Goodbye

I really don't have a clue how to write this post.

My father in law, Dennis Blackburn, passed away very unexpectedly last Thursday. We will miss him terribly. He was a great father in law, father, and grandfather. He was a great example to Phil. I credit him with teaching Phil how to be the great husband and father that he is.

As a result we are back in the US earlier than we expected. We finished things up as quickly as we could in India, had our movers come a few days early, cancelled our travel plans, and returned to Utah to be with Phil's family. It was one of life's tender mercies that those arrangements all went as well as they possibly could have. We will be here for a few weeks.

And you miss out on all the witty little goodbye India posts I had planned. Maybe at some point I'll get back around to posting about our last few weeks there.

The night Max wore his wolf suit...

The invitation:

I was highly entertained, but then, I am his mother, and yes, sometimes I want to send him off to bed without his supper.

Church Worlds Colide

Some friends from Dallas are currently in India so we went to Chennai this past weekend to spend a little more time with them. You'll have to check out benac.com for the true lowdown on their travels, since I'm relying on their photography. Their travel agent/guide is a man we go to church with here. Also in Chennai are the McKinleys, some great friends of my parents, and mine as well.

You'll have to ignore N's frightful eyes, we are in the mad dash that is the last few weeks before we leave India. I don't have time to worry about devil eyes.
They are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I credit them with my travel bug, since my first international experience was under their wing.

It was an interesting mix: influential family friends, Indian acquaintance, post marriage friends from Dallas, all shaken together in Chennai, with a heavy dose of monsoon thrown in. In the end it was a great weekend. It felt really good to see familiar faces.

The boys, including Phil, just wore their swimsuits for Saturday's sightseeing.

Happy Birthween

We had a Halloween Birthday party in S's honor last night in the park across the street. I realized I'm too much of a control freak to handle India or kindergartners with grace, and the combination is deadly. Very little turned out how I'd envisioned. It could have had something to do with the Halloween theme in a country that doesn't do carved pumpkins and plastic teeth. But hey, the six year old had fun.

We made paper plate masks, thanks to orangeyouglad.com. My joy at finding these masks made me wish I had something I could hire them to design.

And each kid got a pumpkin to decorate:

In lieu of bobbing for apples, we tied apples with strings to the monkey bars. "No hands" was taken very literally.

I think N is eating a lollipop in every photo we took. No idea how many of those he ate.

The weather was perfect. The kids costumes were a lot of fun. Happy Birthday S!

Defending the Galaxy

Happy Halloween!

The Evil Eye

We went to the Indian Air Force Museum on Friday. Where we learned all sorts of new things.

One highlight was the "war trophies" from the 1971 war with Pakistan...

and the attempted evil eye. I guess they were unsuccessful?

Proud Owner

This took some getting. Fairly proud of it. Now that I have it. I had to have an interview; an interview at the Pakistani embassy. I had to go four days in a row. To get form. To turn form in. To have interview. To pick up visa. Plus there was the trip to the typist (the form had to be the original that they gave you, not available online, and typed) and the bank (to pay the visa fee) and the photographer (for those little pictures). How's that for adventure? Happy Birthday/Anniversary/Father's Day Phil.

Yeah, I'm not all that sad that a couple of the countries Phil really wanted to visit "on the way home," won't issue visas to Americans outside of the US. I don't know how many times I could do that.

And while I'm thinking about it, what do they do with all that paperwork anyway? And what about all those little immigration slips you fill out every time you enter and exit a country. Does anyone ever look at them? Do they get filed away forever? Do they have a huge bonfire every few months at immigration points worldwide?

I also like how my flash obscures any pertinent info, how's that for security measures.