Travels and Passages

In the nearly 2 weeks since my last post, we have been BUSY!  Most of the things I predicted we’d be doing have been done.

June 10, I followed through on my thoughts that we’d go out to Luray to visit the caverns.  It was a great plan in that it gave us something cool and different to see and was underground where Penny wouldn’t have to worry about the sun.  It was also nice and COOL down there, unlike above ground which has been sweltering! 

We left in the morning, and got out to Luray in time for lunch.  I decided we’d go and try to have lunch at a local restaurant and found the Artisan Grille, where we enjoyed fancy sandwiches before heading over to the caverns.  Penny was disappointed that there wasn’t any blackberry ice cream, something she had LOVED when she went hiking on Skyline Drive with Melissa back in May, so we didn’t have dessert, but we had a great lunch nonetheless.  It was only about a mile from the entrance to the caves, so the location was great and it had stairs that Leah insisted on running up and down, so Penny and I got our exercise!

There was something in the cavern air, because the minute we got underground, Leah took a look around, declared it “WEIRD!” at the top of her lungs, and proceeded to scream (there’s an awesome echo in caves) and run wild.  Penny and I were wiped out by the end of the tour, but Leah had an absolute ball and slept all the way home!  The caves were beautiful—I had been once in 1995, and had pictures but to see them in person is absolutely incredible.

Penny declared them “awesome” in stark contrast to Leah’s “weird” and we enjoyed the challenge of getting a decent picture of her that didn’t either obliterate her or obliterate the scenery.  This is one miraculous good one in which both are visible.

June 11, we did go up to her AFS liaison’s home for a good-bye party.  It seems early, but April, her liaison, is actually traveling to Sweden to see her exchange student from last year and won’t be back till after Penny leaves.  It was a really nice time, and April gave all 3 girls stuffed animals with jackets that had their names and AFS Virginia and the dates embroidered on them.  Penny’s is packed and ready to go, it was a really sweet gesture and a beautiful keepsake.

Penny did go to lunch with the Thai worker and to the honors lunch in Stafford, but there’s not much to report about either other than that they did give Penny a medal at the luncheon, which she doesn’t really know what it was for.  She was just happy to have something special to wear at her graduation ceremony.  We had a nice surprise Wednesday night in that we had been talking to our neighbors down the street and it turns out they LOVE Thai food and want to go to Thailand, so we all decided to go to a local Thai restaurant for dinner and they wound up taking us out.  We had a lovely time and they practically begged us to let them take Leah on graduation day so that we could just enjoy Penny’s ceremony!

After her first graduation rehearsal, her friends Ben and Amanda took her up to Tyson’s Corner for a day of shopping, which made up for the fact that Penny decided she didn’t want to go all the way to Fair Oaks mall after all, particularly since the Thai lady took her to Potomac Mills for a day.  Maybe she has finally had her fill of malls?!  I doubt it though! 

We also took a trip to the local mall for a bit of a time out for mom—Penny had 90 minutes to herself to wander and shop and Leah got checked into the local drop in day care and I hid out in the bookstore that’s closing and went for broke—spend $30 on over $100 worth of books.  We had lunch outside afterwards and my spirits were revived!  So I decided to teach Penny some no bake baking, as her family does not own an oven at home.  I taught her microwave fudge and no bake cookies, both of which were a hit!  I would like to teach her to bake in a cardboard box, but I’m having a difficult time getting my hands on a paper box.

Saturday was graduation day.  Penny wore her mystery medal with such pride.  We had to be at the school at 6:45, but I swear she was glowing.  I was so proud during the whole thing and just felt super teary eyed and proud mama-ish, I know I will be an absolute BASKET CASE in 16 years when it’s Leah’s turn!

Penny was thrilled that a number of her friends attended her ceremony as well.  Her best friend, Lesley (bel0w), and friend Stephanie were waiting when I went down to the parents’ picture line to snag a picture of  her receiving her diploma and her friends Charlie and Chrissy were also there, although we missed seeing them somewhere.

 

When we got home, my dad had arrived with my niece and nephew and we had a big pizza lunch (when making out a shopping list for the week ahead, Penny said she didn’t want any pizza at all this week!  Too bad, we’re going to NYC and I already told her all we’re eating is pizza!) to celebrate before she headed off to a party at her math teacher’s house.

That evening we had a chocolate cake to celebrate, Mike and I gave Penny an iCarly game for her DSi as a graduation gift, and then we played lots of Yahtzee and cards until all of us collapsed, exhausted from all the emotions of the day and from chasing 3 toddlers around!

The next day we had a BBQ for Father’s Day and gave my dad and Mike each mugs that Penny and Leah had painted together.  It was a fun project to work on and something both dads can have to remember the girls.  My dad finally was able to leave to go back to my sister’s around 5pm, which was really hard on Penny.  See this picture?

This is Leah and my niece, Dot, staring up at my dad in absolute adoration, which is how everyone stares at my dad, and Penny was no exception.  She doesn’t have a grandfather back in Thailand, and I think it really meant a lot to her to have the experience of having a very involved “PopPop” who was around for many of the big events of her year.  She held tight to him and cried her eyes out before he left, and he told her he was proud of her and she had done a hard thing and could be proud of herself for the rest of her life, which thus made me lose it, and Leah lose it after Penny and I were crying.  Sheesh! 

This morning, we were up and out at 9am to go up to Baltimore, MD.  I had taken Penny through there on our way to Rhode Island but we’d never made it up there to sightsee.  The purpose of our visit was to see Leah’s birthmother and half sister and go to the Baltimore Aquarium, but also to let Penny see another Hard Rock Cafe.   She’s now seen Ottawa, Boston, and Baltimore.  We’re going to get NY and DC under our belts before all is said and done.

We met up with Leah’s BM/sis at 11:30 and went through the aquarium.  Penny is not what you’d call a great fan of animals, so I think she was just going along for the ride, but she did a nice job of taking lots of pictures for us and I snapped a cute one of her in the rain forest area, where may I say, it was HOT!

So that’s where we are with a week to go.  I sat down to make a grocery list tonight and let Penny choose all her favorite meals for the week, so we will be dining on kielbasa and pierogies, homemade boneless chicken wings, and spaghetti with Texas toast, in addition to whatever culinary delights we enjoy in NYC on Thursday and her BBQ/going away party on Saturday.  We sat at the table making the list and Mike said, “I’m going to miss this.  The evenings when Penny did the dishes were my time. I could ask her about school and we could talk.”  And then he started to cry, and Penny started to cry, so I figured I might as well shed a tear or two.  We’re a weepy family these days, but I’m trying to keep in mind the adage:  Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.  And I know we will smile a LOT as we look back on these months together.  I’m so glad we decided to do this.  It’s been an unforgettable experience, so much more than I dared hope for.

See you all with a post on NYC and then a departure post before wrapping up the blog! :0D

Whirlwind!

Yesterday was Penny’s last official day of school.  She had a great day, finished on an X day, which she prefers to Y days, so that made her happy, she took lots of pictures with her friends and teachers, and failed her SOL test.  Maybe she took us a bit too seriously when we told her, “Don’t stress out over it!”.  So it’s possible she will have to take a history final but her teacher is going to try and wangle her an exemption since she had an A in the class all year.  (He is also her favorite teacher, and speaks a bit of Thai—primarily curse words—so I expect she will not go take that test!).  Penny has her last final tomorrow in government, and then she’s done!

Tuesday night, I decided we had all better sit down together and discuss our last 3 weeks together, or at least our last 3 weeks on this leg of our family adventure.  Penny’s school has all kinds of wild exam schedules, she has luncheons and rehearsals and things to go to, she’s been making plans with friends, and we’re trying to do a few things as a family as well!

So, we all sat down together and Penny reported that on Monday, she walked all over our neighborhood and cried, wondering when she will ever get to come back here again.  When she got home, she just stood in the backyard and sobbed.  I wasn’t home, or I’d have given her a big hug.  She was really excited in February that things were even beginning to wind down, but now that June is here, her emotions are much more mixed.  As I said, “It’s one thing to want something to be over, it’s quite another to have it end.”  And she agreed.  And I think we’re all getting emotional.  Today, I took the girls out (more on that in a bit) and I watched them playing together and I got teary-eyed to say the least!

Anyway, so we got out a pen and paper and worked out our schedule for the next 3 weeks.  Here’s what it looks like:

June 10:  Government final.  She was supposed to go shopping with her buddy, Ben, but he canceled tonight, so that’s out.  Now I am thinking that since her final is done at 9:40, I’ll pick her up and take her and Leah out to Luray Caverns.  It’d be a nice little day trip and it’s underground so we don’t have to worry about being out in the sun.

June 11:  We have an AFS picnic to go to in Stafford, and then her favorite TV show, iCarly, is having a 90 minute special that we MUST. BE. HOME. TO. WATCH.

June 12:  There is a Thai woman who works in the school cafeteria who wants to take Penny to a nearby mall.  Otherwise, we will be having a BBQ with my sister, which is happening with or without Penny.

June 13:  Broadway night at her high school.  Many of her friends are performing, and she’s excited to go.

June 14:  The long awaited trip to Fair Oaks Mall and The Cheesecake Factory. 

June 15:  Honors luncheon in Stafford

June 16:  Graduation rehearsal and long awaited trip to Tyson’s Corner with Ben.

June 17:  Graduation rehearsal

June 18:  Graduation!

June 19:  Say goodbye to my dad, her PopPop, who she adores.  I expect this is going to be a really tough day for her.  It’s also Father’s Day, so we’ll be celebrating The Chief and she and I are going to plan something special for the day.

June 20:  Trip up to Baltimore to see the Hard Rock Cafe and aquarium and meet Leah’s birthmother for lunch.  I think this is going to be very meaningful for Penny and I hope helps her to understand the sacrifices parents make so that their children can have good lives.  Maybe it will make her consider what her parents have done for her and how grateful she can and should be to them.

June 21, 22:  Nothing yet!  Hopefully she will begin packing!

June 23-24:  We are hoping this is going to be our NYC trip.  We’ve had some things happen around here that make it impossible for us to fully foot the bill for the NY trip and asked Penny to find out if her family would help pay for her train ticket.  We haven’t heard back yet, but if so, we have agreed that she has done what we’ve asked her to do and deserves to see the city.  Leah will stay with my good friend, Melissa, and Penny and I will head up to NYC.  I can’t stop singing “N Y C!  What is it about you?!” from “Annie”.  I’m scrapping the plans for a hotel and Broadway show, instead planning on a hostel and Madame Tussaud’s, but I think we’re going to have a great trip anyway.

June 25:  Good bye party.  Her last chance to bid her friends from the year good bye.

June 26:  Finish packing, probably a last tour of DC and Fredericksburg

June 27:  Departure day.  We drop Penny off at 1:30pm.

So as you can see, there are very few down days and the days are literally flying by.  I’ve scrapped some plans, like Kings Dominion, because it’s been SO HOT here and also it would involve being out in the sun all day, which although Penny wants to go to an amusement park, she does not want to be outside.  A real challenge.  Some things still need to be squeezed in—our neighbor wants to go out for Thai food next week one night and some other friends want to head to the local Chinese buffet.  Not sure when these will be, but we’ll make it happen.

Today she had a day off and no tests and when I asked her what she wanted to do, she said she just wanted to hang out with me.  She wound up sleeping until almost noon, I think the stress of school having left her, so when Leah woke her up, she was shocked to see how late it was!  We decided to take Leah and go to Chuck E. Cheese, which is one of the first places we ever took Penny to when she got here.  We ripped through nearly 100 tokens and a pizza, got special “ID Cards” made—Penny is officially head cheerleader, I’m a member of a CSI team, and Leah is a hip hop dancer.  I put several men to shame on the Nascar driving game—I made two scores in the top 5, how do ya like me now!? And Penny hit the jackpot on one of the ticket games, so we were proud of ourselves.  We didn’t get enough tickets to do anything with, but they had an iCarly bag in the prize section, so I bought it for her, and she was over the moon about it. 

So it looks like that’s how this thing is going to go down.  I remember Monday thinking, “Wow!  Three weeks!” and now the week is mostly over. There have been times I’ve thought this year would never end, but I just never thought it’d end this quickly!

We’ve had a few family pow wow sessions.  Mike and I are both happy we stuck it out till the bitter end and didn’t send Penny home early.  We’ve done a little review already and agreed that we could have been or perhaps should have been stricter, although Penny informed us over dinner on Tuesday that we are extremely strict.  So that’s food for thought!  We talked about how we didn’t really get a kid with whom at the end of the day we had a lot in common with and how it has been a challenge to keep that kid entertained when she hasn’t spent a lot of time with friends and such.  Our philosophy now is, “You don’t necessarily get the kid you want, but you get the kid you need.”  There are lessons both Mike and I needed to learn about patience, communication, openness, and parenting, and Penny taught us those, and AFS helped us along the way.  Mike ran into our liaison on the train the other night and she asked, “How’s Penny?”  Mike said, “Penny’s Penny!” to which April replied, “You guys are doing a great job.  Don’t change a thing.”  Those bits of encouragement have helped us immeasurably this year, and even though more than once I’ve thought, “What the heck am I doing!?” I don’t think I’ve ever once thought, “Why the heck am I still doing this?!” 

We love this girl and we’re going to miss her.  In my book, that equals success.  Period.

Drawing to a Close…

It’s hard to believe but in less than one month, our first year as an AFS host family will be over.  I am really in shock, as I think about it, that there’s so little time left—4 weeks, just 28 little days, and it’s over and done.  Sheesh!

I started working on a scrapbook for Penny last week.  It contains lots of little odds and ends that haven’t had a place to live, so hopefully having everything in one book will be easier for her.  She and I were looking through it and she asked me how I felt when I was working on it, did I feel sad?  I was able to honestly answer her that no, I didn’t feel sad.  The main thing I feel is proud.  (This is Penny holding a picture of herself from the day she came into the US back in August.  We were marveling at the changes—me in how much older she looks, her in how much longer her hair is!)

This has been an incredible experience in so many ways.  I have been challenged as a person and as a parent.  I feel I am better at parenting now that I’ve had to parent Penny.  Aside from the couple of big dust ups we had, I can say that she has put us through our paces with normal teenage things, and I haven’t handled every challenge the way I should have, but it gave me a lot of insight into what I need to consider and change and do differently next time.  One of the things Mike and I need to seriously consider is the idea of making expectations clear, following through when things don’t get done, and the resulting consequences.  I don’t think Penny is a child who has had a lot of negative consequences in her life.  We had a discussion not too long ago in which she said she likes my parenting style with Leah.  If Leah falls off the jungle gym at the playground, she knows not to do it again.  But Penny says that parents she knows in Thailand would likely blame the playground and never bring their child back.  Still, there has been a part of me reluctant to discipline someone else’s 18 year old. 

I have learned to be a better communicator, I’ve learned to be tough and say the tough things that need to be said, I’ve learned to try different ways of getting my point across, expressing opinions and being much more verbal than I have ever been in my life.  Mike and I were talking today about hosting in the future from a country like Australia, and while we are not opposed to it, I very much like the challenge of attempting to communicate with someone who does not speak English well.  There are of course frustrations, and toss on top of those frustrations the ones that come with a husband who can’t hear you half the time and has trouble always understanding a thick accent, and you’re in for some laughs!

Penny has gotten a couple of new experiences in this month.  She got to do some volunteer hours, finally, in support a 5K to support the local food bank.  It was tough on her—she had to be there at 5AM on a Saturday, and I left her there to figure things out for herself, but she eventually did it, did a great job volunteering, and made a new friend along the way.

Penny also got to experience the death of a pet as our rabbit, TomTom, had to be put to sleep.  It was a very difficult experience for my husband and I, as we got TomTom as a baby bunny when we thought there might never be children in our home and so we basically coddled that rabbit and spoiled him rotten.  In the end, he was in pretty rough shape and letting him go was the kind thing to do, but it was definitely hard and Penny shed a few tears over him, even though she does not like pets and animals much at all.  I remember the first night she was here, as we were giving her a tour of the house, she went right over to the cage and said, “Hello, TomTom!” quite loudly, and it was the most she said for a week, and a sweet memory to this day.

This past weekend, we farmed Penny out for the long weekend.  Saturday she went up to my friend Melissa’s.  Melissa is an avid hiker and decided that Penny needed to hike up in the Shenandoah Mountains at least once before she goes back home.  So Saturday, they headed out on a 1.4 mile hike to a waterfall, and for ice cream.  She reported afterwards that she really enjoyed hiking and she LOVES blackberry ice cream.  Maybe she’ll pick up a new hobby now!

Afterwards, Melissa dropped Penny off with my sister, Judy, and her family for Sunday.  Judy took her to the local farmer’s market, which Penny liked a lot, although she felt it was expensive.  My sister reported, “I know why you’ve had such a rough year!” when I picked Penny up today, as Penny reportedly refused to indicate an interest in anything or to participate in anything that a) cost money or b) involved being outside.  Finally my sister splurged on movie tickets and they went to see Kung Fu Panda in 3D, and Penny loved it and maybe even cried at the end? 

We picked Penny up today and had a little Memorial Day indoor picnic.  (We are in the midst of a massive heat wave here in Virginia, so going outside even if Penny was willing was not going to happen!)  I was happy that when I went to Giant, they had a cake decorated similarly to how the Labor Day cookie I’d bought last September was decorated, it’s kind of a nice bookend to Penny’s first and last American holidays.

I think it was a good weekend for all of us.  We got to get in a little practice at being a family of 3 again and seeing how that dynamic would work when things go back to being that way in a few weeks.  I was very surprised—Leah really didn’t ask for Penny much at all, and Mike and I handled the division of labor quite nicely.  We did miss Penny, and it brought into stark focus how quiet the house is going to be without her yelling and stomping around (she is a VERY heavy walker).  And I think it was good for her.  At my sister’s, she was sleeping on a broken futon, no cable TV, no internet, so the simple things she enjoys here were very much brought into focus for her and gave her a greater appreciation for what good things she has.  We were reminded too of the good things she brings to our family, so it was a win-win.  I will miss her, no denying it!

Next weekend she will head to Charlottesville on Saturday, and come back Sunday.  The host family she stayed with during AFS orientation wanted to have her back, so she’s off to stay with them.  The following weekend we will have an AFS picnic for our area and then on Sunday is Father’s Day and we will do a 5K.  The following weekend she graduates!  And then we’re off to the races.  It may be that Penny is done with school on June 8th, so I am busily planning some last minute fun.  She has requested one more mall trip (ugh! but I’ll do it for her.  She explained the clothes in Thai malls rarely fit her and she just enjoys going and trying on clothes—should be fun trying to keep Leah corralled!), and I want to take both girls up to the Baltimore Aquarium.  Penny is interested in King’s Dominion, we are thinking about Luray Caverns, and of course, our trip to NYC.  Oh yeah, and she has to pack, will want to hang out with her friends, and we’re having a good-bye party for her!!!  So I know this time is going to fly by, and I’m just going to savor every minute of it while I can.

(The January page of the scrapbook, commemorating our trip to the Adirondacks, where we were snowed in for a week!)

Updates Long Overdue!

I am waaaaaaaaay overdue for updating this blog, and I do apologize.  It has been over a month, but my gosh, I can’t believe how busy we’ve been!

I am learning not to make plans any more.  We make plans and then everything changes.  We have planned to go back to DC since our first trip back in August and guess what?  We haven’t made it yet!  Sheesh!!!

November was an absolute whirlwind.  I honestly can’t believe it has been and gone, and I have no idea where it went!!!  The only thing that really stuck in my head when I sat down to write this update is our Thanksgiving vacation.  I looked back through our photos and I think perhaps it’s possible that I’ve even been too busy to take pictures!  I am extremely thankful that I had in mind to keep a paper journal for Penny.  I found an awesome journal at the local bookstore and every night with only one exception so far (the night we arrived at my mother’s house at 2AM), I have written in it daily.  I will make a bound photocopy of it before I give it to Penny at the end of the year.

Anyway, here’s what I can tell you for sure we did:

November 9, Penny performed in her first concert at school.  She sang with her choir class.  The class is divided into men and women and at the time, Penny was singing second soprano.  The women’s choir sang 3 or 4 songs and we proudly waved to her from our seats in the back of the auditorium—as close as we could get unfortunately by the time we got over there!  We were very grateful that our friend Sherry Harrison came to the concert to support Penny and afterwards we all gave her flowers and met her friend, Stephanie, for the first time.

 

November 11 was Veteran’s Day and we took Penny up to Ikea to meet up with my friend Emily.  Penny had never been to Ikea before, so we went over there and had lunch and wandered around.  Penny liked the chocolate cake a lot!

Somewhere in there, Penny also auditioned for the district choir.  She was not ultimately selected, but we were so proud of her for having the guts to even try.  Her choir teacher ultimately decided to move her to the alto section, where I think she is a lot more comfortable singing as well.  She is such a songbird.  She loves to sing here all the time and has music on a lot.  She has taken a particular shine to Wham! so if we hear that there is a resurgence in Wham!’s popularity in Thailand next year, George Michael can send me a cut of the royalties.

November also marks a major holiday in Thailand, that being Loy Krathong.  Loy Krathong is a festival in Thailand in which the Thai people create beautiful boats out of banana leaves and send them floating down the river hoping to have the sins of their year absolved.  You can read more about it by clicking here.  Penny decided to teach us how to make our own krathongs and we would float them here locally to celebrate her customs.  Penny had a lot of leftover tissue paper from her birthday paper, and cut it into strips to fashion a rough equivalent of the leaves that would typically be in a krathong.  She taught me the folding method, which I struggled with quite a bit at first, but after folding 40 or 50 of them, I quickly got the hang of it and we made a krathong for each member of the family.  I sent Penny’s mom a picture and she suggested we fill them with flowers as would be traditional, so on the day we were due to set them off, November 21, I went and picked up carnations at the local grocery store.  We filled them and sent them down the river at a local park here in Fredericksburg.  It was a very lovely moment.

 

My friend Jacalyn of Emerald Lens Photography came with us to take family photos for our Christmas cards and she photographed the occasion as well.  There are some pictures on her photo blog if you are interested.

Photo credit:  Jacalyn Stanley, EmeraldLens.info

On November 23rd, all our company began arriving for Thanksgiving.  My father was here and our best friends Mike and Lesley flew up from Atlanta.  We had an awesome Thanksgiving together and Penny enjoyed making a big meal with us and she really loved the turkey!  We put her to work in the kitchen and she was into everything up to her elbows, from making pie to making gravy to setting our table just beautifully.

 

Post-Thanksgiving we took our annual trip up to the Christmas Attic in Alexandria.  Afterwards, we started decorating the house for Christmas, most notably putting up Christmas lights, which Penny also enjoyed helping with.

  

(Yes, she was insane enough to be wearing shorts!)

Once everyone left and we took a deep breath, we started getting ready for Christmas.  I perform with a local choir, so I have been running back and forth to choir practice as well as my regular book club meeting.  Penny has had a ton of tests and papers and projects she’s had to do.  We got out all our decorations for Christmas except the tree, which we will put up the weekend of December 18th.  We have started baking cookies and we attended a free concert by the US Marine Corps Band at Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center.  Penny has never experienced cold weather like we have here in Virginia (and I have to say, it’s been an exceptionally cold winter so far!), so we talked her into buying a coat, explaining that her yellow sweatshirt was not going to cut it.  I had gotten Leah a little lamb hat to keep her warm and Penny fell madly in love with it and looked all over for a “cute” hat like that, but couldn’t find one.  Fortunately, I found one at JC Penney’s and bought it for her and we gave it to her as an early Christmas present.  She and Leah looked adorable at Wolf Trap.

After we had been there ten minutes, however, Penny exclaimed, “I have changed my mind about seeing snow!”

Penny also made a new friend in a missionary, Jon, who has just returned from a couple of years living in Thailand and was looking for someone to experience Thailand and Thai culture and language with as he adjusts to life back in the US.  They met up at the mall and spent a couple of hours together chatting and whatnot.  Penny also had an amazing time spending a night at her liaison’s house with 2 of the other exchange students.  They went to the theater to see Tangled in 3D, Penny’s first American cinematic experience.  Now she wants to find someone to go see Narnia with her, as she is a great fan of it.  Hopefully she will find a friend to go with her!

We have introduced Penny to the tradition of the Advent wreath and have been teaching her how to light a match and then she can light the candles.  (I was a regular firebird by the time I was 10, probably due to the Girl Scouts and their evil camping influence, so the idea she could be 18 and not know how to light a match struck me as very strange!)  We do a reading each week, which I think she feels a bit more relaxed about since it is not overly religious in tone. 

Penny also helped us with our traditional “stuffing of the Christmas cards”—something she cannot believe we did.  We mailed out 73 of our 74 cards so far, and she couldn’t believe that many Americans send out that quantity at the holidays.  I explained that Christmas is a time to remember and celebrate the love we have for our family and friends and that while it is time consuming, it is so nice to give and receive cards to those we love.  I don’t know if she was convinced or not, but she IS enjoying when we receive cards.  My mom sent her a special Christmas card to commemorate her trip to Disney and Penny was so touched!

 

She is now in the spirit of the whole present thing.  Last night she helped me wrap Leah’s presents, as well as gifts for my niece and nephew.  She snooped around a bit since there were a few presents for her in the pile downstairs, but she didn’t gather much from her reconnaissance.  Most of her presents are wrapped and stashed elsewhere because I suspect she is a bit of a spy, just like I was!  Patience, Penny, only 16 more days till you get your loot! :)

Of course, we have crammed in tons of Skip Bo and Yahtzee and yesterday Penny and I finally, finally, finally finished Super Mario Bros. for Wii.  Now we are trying to decide what to do to fill our time since we have been sweating that game for months!

This weekend we will have dinner with friends tomorrow evening, attend a Christmas pageant at my friend’s house on Saturday and hopefully take a quick trip into DC to have a peek at the national Christmas tree.  Sunday our neighbor has invited us to see her son in the church Christmas pageant.  We will also probably start baking serious quantities of cookies soon, which is something Penny is extremely excited about.  She will be performing in another choir concert on the 16th and she has offered to babysit Leah and the neighbor’s little boy so Lisa and I can go Christmas shopping this week and I can finish it off!  Then my friend Joe will arrive on the 17th for the weekend that will include putting up our tree, my concert, my father’s arrival, taking cookies to the neighbors, and last minute preparations before the big day.  I hope to sneak in a trip to the mall to get a picture with Santa Claus too.

Hopefully it won’t take me 6 weeks to update from Christmas and New Year!!!  It’s hard to believe we are coming up on 4 months since the kids arrived, and only 6 months of this wonderful experience left.  Impossible to believe!

The Rest of October

The rest of October is gone in an absolute blur.  I remember taking Penny and Leah to the mall for their photo shoot, and I more or less don’t remember a thing afterwards until I looked at the calendar today and saw a big, fat number 1 on it and thought, “Oh man, it’s November already!”

Penny did go to Homecoming with her friend JB and met up with some new friends at the dance itself.  She looked lovely in her dress and she had a very good time going, although I think she would have liked to have danced more than she did.  Her friend is not much of a dancer and she felt badly leaving him alone while she went to dance.  Still, they had a great time having dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings with JB’s cousin beforehand and then going the dance and coming home.  Penny looked beautiful and felt great in her new dress, so  I’d call the night a success!

  Another big event this month was that we went to Florida for my mother’s 60th birthday party.  We had been planning this for a while and we were all very excited about it.  My mom lives about 90 minutes south of Orlando, so a trip to Disney was definitely called for.  I left the little one with her father and grandmother and took Penny to DisneyWorld’s Magic Kingdom for the day.  It was a lot for her to take in and she was absolutely exhausted by 2:00 in the afternoon, but we managed to go on quiet rides then, like the Carousel of Progress, where she could take a little nap and get some rest.  We were laughing and joking with each other about daring ourselves to go on the “scary rides” like Space Mountain and Splash Mountain, but ultimately my host mom instinct kicked in and I decided that Penny was not going back to Thailand regretting the fact that she hadn’t done things.  I always tell her that she will regret the things she didn’t do much more than the things she did do.  So I did the rides too, even though I really didn’t want to.  But it was fun.  Space Mountain is probably better for me than other coasters, since it’s in the dark and you really can’t see what’s about to happen.  There’s no time to get scared.  Penny was screaming the whole time, and she informs me that I laughed.  We did every ride either of us wanted to and a few I’d never done before in all my trips to Disney and left by about 7:30PM.  It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.

The next day was my mom’s party.  We had a beautiful time celebrating my mom and her special day.  We did a lot of decorating, we made centerpieces, we put together cookie trays, got cake, entertained my mom’s friends, and made a glorious mess.  My mom is a special lady, and has packed a ton of special into 60 years, so even though I gave her a big hug and she and I both burst into tears, it was a good kind of crying.  I hope she felt all the love in that room—I know we all did!

Monday, we took Penny for her first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean.  It was a beautiful day but the hurricanes were churning up the water pretty good, so the waves were very choppy.  She elected not to get into the water, but at least she got to see it.

All in all, Florida was a great time.  We came home exhausted, and grateful to be in our own beds, but very grateful to have had such a wonderful time and gotten to know so many people.

Then it was one week till Halloween!!!  Penny was very excited about Halloween and it is really her first big American holiday, so we were excited too.  I had great plans for trips to the pumpkin patch, baking cookies, etc. but the wheels came off our family bus for a while and most of our weekend was taken up with meetings with our AFS liaison and a good deal of sulking, screaming, crying, and door slamming.  I am happy to say that things are better now, but it was very stressful and consequently we didn’t get much done!  She did go to her friend Victoria’s party on Saturday night, though, which was great, since she was able to meet some more kids and have a good time.  She even told us not to wait up for her.  I sort of didn’t, I just waited up in my bed instead of waiting in the living room.

So we crammed it in yesterday.  When Penny got up, there was apple cider and donuts waiting for her.  We carved pumpkins together—something she’d never done before.  It was fun to hear her when I got the top off the first pumpkin and pulled up and the strings and seeds came with it.  She really cleaned out her pumpkin with gusto, though, and took to the spirit of the thing right away.

She carved her own design into her pumpkin and she was happy with it, even if one of the eyes fell apart on her!  I made Leah a little happy pumpkin and in the other pumpkins we had gotten, we used some Mr. Potato Head type pieces that they sold at Target a few years ago to make a pirate pumpkin and a diva pumpkin.  The were all nicely displayed on the front steps.

Costumes were cool too.  I let Penny have the ultimate say in what Leah would be this year, and she chose a pumpkin outfit we found on line.  Leah looked super-cute, I must say, even though I wanted to go with a pirate princess costume.  I’m happy with the pumpkin!  (My sister-in-law pointed out that Leah is going to start forming opinions about what she wants to be soon enough and I may not have another chance to dress her as a pumpkin, so I should strike while the iron is hot!)  Penny chose to wear her traditional Thai dress, something she had brought with her from home and has decided she will also wear to the prom.  She looked beautiful in it, it was a cream colored lace top and a gorgeously patterned golden skirt.  Michael and I wore our traditional Frankenstein and Witch hats that we got the first year we were married.  We cut a beautiful picture as a family.

I took the girls out trick-or-treating starting at about 6:30PM.  Penny kept asking what time it was and could we go yet and so we left as soon as we saw other kids coming out.  We went to all the neighbors up and down the street, but it was COLD!!!! and Penny was freezing in her outfit.  She had on a sweatshirt over it and at each house she would take it off before ringing the bell. 

Halloween is dying, at least in Fredericksburg.  It makes me sad—Halloween was such a special night when I was a kid, but I guess now people are scared about taking candy from strangers, so they take candy from strangers in church parking lots now.  Our neighbors had invited us out to their church for the “trunk and treat” where you go around to parked cars and accept candy from people’s trunks, so after we finished our block, I put the girls in the car and we drove over to Falmouth Baptist and picked up loot and hot dogs to boot!

On the way back, we stopped off at JB’s house, where the dog got loose and Penny ran in circles screaming with the dog barking and chasing her—it was some Halloween excitement!!!  Then we went to Mike’s radio buddy Jack’s, and then I told Penny I needed to get Leah home.  She said she wanted to keep going, so I gave her my cell phone and came home.  She was home about 15 minutes later, having gone to only 3 other houses before the cold got to her and she called it a night.

We all sat together at the table while she counted her loot.  She and Leah bagged 150 pieces of candy total, the top 3 of which were M&M’s, Butterfingers, and KitKats.  She was very excited by the gum she got—the kind in the red, yellow, and blue wrapper that turns rock hard in your mouth after about 5 minutes.  She apparently loves the stuff!  I’m going to go find her some today on sale.

Shortly afterwards, we perused our pictures and then it was bedtime.

So now it’s November and time to look ahead to the crazy season, which is getting underway. I can hardly believe it.  Penny has off tomorrow for election day, so we are going to DC for the day.  For Veteran’s Day, which I think she also has off and which Mike has off, we’re going to Richmond for the day.  Our best friends and my father are all coming for Thanksgiving, then we’re hoping to make a trip to NYC, and then it’ll be Christmas time!!!  Time for cookies and shopping and presents and trees and excitement.  Penny is simultaneously praying for and dreading snow.  We’ll see what happens!

A Tour of DC

Recently in reading other families’ and students’ blogs, I’ve been kinda bummed about the fact that I don’t have cool pictures of us running on windswept beaches, enjoying the natural beauty of deserts or pristine forests, or of Penny surrounded by hordes of adoring fellow teens.  She is gamely following along with whatever game plan I come up with, which frankly most of the time is the spur of the moment, but I felt like I needed to do more somehow, because although 3 weeks is a long time for her to be here before school starts, it is slipping away, and I knew I would look back and think, “I wish I had done X, Y, and Z” those first weeks.

So yesterday I got up and we were sitting around and I told Penny to prepare herself for a little trip that evening.  I am famous for my trips around the DC monuments at night, and I decided we needed pictures of Penny in front of imposing memorials and breath-taking fountains, with her unhip host mom if nothing else! :-D

We left home around 8:30 last night and got to DC around 9:15.  Driving around in the dark, I got slightly lost and we wound up on the opposite side of the Capitol as I intended us to be.  However, we were actually on the front, I think, so it worked out well.  As we pulled up, I thought she would be blown away by the nearly supernatural glow of the white dome of the Capitol in the DC darkness, but instead, she was giddily squealing over our proximity to the Library of Congress.  I was thinking, “Really?” and she begged me to pull over so she could take a picture.  I couldn’t stop where we were, so I pulled around the corner and we were lucky to find a parking space literally right in front of the Capitol and right next to the LOC.  We got out and I had to fairly sprint to keep up with her as she exclaimed how excited she was to see it.  I said, “The Library of Congress?!” and she said, “Yes!  You ever see the movie The Day After Tomorrow?”  I guess it is prominently featured, I haven’t seen it! 

Shockingly (to me anyway), Penny had no idea what the Capitol Building was.  I explained that it’s the seat of American government where the senators and representatives meet to set policy and make laws, blah blah blah, and then I realized that I wouldn’t recognize whatever the most famous government building in Bangkok was if I fell over it.  So I guess we’re even on that score!  To her credit, Penny was impressed by the building as judged by the number of “Oh!”’s and “Very nice!”’s she uttered while wandering around in front of the building.  Her primary concern however, was getting pictures and in the dark, neither of our cameras was doing a good job!  UGH! 

This was as good as it got!!! 

We went over to the other side of the street and got a picture of what I guess is the Supreme Court building, but honestly, I have no idea, it was late, we didn’t see signs, and I took a guess.  It looked like the Supreme Court to me.  Then we hopped back in the car and drove to the other side of the Capitol to try and get more pictures, but none of those came out either, so we gave up and made our way to the Mall. 

Our first stop was the World War II Memorial, one of my two favorite places in Washington DC.  On the way we saw The White House and drove past the Washington Monument.  Penny is afraid of heights but feels confident that she will someday before she leaves go to the top of the monument anyway.  We walked all over the WWII Memorial and Penny snapped a zillion pictures.

Penny, a proud new Virginian!

A self-portrait in the lights of the Memorial

  

Penny poses like this last picture constantly.  Recently, a host mom posted a blog called "Sign Language" on her blog about what different hand signs mean in different countries.  So I decided to ask Penny if she knew what this two fingered salute meant in the US and if it meant something in Thailand.  She said in Thailand, it just means, “Don’t I look cute?”  I explained in the US it means “Peace” in a kind of hippie context.  She didn’t much care about that. Haha!

After that, I told her we would walk to the Lincoln Memorial.  It is a bit of a hike, but she is young and skinny and I am old and fat, so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem for her.  Of course, this is the kid who asked me how she was going to get to the bus stop, which is at the top of the street, exactly 2 houses from here, and when I suggested she was going to walk, her eyes got as big as saucers and she said, “Oooooh!”  But there’s really nowhere to park near the Lincoln Memorial any more, even for those of us cool enough to sport handicapped tags, so walk we must!  We walked along a semi-lighted pathway, which was lined with Porta-Potties for the upcoming tea party rally this weekend.  As we finally got close to the Lincoln Memorial, we saw all the pavilions up for Glenn-Beck-A-Thon 2010, and Penny made the mistake of asking, “This is for some kind of rally?”  Only on account of the fact that Asians really do switch their R’s and L’s when they speak, I had to ponder for a second what she meant by “This is for some kind of Larry?”  But I realized what she meant and then it popped into my head what was going on, and so I said that it was and she was interested to know more.  Without putting too fine a point on it, I think Glenn Beck is a gas bag, so I attempted to indicate my feelings about the whole thing without being disrespectful in case Penny is quite conservative, which I doubt that she is really anything based on the conversations we’ve had about politics thus far (when we picked her up, she was wearing a shirt that read “Political Minded”.  I asked her if that was true and she asked me what it meant.  I explained and she said, “Oh no, I just like this shirt.”).  The whole thing seemed a little over her head, which was fine with me and if you want to know what I told her it was, you’ll have to look on my Facebook album in the comments section :-D  And don’t say you weren’t warned if you happen to be a great lover of the tea parties and Fox News.

Anyway, as we were walking up to the Memorial, which was drawing Penny in like a moth to the flame, two men stopped us and asked if we’d like our picture taken together.  Of course!  They snapped two for sure, and we were just thrilled to have a mother-daughter shot on our big night out.

Penny announced that she wanted to climb the steps, not take the wimpy elevator up to the top, and I am proud to say I made it! Once we got inside, she was so impressed by the statue of Abraham Lincoln.  We had tried showing her the battlefields in Fredericksburg and explaining the Civil War, but let’s face it people, if you were 17 and not an American, would you be all that interested in an internal conflict that went down 150 years ago?  So we are educating her little by little about American history, but since she is about to take both US history AND government in school, she will come out well educated.  Heck, I might even read the books just for fun.  It’s been a while!

We left the Memorial and I took her to the Korean War Veterans Memorial which I think freaked her out a little bit and then the Vietnam Wall.  She was starting to fade out a bit (by now it was well past 11), but she did gamely cross the little bridge onto Independence Island and then we finally made it back to the WWII.  She was starting to sniffle and shuffle and I asked her if she was OK and did she have it in her to have one more visit to my ultimate favorite spot in DC?  She said, “No” but she said it laughingly, and I really didn’t know what to make of her response.  She said, “I cannot walk in a straight line.  How far is it?”  So I told her it was across the park and we would drive there.  She didn’t disagree, so I went for it.

Once we got there, though, I realized I had pushed her a bit too far.  Disappointingly, none of the fountains was turned on, so it was a bunch of rocks and statues in near darkness.  I took her down to the Tidal Basin to see the city, and she walked through the memorial, but her heart was not in it.  Oddly, though, on the way back, she perked right up and wanted to take pictures with all the statues!

She was interested to know who Eleanor Roosevelt was although she didn’t care too much about who FDR was.  I got her back to the car, and almost immediately, she was out cold. She perked up when I put the radio on and Katy Perry came out of the speakers, but other than that, she was the kind of tired when your head flops forward and scares you, but you just keep putting your head back and sleeping anyway.  We got home at about 12:45AM, and I think she was asleep before she hit the top of the stairs.  I, on the other hand, had to pack lunch for the mister and check in on the wee one before bed.  I may be old, but apparently, I’ve still got boundless energy! ;-D  Penny did make me promise that I would take her back to DC this week, particularly to take pictures of the LOC, so we are hoping to get up there on Wednesday.

Taking Penny around DC was a special time for me.  Not only did I get to see the delight in her eyes as she took in our beautiful and historic landmarks, but I realized in walking around and thinking about my feelings about what was going on around me (the rally, people stopping to ask me for directions, watching other people enjoy the sights, strangers saying “good evening!” [which Penny finds hilarious, by the way]), that I am really proud of my country and to be living here.  I disagree with a lot of crap going on this country right now and I have a lot of issues with the way it’s being run and the way it has been run, but I don’t live in fear of saying so, and we enjoy great freedoms.  It is truly a beautiful place to live and visit and I look forward to loving our country even more as I travel with Penny this year!