an underground market. I'm already enjoying the bargaining and got some fairly good deals on fabric, shoes, and sunglasses for Chris. Then we visited a place called Jantar Mantar. It is a very old group of structures that people used to use to tell time, seasons, and even predict eclipses. Chris and I want to go back and take a tour so it can be explained to us. We just got to walk around it this day.
Here's some more of it.
Next we went to Red Fort. Another old complex from the time of the Mogul Kings. As you can tell, it's made of red sandstone.
Whenever we go to a tourist stop in India, our kids become the tourist spot. EVERYONE wants to stop them and take their picture. If we pause even for a few seconds at one of these sites, several people will ask if they can get pictures of or with our kids. Abe doesn't seem to mind, but Jed really doesn't like it. If people ask, we tell them he doesn't want them taken. I figure we have to protect him in that way. It's hard not having the words, though, to tell people that he's just shy.
The boys' favorite thing to do during these exploring times is to climb around on everything and just run back and forth. This would never be allowed in the states with anything that was centuries old!
Another day, we went to visit a site that is very close to our house. It's called Qatub Minar and was built in the 1200s by the Moguls. It was the tallest point in the world at that time. It still stands and is still beautiful!
Here's an up-close picture of the detailing of the tower. Really remarkable.
Besides the Minar, there is also an iron pillar that was made around 400 AD. It hasn't rusted in all those years! The west didn't have this technology until the 1800s!
Here is a plaque describing the pillar and the next one is a translation of the inscription on it. I didn't know if you could read them, but thought I'd try.
And here are the kids and I while they played at the Minar complex. Their favorite part was running up and down a ramp. Go figure.
Well, that's about it for now. We've had other adventures and are learning a lot, but our favorite times are when the whole family can be together and just do something fun together. Last night we had family night. We had pizza, played games, and watched home movies. It is so good for us to do that once in a while and just unwind together. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Feel free to write or call us anytime. We miss you all so much and look forward to seeing you all again. Any of you are welcome for a visit whenever you want to come on over! Love, Chris, Emily, Jed, Abe, and Baby.
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