AKA "family"
Haha. It all started out when my sister Lynnette and I came down from Michigan to Kentucky to spend our 5 week Christmas break with family. Apart from a 3 day trip to Nashville to visit my aunt and her kids, we spent a pretty laid back first week and a half with our grandparents. Our parents and 2 younger siblings were supposed to arrive from Spain on the 23rd and spend Christmas with us all, but they got stuck in Chicago by a huge snowstorm for two days and couldn't make it down until Christmas evening. Which was kinda hard. Even though I've been away for a while, it was the first time in my life that I'd had to spend most of Christmas day away from my immediate family. At least I got to see them, though. God is good. :-)
That's when the craziness started.
We spent 2 days celebrating Christmas with my mom's parents and their extended family, and then we went down to Richmond (an hour south) to see my dad's parents and his extended family for 4 days. It was the first time in almost 10 years (?) that my dad's family has all been together at once (one of my uncles and his family are missionaries in France, we lived in Spain, and the rest are spread out along the whole east coast). And my dad has 4 other siblings, all with fairly decent sized families. So needless to say, things were crazy. We ended up counting, and in all, there were 16 crazy cousins, 12 enthused adults, 4 yelping dogs, 1 annoyed cat, and 1 crochety old parakeet -- all under one roof. Well, the oldest 6 boy cousins ended up sleeping in the church down the road due to a lack of facilities at grandma's house, but for the most part, we were all under one roof. And to top it all off, we were all Mussers. And I'm just going to leave it at that for now -- I can't even begin to describe the crazy atmosphere -- you'll have to experience it sometime for yourselves. Well, except for some of you fanatic, avid amusser11 blogspot readers.....I'm not sure I want you all to come...that just might be creepy....
Anyway, then we headed back up to our other grandparent's house again because mom's brother and family from Ohio had come down to visit. So we spent 4 more days up there. Dad helped me fix my car (changed the spark plugs, fixed a kinked fuel line, installed a new radio (Woohoo!!), fixed a broken emergency break cable, fixed some leaking windows, and rotated the tires (which ended up being a 4+ hour long ordeal as one of the tires had rusted to the drum and would not come off even after being beaten with a sledgehammer...we DID finally get it off, though), and we finally left on Sunday to come back down to Richmond, because David and Emily start school today (Monday).
So here I am now, sprawled out on the couch in the basement of mamaw's (grandma's) house, while mom and dad organize and move in (the basement is a furnished apartment with 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, a living room, and kitchenette, where mom and dad and fam will be living for the next 6 months), taking my first deep breath, it seems, in.....well....a long time.
You can be praying for my younger brother and sister... They just started high school today in a public school not far from here. It's the same school that I attended during my sophomore year of high school here in the U.S., but it's their first time ever in an American public high school, and their big brother is feeling a little anxious for them... Yesterday I reminded David to say no to drugs and peer pressure and to make lots of new friends (but NOT girl friends!), and also to stop, drop, and r
oll (see diagram) if he's ever on fire. That's about as much American public high school orientation as he's ever had before. Neither of them had ever even opened a combination locker lock before yesterday (as far as I know) when we went in to figure out his class schedule. They could just use some prayer...ha..And also be praying for my parents as they settle in here. From next weekend until May 29th, mom and dad have every single weekend full, visiting supporters and supporting churches all over the east coast. They'll be traveling through about 8 different states over the next 15 weeks visiting people, all the while my brother and sister will be in school here and dad will be trying to fit in a required internship he has to complete for his second master's degree. It's just a lot going on...
Anyway, mom is calling me to help unpack some things and move some furniture around this morning, so I better jump at it. I have the next week and a half pretty free, though, before I head back up to icy MI, and I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking over this break, so you'll be hearing more from me pretty soon. I'm sure you avid fans out there can't wait. ;-) Peace!
P.S. -- I just remembered this that I had to share! My brother told me that on their flight from Chicago to Cincinnati on Christmas day, a guy dressed up as Santa was flying on the same flight. I guess my brother saw him in line and asked him if he had lost his reindeer, to which he looked annoyedly at my brother and sarcastically replied, "Ho, ho, ho." Hahaha, I just wish I had been there... ;-)
1 comment:
What an improvement in look! You've got pictures, a new background, etc. So proud.
Thanks for the encouragement, Aaron. It really does mean a lot to me.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
B
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