It's birthday week. Four of them in one week. Luisa, then Daniel, next up Kiernan, and finally Lur.
We drove down in time for Luisa's official party, but then we were also here for her party with friends. Someone's brave for having all these little children under the same roof. But it worked out well. Lots of parents keeping their eyes on their children. Everyone behaved, especially me.
While down here, we saw the first of what we hope will be many basketball games, this time for Thomas. We had a couple of babysitting gigs with Margaret and then Joe which gave us plenty of opportunities to spoil grandchildren. I should say Mary had the babysitting gigs.
Sharing a picture of Simon who wanted to be Barack Obama for his school's Black History Month fashion show. At their school Thomas dressed up in the colors of Nigerian and John in Kenya's red and black. And there's a picture of Theo reading his favorite book. Or should I say re-reading it.
Friday, everyone was in school so Mary and I met an old Foreign Service friend at the USAID building and "clapped out" the workers who have been summarily dismissed. It was very sad; we've known many USAID families over the years which makes it very personal. We also took in the African American History Museum. Also pretty sad.
Not sad are the warm temperatures down here. We even saw some crocuses and forsythia. Not for long as we headed home to single digit temps.
Two of us had surgeries this week. Lur fell and broke her left wrist so she had an operation to line it all up the right way again. Then, down in Florida, Marilyn had her knee surgery and she is on the long road to recovery. Look out pickle ball!!
From far away, Annie and Sankar have purchased a parcel of land. Big news. Sixteen acres that are about 5 hours away from his family's home in Thanjavur. It's up in the hill towns so it's a little cooler. Now they can start dreaming of what they want to put there. We vote for a guest house.
A miserable weather day and a computer in the repair shop led me downstairs to tackle the mess in our basement closet. In one box I found two bags of letters that Grandma had saved. Letters that Mary and I had written over the years. I would say most of them were thank you notes, for one thing or another. There's a lesson in giving. Also buried in the papers were some old photos and two obituaries, of John Shields and Mary Law Shields. I'll have to get a good scan and share them with all of you.
Finally, before leaving Washington, we went to our old church, Joe and Leonor's new church. They are ministering to a community in shock right now. But the minister had a nice message that can be summed up, "we don't need a map, but a compass."
Our next letter will be postmarked Montpellier, France where Mary and I are heading this week to take French language classes.
A la prochaine! Love
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