September 14 - 23
Hello friends, Romans, countrymen and countrywomen,
It's been another glorious week half way around the world. We've begun to realize that living so far away from family and friends is a bittersweet experience: while we miss you all terribly, we also don't have to help any of you move. Amy's parents just moved from the house in which she spent all her teenage years wishing Tom Cruise would go on a date with her. While her parents' new house sounds wonderful, she is feeling a little nostalgic and homeless. Any kind messages of condolence and cheer would be greatly appreciated at this hard time in her life =)
Other than that, things are going really well here. Christian started swimming lessons this week. We have come to the realization that even though he is young, it is almost immoral not to teach even your young children how to swim out here since that's basically all there is to do, especially in the summer months. Of course, he could also play soccer or rugby, but since both of those sports usually involve people being crushed to death before the end of the game, we thought it might be best to stick with sports where the only danger was drowning or being attacked by a shark. It is actually kind of surreal to pick up a newspaper and read a sports section jam packed with the latest rugby, soccer, and cricket news. I couldn't tell you the results of one basketball or American football game that's been played in the States since we arrived. You almost feel like you have to read the sports section with a British accent. Anyway, Christian is taking to the water very well, and after only two lessons already dunks his head under the water and tries to swim around. He is taking private lessons with a teacher who is also a child psychologist and we think he is just wonderful with helping children get over their fears. Speaking of fears, Christian has also started to have fears at night and even a few bad dreams. Last week he woke up every night and came into our room to wake us up as well. We are trying to teach him to pray if he gets scared and wake God up instead of us. So last night when we were putting him to bed he told Rich that if he got scared in the night he wasn't going to wake us up but that he was going to get the lion with his sword and then tell Jesus about it. It seems like something always gets lost in translation when you are trying to explain things to your kids.
Henry is in the middle of getting new teeth, and boy don't we all know about it. This kid is seriously loud. Writing about it just doesn't do it justice. He is also getting good at banging things together, as if he wasn't loud enough already. He now has three little teeth on the bottom of his mouth and four GIGANTIC teeth on the top. Honestly, the four teeth on the top of his mouth are like three times the size of the teeth on the bottom. We're certain that he's just going to gnaw his way out of his crib any day now. I sure hope everything gets evened out after the baby teeth fall out; if not, he's in for a LONG two years of junior high. Oh well, we still love him. His hair is getting curlier every day. He's really starting to either look a lot more like his daddy or look a lot less like his mommy.
Rich and I had a chance to get away and spend some time together in a nice hotel with a great pool this last weekend. Of course as usual all the wrong people were wearing the skimpy, revealing bathing suits, and I'll just leave it at that. On the drive there we discovered that all the rental cars here have a built in device for helping you not go over 120 kilometers an hour (that's about 60 miles an hour). If you exceed 120 kilometers, the dashboard starts beeping loudly and obnoxiously at you. It's almost as bad as having kids in the back seat. What they really should have done is recorded Henry and plugged his voice into the dashboard control box, thus ensuring that people either obeyed the speed limit or drove themselves off the road. Either way, everybody else stays safe. We were in a rental car because Rich's car was in the shop being repaired. Both his car and my car have been the victims of parking lot hit and runs. You leave you car in the morning in one piece, and you come out after work to find a piece or two missing. Fortunately everyone out here is required by law to have ludicrous insurance coverage, so that takes some of the sting away, but it still leaves a little bit of a sour taste in your mouth.
And last but not least, speaking of tastes in your mouth, last night we had a chance to get in touch with our heritage by having fondue at this great Swiss hotel here in town. They serve you cold cuts and bagettes first, then comes the cheese fondue into which you dip bread, onions, pickles, tomatoes, and pineapple, and then they bring out vats of boiling oil into which you dip pieces of raw meat. Then, if you haven't lost an eye at this point, they bring you the chocolate fondue with shortbreads and fruits to dip. It was really quite delicious, and they only charged us $25 a person to cook our own food. What a deal! So to all of you out there who received fondue pots as wedding presents (and I'm sure that includes everyone unless there's been a little re-gifting going on), we would encourage you to pull them out and get dipping. It's both delicious AND dangerous: what a combination.
That's it for this week. Stay safe. We love you all and miss you tons.
"This globe of the world is actually a mini bar, and the tape deck comes out of Afghanistan."
Becky Lehman's furniture salesman dad in "Drop Dead Gorgeous"