Summer Vacation Continued...

So I know that this is out of order but we are finally documenting the rest of our Summer home leave.

After meeting up in Utah, we went back to Texas our Texas.

Austin

We got to hang out with Janielle and Jeremy outside of San Antonio and meet their cute dogs (Graham and Isaac's favorite part by far). We went to the local children's museum. One of the coolest things was the legal graffiti that they let us do on the "art car". Notice what Rich wrote on the hood . . . Awww!


Here's Jeremy in his friend's boat. He took us skiing down the local river. I got to drive a boat for the first time and the kids had a blast sitting on the tubes (until Russell and Mom took a big spill).


Back in Austin we got to hang out with friends including our friends the Wells. Our little guys warmed up to their old pals Joseph and Jacob fairly quickly. Here they are at Costco getting into trouble...

Merinda had one of her "girls nights out" with some of her old crowd as well. She stuck bindi on their foreheads and they were less than sympathetic with her stories of how hard it is to have people around cooking, cleaning and driving for you!

Here are our boys down in Austin. We got to meet up with Uncle David, Aunt Robin and Liz and Don. The kids (and me especially) were super-wowed with their new Uncle Don's old radio collection.

Michigan

Then it was on to Michigan for a family reunion with my side of the clan. Uncle James and Aunt Amy got set up for the summer in an amazing little town where he is interning for Whirlpool.

Here's Spencer's 1st birthday. Note his size next to our nearly-two-year old who is clearly gunning for that fancy cake!


The sunsets by Lake Michigan were spectacular...



We had a blast going to pick blueberries. Graham, the only one of our little dears who seems to like fruit, stuffed himself silly.







AND it was Merinda's big 30th birthday! To be honest, the evening was a bit stressful with so many kids around, but once they were out for the count we had an amazing dinner.


Just recording this one for memory's sake: A small fraction of the luggage that we managed to haul around with us across the world. It was a total of 8 bags (about 50lbs each), carry-ons, and 3 car seats. We were a nightmare everywhere we went.

Our luggage was lost twice, a few bags didn't make it to Denmark (once coming back badly mangled), and then when we arrived back in Delhi they were ALL lost. The good news was that they arrived the next day, were delivered straight to our house, and we got a good chunk of money from the airline to make up for the inconvenience. What a great blessing!


Denmark

Visiting Copenhagen was a great stress relief after all the running around, shopping, and work in the USA. Why Denmark?

So we have this book which we'd recommend to anybody who likes to travel or even think about traveling: 1000 Places to See Before you Die.

As we browsed around the book looking for a place to go on the way back, I had it in my head to go to Istanbul, Turkey (probably because we just bought the They Might be Giants album) but upon reading about it, we saw that the big things to do there was to look at old Muslim buildings and explore crowded markets, which we can do just fine from Delhi, thank you.

Denmark caught our eye for two reasons: 1) It is supposed to be bicycle friendly and 2) it has one of the world's oldest amusement parks. So we thought it would be fun for the kids and us.

We were right. Copenhagen is tiny (there are more people who live on our block here than live in all of Denmark) and you can get around easily by bike since there are special bike lanes and even bicycle stop lights to boot.

Here's Isaac and Russell at Tivoli, the old amusement park.

One of the best things about it is that they let the kids ride most of the rides if they have adults around, even Graham who loved the roller coasters. The world's oldest roller coaster is there complete with a girl who controls it with a hand brake!

To get around we put Russell and Graham in a trailer and had a tandem attachment for Isaac:

Just for any fellow bike buffs, I include a picture of what we found that the real locals hauled their kids around in:



Graham at the Queen's place after the changing of the guard. Denmark claims the world's oldest monarchy!

Of course we had to go see the Little Mermaid statue. We bought a Hans Christian Anderson book while we were there. The real stories are good stuff, no Disney happily-ever-after with the Prince for any merfolk who disobey their parents. You end up as foam on the sea if your don't listen to Mom and Dad.


We spent a lot of time just hanging out at the lush green parks they had throughout the city.
If the Mormons were to build a cathedral, I think that this one would be it. The original Christus statue is there (you can see it in the back) with wonderful statues of the 12 apostles lining the side.

This is the cathedral that Spencer W. Kimball went with Boyd K. Packer. In the few seconds where we weren't telling the kids to stop running and be quiet, we got to stand at this statue and think about the great story that Elder Packer told in this talk.
Long vacation, especially for Merinda. 7 weeks on the road with about 500 pounds of luggage and 90 pounds of children! Here she is, jet lagged and heading home in a non-air conditioned, no-seat-belt, New Delhi ambassador taxi, happy to be back. Mostly.

Of Chocolate, Drivers, Ambassador Taxis and Growing Pains

Isn't life really mostly about chocolate? But we'll get to the chocolate later. First the drivers.

Most of our problems these days can be traced back to our no good, very bad driver Pardeep. He's not a bad guy. He just won't ever look us in the eye or speak to us. You can ask Mom. We're not making this up. And with a few of the experiences we've had in the last few days, I'm not sure if he has a brain in his head at all.

Last night we asked him to take us to the Russian Culture Center and gave him pretty clear instructions on what roads to take. The Culture Center is somewhere between India Gate and Connaught Place. But for whatever reason he drove around in circles between the two places for about an hour. Literally circles. There's the roundabouts that get you all turned around, but when we passed India gate for the third time, we knew there was something we were missing or this guy was missing. We kept asking if he knew where he was going, but kept getting a mumble that we think might have meant he did. Anyway, after passing the Russian Culture Center the first time, we had a nice drive seeing this lovely part of Delhi in circular fashion for about 45 minutes before we found our way back. Thank you, driver.

Apparently our driver friend doesn't think he's such a good driver either, because he's been telling other drivers we are looking for a driver. Today at least three (I've lost track) drivers showed up at our doorstep uninvited because they had heard we need a new one. One driver we interviewed a few days ago spoke English okay, but when I asked him to show me where we were on a map he was at a total loss. Another guy who showed up today works for an Irish family down the street but he wants more money. We're totally baffled on this one. But we do know this . . . the current driver MUST GO!

Another fun driver moment of the day: Today while we were at swimming lessons Rich had the driver take him to the Vasant Vihar branch for a church meeting. Then he sent the driver back to get us. He was about 45 minutes later than I expected and I was quite annoyed waiting for him in the 107 degree heat, but at least he came.

We left Rich at the church to find his own ride home because today we had a Young Women's activity at our house at 4:00 and I had promised to pick up four people. So when we got home, I pulled out my newest Hindi sentence: "sari do bajeh chalna hai" which I meant to mean, we'll be leaving again at 2:30.

Unfortunately, he didn't get the message right. When I looked outside at 2:35 to see if the driver was ready he was gone! The guard informed me with a smile that he had gone to get "sahib." He had gone to Vasant Vihar 40 minutes away to pick up Rich who was already home! And the silly man doesn't carry a cell phone like everyone else in India (though we just learned from his boss that he has one, he just doesn't have a charger) so I couldn't call to tell him to come back. All we could think to do was call a taxi. So off I went in one of those black and yellow ambassador taxis. The thing had A/C, it just wasn't cold at all. The windows turned out to be a better option, but at least I could communicate with this driver and he was willing to get out and ask if he didn't know where a place was.

One hour and several cell phone calls later for directions to everyone's house we had driven all over and had crammed 11 people--Alveena and her friend, Sister Beesa and her two children, Sister John and her two children, Carolina, the driver, and me--into the taxi and were hot, hot, hot. I taught the kids to play "I Spy" and blew on their necks to keep them from complaining about the heat. When we got there Sarah Jordan and her brother arrived and then Sister Amy Paul, the district young women president. Woo-hoo! Three young women and a whole gaggle of others!

The activity went well. I succeeded in getting out of teaching the kids to cook American food by asking Sister Beesa to come teach. She is a very good cook (she does it by profession in the American Embassy) and I learned a lot by watching her. I kind of had to stop watching her though once I realized I needed to play police. . .

Here's the chocolate part. One of the girls who came lives in a one bedroom house with her brother and parents with the kitchen outside. She was visibly impressed with our refrigerator, but after she checked out everything inside the refrigerator side and giggled at its contents (I'm not sure why), she looked at the freezer door with confusion on her face. I opened it and showed her that it's the place where we keep things really cold, like ice cream. Big smile on the ice cream. Then she pointed to the chocolate Easter eggs Mom brought when she came. At this point I made my mistake. I should have offered one to her, but I didn't. All I could think of was how Mom had paid $1 for each of those eggs (another story in and of itself that Mom will have to tell you) and that I didn't have enough to share with everyone who had come. So I didn't offer.

About ten minutes later I noticed two of the girls near the fridge chewing something and opening the freezer to get more. Chocolate! I told them if they wanted some of them, I'd be happy to give them, but don't just take them. One girl's face visibly heated up and her eyes watered as she swallowed whatever it was whole. For the rest of the activity every time I turned my back they were heading back into the pantry, or up in the boys room and shutting the door, or in the toy room looking guilty.

Argh! I guess being a young women's leader in any country is often about being a police. But avoiding theft in my own home really makes me a little edgy. I thought about confronting the girls before they left about what I suspected might be in their pockets but decided not to. It was one of the girls' birthdays, after all, and frankly, they tell me stealing is defined differently here. It is wrong, definitely, but I think in India it's perceived more as borrowing, not stealing. Especially when taking from people like us who have thousands more square footage in our house and a bank account with thousands more rupees (actually, though, we don't have a bank account with rupees yet--that's yet another work in progress that has already spanned months!).

This is a photo of Sister Trija John, the 1st counselor in YW and the former branch president's wife with her son Saranj and Graham.

When we finally said goodbye to the whole lot of them (sent them home with the driver who finally came back after 4 hours when we got someone at the church to find him and tell him to go home!), Rich realized he had missed an appointment with someone at the church and we both wondered aloud why we can't ever get it all together much as we try. Russell and Isaac had some answers later on, unbeknownst to them.

Russell's Answer:
It's bedtime. I call out, "Russell, can you please come upstairs and get ready for bed?"

He replies something in very high whiny tones I cannot comprehend. I am feeding Graham, so I ask Isaac to go to Russell and see what's wrong.

Isaac comes back and says, "Russell says he can't come upstairs. He's run out of gas."

Isaac's Answer:
"Mom, my leg really hurts!"
"Does it hurt from when you fell off your bike earlier today?"
"No, it hurts all over."
"Does it hurt like growing pains?"
"Yeah, I think so. Ouch, it hurts."

Maybe this week we can fill up our gas tank on Sunday, get a new driver to get us around without crazy mix-ups and keep on growing.

Isaac's View From the Backseat

IMG_5330.JPG, originally uploaded by merindarich.

Getting Away From It All in Rajasthan

Deciding we needed a break from the stress of setting up a house in Delhi, we headed out to the desert of Rajasthan....

The porters at the train station don't need no stinking wheels on the luggage they haul:

Arriving at the train station in the little town of Osiyan:

Our camel camp. It sits on top of a giant sand dune. It was quite a ride sliding down that hill every day in the Jeep.

Merinda and Graham chilling out at the swimming pool. It was so hot we spent most of our time up there.

The gang in town looking at the old temples. Visiting ancient sacred shrines with little children is no picnic.

Russell and Isaac looking oh so cute and innocent after getting a talking to for being naughty at the temple.

Our tent at sunset. As Isaac is fond of pointing out, the coolest feature of the tents is they had toilets..

Breakfast is served...

On safari with our trusty steeds...



Graham's new best friend. The fellow has 7 kids himself.

Russell getting a little tired at the end of the big trip

Everybody else getting tired too...

Catching Some Zzzzs

The traffic is heavy here, so we've spent much time in the car. Here's Isaac and Russell zonked out on such a trip.