In Bibleville

Mom and I arrived safely at about 4:45pm. Mom's car drives very nicely and the cruise control is great! She seems to be feeling some better and seems happy to be home. Tomorrow she has errands to do and hopes to get to the chiropracter. It seems very odd to be here and not find the Christmas tree up in the living room.

Unexpected Trip

Mom got back to Dallas today from Michigan, but she isn't feeling too well. She took a fall last Sunday and her back is hurting quite a bit from that. Also, she is having some periods of feeling lightheaded. So she decided it might not be such a good idea to drive 500 miles tomorrow.

Therefore, I'm going to drive down with her tomorrow, and then fly back on Saturday. Don't miss me too much.

Looks like Rachel will have her first sub job on Friday.

You Are a Shlub

This post is for everyone in this family who used to be an oaf:

This week's theme: words from Yiddish.

schlub (shlub) noun, also spelled as zhlub or zhlob

A clumsy oaf.

[From Yiddish, from Polish zhlob (blockhead, trough, manger).]

In other news, Gma and Gpa are still driving around visiting people on the west coast, having a good time, I do believe. My mom is still in Michigan and tomorrow they will all drive to Grand Rapids and have lunch with April and Alan. She comes back here on Wednesday. Doro got back to Germany safely. She was to have taken the TOEFL test this morning--I'm sure she did well. She left a few things here, including a TOEFL test practice CD left in the laptop she was using.

Speaking of laptops, when we got a warranty renewal for Andrew's dead laptop we realized that, hey! maybe we can get this fixed for free. Andrew and all of us had forgotten that he bought a 3-year warranty. So the people at SP shipped it to us and we took it in to Best Buy for repairs, with a week left on the warranty!

Rachel has moved back to her side of the house, went grocery shopping and is now "living alone" again. She better get a job soon or she will just be buying rice and beans with her babysitting money, and no going to the movies with her friends.

It is still stinkin' hot here. Good thing it is too hot for the grass to grow since our lawnmower is broken.

I noticed how my last recent posts have all been about food. That is a bad sign.

Back to Normal, Whatever That Is

For Doro's last evening at our house we had a picnic at Joe Pool Lake. We took a blind lady and a monolingual Brazillian lady and a coworker lady with us. They seemed to have a good time.


I'm not sure how you say "s'mores" in Portuguese, but they seemed to follow Rachel's lead and enjoy them.


Doro is now on her way back to Germany and Rachel will go back to living on her own side of the house.

A German Meal, with Dessert

Last evening Doro cooked a German meal for us. She leaves tomorrow, so she wanted to do this for us before she leaves. The meal was mashed potatoes, bratwurst, and red cabbage cooked with applesauce. The cabbage was new to us, and we didn't think it sounded too good, but actually it was good--more sweet than sour.

Then she gave us this very yummy dessert. And she made so much of it, I wish you all could have been here to help eat it. It was hot fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries) in a thickened sauce made from fruit juice over vanilla ice cream. I have to confess, I had seconds.

Even though the weather is still stinkin' hot:

Monday was the 37th day of 2006 with a temperature of 100 degrees or more. This puts 2006 in ninth place for number of 100 degree days passing 1978 which had 36. Eighth place currently belongs to 1963 with 38 100's. 2006 will very likely pull into a tie for eighth place on today. After that temperatures should stay just shy of 100 for the rest of the week.

we are hoping to go to Joe Pool Lake tonight and grill some burgers. Doro hasn't seen the lake and we do need to get our money's worth out of our pass to Cedar Hill State Park.

Eating With Friends

Our Sunday School lesson today was about breaking bread together from Acts. Yep, I think we did plently of that this weekend.

Friday I joined Gary and a bunch of IT people for lunch at my favorite place, Ton's. And somebody else paid. Yay!

Then Saturday our Dinner For Eight group from church got togther for lunch for a bona fide Brazillian meal called feijoada. The reason it was so authentic is because Helen and Marj's (monolingual) Brazillian friend was visiting and she did the cooking. The meal was great, and then it was followed up with homemade Brazilian flan.



Then Saturday evening we got invited to join friends from our old church to celebrate their anniversaries, all of which are this month. We went to Adelmo's, a nice place, but in general, out of our price range. To handle it we shared an entree and drank water, and it still cost $28! Well, nevermind. It wasn't our anniversary!

After church today we broke some more bread with friends, this time at Wendy's, more in our price range. The church singles' group ate there too.

In other news, you might have seen Rachel's blog to see the damage to her car. We ended up ordering a used door glass from somewhere in Kansas, which arrived in less than 24 hours, then Rachel arranged to have a local shop install it. So now she's got a drivable car again.

Doro's time with us is coming to a close. She leaves Wednesday afternoon. She is trying to get her last few times of talking with friends and swimming in the pool squeezed in between studying for the TOEFL. She has to take that test right after getting back to Germany as a requirement for getting into the college program that she wants.

My mom apparently made it to Michigan on Wednesday, since I didn't hear otherwise. And speaking of relatives coming to visit, Andrew and Laura are scheduled to be here September 8-13. They won't be here long, but we did see them recently. They will spend more time in the DR because one of Laura's close friends is getting married.

Babysitting

Rachel attended an orientation session yesterday for people wanting to substitute teach in the Cedar Hill district. They said it would still be two weeks before she heard anything. In the meantime, she has gotten some more babysitting jobs.


This special little girl is one of Rachel's favorites. K. is two years old but cannot sit up, roll over, talk, suck or even see. But yesterday Rachel got her to laugh. This baby's diaper bag comes complete with valium for when she goes into seizures.

Tomorrow she is meeting a family who might want her to babysit their 6 kids. The woman put up a notice at the Center, and then she told Rachel she wanted to do a background check on her and meet her in the park instead of her house. Can you say paranoia??

Rachel really needs a real job, but she loves babysitting.

Prank

Rachel, David and Doro had fun at the wedding together on Saturday.

David's friend Parvaneh looks sweet here, but she's really into pranks.

She got up early Sunday morning and made some Dixie cup art on the hood of David's car. No damage, just paper cups stapled together and filled with water.

See the movie of how he removed it all. Sorry, I'm not that great of a videographer!

Visit from David

David arrived safely last night in his "new" car, a 2002 Jetta. He took Doro and Rachel to The Door last night, a Christian (all-ages, no alcohol) club in downtown Dallas. They went so they could hear Addison Road, a band whose lead singer is the sister of one of David's old girlfriends.

Speaking of David's old girlfriends, at the moment David is driving Rachel, Doro, and Parvaneh to Chelsey and Chuck's wedding (Chelsey being another of David's old girlfriends). We are sending grandma's pottery for a wedding gift, and Doro painted them a picture of a lighthouse.

So when Doro was fixing up Rachel's makeup, Gary walked in and said, "Rachel, be careful. She might paint a lighthouse on your cheek."




(Don't forget to click on the photos to see a larger version.)

In other news, I got new glasses yesterday, but it is taking me a little while to get used to them.

Gary and I didn't go to Chelsey's wedding because we are off to another wedding reception this afternoon at the Center--it is just too hard to be in two places at once.

Update

Not really much news here, but I did want to post one more photo of the re-do of Rachel's bathroom. Doro added the last touches with some nice curtains. Notice how grandma's pottery fits right in too. We also attached the stained glass cat that grandpa made to the wall. Yes, it is supposed to be in a window, but the chain broke and on it's way to the floor, it smashed into the window and actually broke the pane of glass. Right now I've got clear tape over the broken window. Home Depot quit selling glass, so I have to try Lowe's.

Doro is still here for a couple more weeks. She is constantly doing something, usually with a group of friends, so our house has been a lot more social than usual. Last Friday they had a party and I think at one point there were 30 people here.

Gary got back safely from his days at SIL in North Dakota. He gave lectures and they loved him.

Andrew and Laura got back home from Mexico. They got bumped to 1st class on the flight from Houston to San Pedro Sula. They have ordered internet for their house, so we may hear more from them if they get that set up.

Wendell and Judy are on a month-long tour of the west coast, visiting friends and relatives.

My mom is driving up here to Dallas next week on her way flying to Michigan for two weeks.

David bought a "new" car today--we are waiting on photos, but we'll see him this coming weekend. His first girlfriend is getting married.

Rachel is still job hunting, and is getting her cat spayed this week. She hunted down a half-price coupon to help with the cost. She's also getting on a Stargate kick. We saw the movie, and now we're starting the TV episodes

OK, that's what we're doing.

Update

Not really much news here, but I did want to post one more photo of the re-do of Rachel's bathroom. Doro added the last touches with some nice curtains. Notice how grandma's pottery fits right in too. We also attached the stained glass cat that grandpa made to the wall. Yes, it is supposed to be in a window, but the chain broke and on it's way to the floor, it smashed into the window and actually broke the pane of glass. Right now I've got clear tape over the broken window. Home Depot quit selling glass, so I have to try Lowe's.

Doro is still here for a couple more weeks. She is constantly doing something, usually with a group of friends, so our house has been a lot more social than usual. Last Friday they had a party and I think at one point there were 30 people here.

Gary got back safely from his days at SIL in North Dakota. He gave lectures and they loved him.

Andrew and Laura got back home from Mexico. They got bumped to 1st class on the flight from Houston to San Pedro Sula. They have ordered internet for their house, so we may hear more from them if they get that set up.

Wendell and Judy are on a month-long tour of the west coast, visiting friends and relatives.

My mom is driving up here to Dallas next week on her way flying to Michigan for two weeks.

David bought a "new" car today--we are waiting on photos, but we'll see him this coming weekend. His first girlfriend is getting married.

Rachel is still job hunting, and is getting her cat spayed this week. She hunted down a half-price coupon to help with the cost. She's also getting on a Stargate kick. We saw the movie, and now we're starting the TV episodes

OK, that's what we're doing.

Happy Anniversary, Andrew and Laura!

Andrew and Laura are supposedly traveling home today from more than a week in Mexico. Let's hope they both got on the same flight. They've had a first year filled with a lot of changes and a lot of stress, so let's pray their second year is calmer than the first.

In our case, the first year of marriage was the worst. I hope that is true for them as well.

Speaking of flying home, I have to leave for DFW in an hour to go pick up Gary who has been in North Dakota this past week.

Standing In Line

OK, this will be my last Honduras blog. (We did safely get home a week ago, I think I forgot to mention that.) A lot of the time "traveling" is really spent standing in line. I didn't quite have the audacity to take a photo of the security line leaving Honduras, but it was memorable. I have never had to take so many things off--jacket, shoes, watch, glasses. It took four tries to get through the metal detector and then they still ended up wanding me. I guess the machine still didn't like the underwires, but there is a limit to what I'll take off to get through!


It isn't often these days that you have to get on the plane this way but the jetway was being repaired.



In other news, Gary is in Grand Forks, ND giving some lectures at the SIL summer school. I got a couple emails from him. He's doing OK, and is enjoying the time there. Rachel and Doro are planning another party Friday night. Life is much busier when Doro is here! Rachel continues to apply for jobs and is now trying to get signed up for subbing at two public schools and two Christian schools.