Home again! but remembering Maine.

Day THREE at home.  Time to reclaim the kitchen.  I've dodged cooking as cooking and jetlag are a dangerous combination, and because I could.  Monday we scraped by on leftovers, and Tuesday was Gloria's birthday and they invited us over for lunch, thus procrastinating the inevitable.

By the time I got into the kitchen today, I was itching to putter around, cooking, cleaning, setting the little  alfalfas to sprout, making a couple of batches of granola, and baking a huge batch of chicken to rescue it from going bad.  

But I do want to chronicle some things from our trip to America.  It was the ultimate good birthday gift, made better in that I didn't have to do it alone, but Josh was with me.  

 Josh is such a good travel companion.  One of the perks for him, was when he got to drive his cousin Ariel's car (Boris, an orange Kia) when we went to New Hampshire.  New Hampshire doesn't require a driving permit, just an older driver to teach the young upstarts so the three of us went together to give Josh a chance to practice driving.  Not only did he drive, he got to drive first on the same street where he was born, 2 Fortier Drive, in my parents' guestroom!  They've moved two or three times since then, so we all thought this was just symbolic and special and cool.

While we were in the neighborhood, we went to visit a bridge where we used to walk, and we enjoyed memories.  Josh was maybe 4 the last time he was there, but he remembered.

 One of my projects at my Mom's house was to work on cleaning out some of my boxes in her basement.  For 25 years, she has been harboring boxes of my stuff, mainly full of pictures.  So I decided to transfer the slides to digital, the only way I could without buying more stuff to stash in her basement.  I projected the slides onto my Dad's old screen with my old projector and then took a picture of that picture, either with my phone or with Joshua's camera.  I'll be putting them on Facebook or here or sending them right to friends and former students.

That was a fun project.  I got to see pictures of my life from age 16-26, mainly, as well as my parents' wedding and honey moon at Niagara Falls.  There was my first missions trip to Mexico way back in 1982, and some of the second Mexico trip, in 1986, with the Bob Jones Mission Team.  I delighted to see my teaching days in Peru, and some of my cute little students who are now big grown up people, and I loved sharing some of these pictures with the family.  I'm having a good life!  I praise the Lord!  Following Him fills a life "with all precious and pleasant riches."  No regrets here, not on the parts where I've obeyed.

 Then there was Chester.  Chester and Felix are my sister's family's cats.  They are identical in color, but different in physique.  Felix is an indoor cat, and he is so heavy and bulgy, while Chester gets to go outside during the day, and he's sleek and lithe.  I think I see a lesson in there for me...

 Of all the reasons I wanted to get back to South Africa, here's my number one!  The love of my life, my handsome hublet, Paul.  ( As usual, I must apologize for the weird order of this blog entry.  I struggle with dragging pictures around, getting them to the best place.  So I just flex, and go with the order they appear.)

 The airport in Portland, Maine was decorated with lobster buoys painted with flags so we grabbed a picture before we headed back to South Africa.

 My son in law Ryan and I had a fun moment
making a snow toddler, with a pine cone nose.
April could be quite warm, but this one hasn't been yet.  I was thrilled to see and enjoy snow for a change.

Pippin, my sister's dog, was not so thrilled about the snow, but quite pleased to hang out by the fire.  He will be 15 in June, so I guess he's earned the right to the pampered life.  

Four generations of funny people!  My Mom, our daughter Evangel, me, and Clarity, our granddaughter, all with fake braids.  Our pastor wasn't too impressed when we brought them to prayer meeting for head coverings.  We didn't actually keep them on, just long enough to scare him.  

This is a photo-driven post, showing what I had pictures of, not necessarily the most important things.  Just a glimpse, but some precious family time there, the issues of Life. (Proverbs 4:23)