Jaime's Visit

In case you don't know, my best friend Jaime joined the Air Force and started boot camp mid-February. Things were going well until the beginning of her 4th week when she got sick and had a fever. On Wednesday of that week, after standing at attention for 10-15 minutes, she passed out and landed on her face, breaking her jaw in two places. They wired her jaw shut and since then she has been living on whatever she can suck through a straw and waiting for her jaw to heal. The good news is that they let her come home for convalescent leave last week for almost 10 days and we were excited to see her. She spent the first part of her visit with her sister in Sacramento, then I drove up to get her on Friday (she isn't supposed to drive right now) and we went back to Fresno to spend the night at her dad's house. It was so good to see her. Between me leaving for London at the beginning of January and her being at boot camp since I have been back, we had a lot to catch up on. Saturday we drove around Fresno visiting her family and then came back to my house late that night. We went to church the next day, which was a service led by the worship team and it was great. Sunday afternoon we went through paperwork and visited with her mom again and went on a walk with Michelle, Jonah, Heidi, and Phillip. Monday we got to sleep in, then finished going through paperwork and looking at pictures and repacking our stuff. After a late lunch with Michelle and Jonah, we headed up to Calvin Crest to spend the night. It smelled so good there and it was wonderful to be back at a place that means so much to both of us. The next morning we got up and took a short hike before heading back to Sacramento. It was a beautiful drive with the windows down and we vigorously sang along to some of our favorite songs. We made it to Sacramento early afternoon and had a short, but nice visit with Janna and the kids. After dinner, I said goodbye and headed back down 99. It was hard to leave because it didn't seem long enough to really get caught up, but it was a good visit and we were thankful it worked out. I stopped in Turlock and got to visit with Josh and drink tea, which was pleasant and a nice break in driving. Then I made it the rest of the way home and thankfully dropped into bed.

Family Project

Mom and I went down to visit Grandpa and Eleanor in their new house in southern California last week. It actually started Tuesday with a drive to Camarillo with Heather and the kids, we spent the night there then headed to Grandpa's house in the morning. It was my first time there and I was excited to see the new house, which is very nice. Uncle Ray was there too and he and Grandpa were working on building a patio shade for the backyard. The first day Mom and I were there, we got to see what had been done so far and help get 2X4s from Lowe's. The selection was bad and we had to sort through the whole pile to find enough that were usable. Of course, 100 is a lot to be picky about. We got the first batch painted that evening before dinner and then the rest Grandpa and I painted on Thursday. It took us most of the day, but we got a good system going and managed to get it all done. It was fun to work on a project with Grandpa and we had some good time to talk. Meanwhile, Mom and Uncle Ray were working on reinforcing the stringers on the patio cover and then started to put the 2X4s up. We made a lot of progress and it was looking good. We drove back to Visalia Friday and it was fun to have a little trip with Mom.

Getting Dirty

It's been a busy week here, mostly with garden planting, working at church, writing papers, and playing with the kids. Thursday was the day we spent the most time at church. Heather and I switched off painting the ceiling in the Fellowship Hall, which is a popcorn ceiling and challenging to paint. With help for Pastor Jason, Gretchen, and Wally, we were able to paint the whole room. My exciting break from painting was helping Dad fix a soft spot in the stage. I had to crawl underneath through the dust and rat poop to the spot and put a new piece of plywood up and wedge a couple 2X4s in for support. The challenging part was that to get to the area I needed to work in, I had to squeeze through a frame of 2X4s that was just big enough for me to wiggle through lying flat on my stomach. It was dirty and cramped down there and I had to try to swing a hammer while curled up in a ball, I couldn't even sit up hunched over. All in all, it was a fun project. Our other big accomplishment of the week was planting our garden. Heather and I had prepped the area on Monday and we bought plants on Wednesday, but it wasn't until Friday morning that we were able to finish planting everything and put up the chicken wire. Evan and I planted the cherry tomato, basil, and yellow squash plants and then both the boys helped me with the radish and carrot seeds. Our garden is smaller this year, but we should still get lots of good produce.

Garden Work

I gave Evan and Micah the shirts I got them in London and the stickers from Ireland. They liked them and were so cute wearing them. Heather and I worked on getting a new patch of ground ready for our garden. It was actually hot today, it was over 80! I enjoyed it so much. We were outside almost all day. We had a picnic lunch on the grass and the boys played in their alligator pool for the first time this year. We had to transplant a couple plants to make room for the garden and Heather and I wore ourselves out, but it was nice.

Soaking up the Sun

I woke up about 6:30 this morning and since I couldn't go back to sleep, I got up and took a shower. When I got out, the rest of my family was up so I got to say hi to all of them. It was great to see everyone, the kids have grown so much. We went to church and there were many more greetings as I got to see everyone there. Then we came home and had lunch and took naps. It was a beautiful day today, sunny and warm. The fact that the sun was out all day was amazing and wonderful. I felt like a flower opening up in the sunshine. And there was open space and grass and other green growing things; it was marvelous. For dinner we went to Alejandra's and got Mexican food. The chips and salsa and the rest of the food was so good, even better than I remembered, if that is possible. It was so satisfying.

The Long Way Home

I woke up with a feeling of panic this morning as I realized that today was the day we left England and said goodbye to the people we lived, studied, and partied with for the past 3 months. Not that I wasn’t excited to go home because I’m ready for that, it was the leaving part that got to me. We had a busy morning of finishing packing, cleaning, and hauling our stuff downstairs. Tony picked us up at 10:15am and we had to say goodbye to those who aren’t leaving yet. Then it was bittersweet driving through London and seeing all the places that are now so familiar. The Hatton Garden diamond stores, Café Nero, Pret, Dominion Theatre, Boots, street signs, brick buildings, tube stations, pubs, Barclay's. We arrived at the Heathrow airport and checked in. I had lunch at Giraffe with Juan, Ashley, and Jen S. and it was good. Plus it was nice because by the time we got to our gate we only had to wait about 30 minutes before boarding the plane. I didn’t get to sit by anyone I know, I was in the middle of the middle section between two couples. The people on my right were from Cambridge and they were nice. But I still was stuck in my seat for most of the long flight. The one time I went to the bathroom, there was a crowd of Fresno people over there so we hung out and talked for a little while. The flight was just over 10 hours and felt like forever, but we finally landed safely in San Francisco. We breezed through immigration and customs and all of our bags made it there with us. Dad and Mom met me at the airport and it was so exciting to see them. Then it was time for one last goodbye to Juan and Ashley before starting the drive home. The drive was long too, but we talked almost the whole time, so I was able to stay awake until we arrived at home about 10:00pm. Isaac was the only one still up, so I got to say hello to him before crashing in my wonderfully comfortable and inviting bed. It was good to be home.

Our Last Day

We have been busy packing today, our last full day in London. I'm pretty much done, just a couple things I need to use one last time. It was a challenge, but I actually got everything in without too much trouble. Ashley, Darrin, Charity, and I walked down to Fryer's Delight for one last lunch of fish and chips. We had a picnic in a gated garden/park that is on the way to school. It had a field of daffodils that was beautiful. It was quite pleasant. We took Flat 8 pictures and roommate pictures. Darrin and Charity are planning to stay and travel around Europe; they had a flight tonight so they were the first to leave at about 3:30pm. It was sad, it still seems unreal that we are leaving and won't be living together anymore. The fact that we could say, "See you back in California" was the only thing that kept us from losing it. The rest of the afternoon we packed and cleaned. Ashley and I made a recycling run and took 4 bags of glass bottles, 2 bags of plastic bags, and a bag of paper to the recycling bins. While we were out, we also made a chocolate run at Sainsbury, they don't have Aero or Galaxy back home. We ate random food we had left for dinner and cleaned out the kitchen. Then we went to the Hat and Tun and Ashley and I got our favorite, Vodka with cranberry and orange juice.

London Tribute

School's Out, Let the Party Begin!

We had our last day of classes for London Semester 2009 this morning. And what a class it was. We had presentations and we didn't get to leave until everyone was done, which meant we stayed about 2 hours after our class was supposed to end. Thankfully, everyone did a good job making their presentations interesting; we had hashbrowns from McDonalds, videos, karaoke, charades, taking off our shoes, wine tasting, and a trip to the British museum. After we finished, the relief and excitement in the air was great, our classes and presentations were over, we are all friends, we have less than two days in London, and the sun was out! We came home and had lunch and I fell asleep. Then we finally went to ride the London Eye, all this time and we hadn't done it yet. We were there as the sun was setting and it was pretty. It was cool to see London from the air. Then we walked along the river as the lights were coming on around the city and went to get Italian food for dinner. By the time we left there, it was about 10pm so we came back to our flat and Ashley and I got McFlurries on the way. They have the monopoly game going on now, but it's cool because the game board has places around London.

Brick Lane

I haven't posted for a couple days because I haven't had anything interesting to take pictures of. We have mostly been going to school and writing papers. Yesterday we had a written final for one of our communication classes; it is the only written final we have, all of our others are papers and presentations. We went on our Brick Lane walk this morning. Teresa and Shannon led the walk, here Teresa is reading us a passage from the book. Because the book was written only a few years ago, things were very similar to how they are described in the book and we were able to find a number of streets and landmarks that are mentioned. It was also interesting because there were flyers up for a march for Islam, something that plays a big role in the novel. I spent a lot of time, literally hours, this afternoon working on a video for my ethnography presentation tomorrow. Things kept going wrong, but I finally got something finished that I'm okay with. It's not great, but it will work.

The Long Way Home

We weren't able to book a place to stay Saturday night because everything was full, but our flight left early Sunday morning so we decided to spend the night in the airport. The bus driver had told us that the last bus to the airport left at 11:25pm, so we hung out at the pub after watching the game until about 11:00, then headed to the bus stop. Unfortunately, the bus driver was wrong and after standing out in the cold for almost half an hour, we realized we had missed the last bus. This was a disappointing revelation. After some discussion about our options, we ended up taking a mini van cab; since we split the cost, it didn't end up being very expensive. We made it to the airport, but couldn't check in yet, so we went upstairs to a food court area. Apparently, the airport is a popular place to sleep because there were a lot of people there and all the couches and big chairs were already filled and we had to find some table in a side area. We got McDonald's for a literally midnight snack and tried to sleep some. This was probably the most excited I have ever been for a time change because we got to set our watches forward and lose an hour of a long night. They were supposed to open the check in area for RyanAir at 3am, so we went down there, but they were just starting to get there so we had to wait some more. Finally, we got our boarding passes, but then the security areas were closed so we sat on the carpet over there and waited some more. When they opened that area and we made it through, the screens weren't working to tell us which gate our plane was boarding at. We picked a random gate and crashed there for about 45 minutes, then went in search of our gate and finally made it there. Our hopes of being able to sleep at our gate were by now thoroughly dashed and we were tired and hungry. Our flight boarded at 6am and we were thankful. We had to walk out to the plane again and it was early enough that it was still dark and had that early morning feel with the lights of the runway and the town still shining brightly. The short flight back was made shorter because I slept the whole way. We had to take a bus from the airport and then catch another bus that would take us close to home. We spent more time on the buses than on the airplane, but we finally made it back to flat 8 a little after 10am. I promptly fell asleep for a couple hours and woke up to have breakfast for lunch about 1:00pm. It was the first time I ate anything since our midnight snack in the airport, so I had 3 bowls of cereal. In the evening, I went to Hillsong for the last time. It was a great service and I was sad to be leaving.

Day 2 in Dublin

We had quick showers this morning since all 6 of us were sharing one bathroom. The hot water ran out, but I didn't mind having a mostly cold shower because mine and Ashley's room was so hot during the night; we were both too out of it to turn off the heater, so it just kept getting hotter and hotter. We checked out of our apartment and went to the Bagel Factory for breakfast. Then we walked around and did some tourist shopping. Charity and I got mood rings to match the ones Ashley and Alicia got in York. We wandered through a couple of markets and I got a blackberry and raspberry crepe with Bailey's whipped cream. It was good, but hard to eat. In the afternoon, all of us except Darrin went on a bus tour to the northern coast. That was cool. We visited Malahide Castle first, which wasn't that exciting. The tour played through speakers as we walked from room to room and we didn't get to see the gardens, which I think we would have enjoyed more. Then we drove back down to Dublin along the coast. It was beautiful; the coastline was rocky and we got to see the Irish Sea and the Dublin Bay. Most of the time, we were driving, but we got to get out and take pictures for a few minutes. The day was cold, but the sun came out and we were so excited. Our time in Dublin was cold and windy, the wind was brutal at times. Our bus tour got back to Dublin about 5pm and Darrin met us at the bus stop. There was a football (soccer) game starting in a couple hours and we thought about getting tickets, but decided it was too expensive. Instead, we went to an Irish pub and watched the game there. It was a World Cup qualifying game between Ireland and Bulgaria and ended up tying, which was boring.