Northern Virginia

Our friends, vita familiae, picked us up at the airport and brought us back to their home. Since it was about 10:30 pm when we got there we went straight to bed. Thankfully we were able to sleep for about 9 hours.

We spent the morning hanging out with our hosts and their three delightful children. They took us to a tremendously large and fabulous thrift store called Unique, where I was finally able to find a pair of overalls that fit me. We then went to Five Guys for burgers and fries. The burgers there are a wonder to consume. After some more hanging out and a delicious pasta dinner we went to a surprise birthday party for our friend Mike, where we were able to see him and a whole bunch of other friends from the area. It was very nice.

That night we only slept about three hours before flying out for Grand Rapids at 6:30 am. We went to bed at 11 pm but our bodies woke up some time after 2 am and would not go back to sleep.

The flight to Grand Rapids was fairly uneventful, but involved a long layover in Detroit Metro airport.

This is our friends' youngest:

Dad and the twins:

Sarah and Jatana:

The Flight Back to the U S of A

The flight was LONG. Not any longer than before, but it was LONG before, too. We left Adelaide at about 7 am on Friday morning and got to Washington, DC at about 10 pm. With the 15.5 hour time difference that's 30.5 hours of travelling. I think we each got less than three hours of sleep. Some of the flights were delayed but thanks to a long layover in just the right spot we made it into Reagan National only about an hour later than scheduled.

Here is the sunrise somewhere over the Pacific:

The wing and engines of the Qantas Boeing 747 somehwere over the Pacific:

Sunrise over the California coast as we approached the motherland:

Ontario, California, where we landed to get some fuel and wait for the fog to clear over Los Angeles.

Sunday Was Much Cooler

I hung out with Tim and Nandor on Sunday morning while Sarah was laboring away at rehearsal for the carols service. We rode our bikes from Tim's house over to the beach at Glenelg, ate at a cafe and then threw the frisbee around on the beach and in the ocean for a while. I found out this morning that a large shark was spotted in the water at the same beach later that day.


Carols was great. Sarah played beautifully! All her hard practice and worrying about reeds paid off in the end. They'll have a DVD of the service ready sometime in June. We'll get one so you can all watch Sarah do her thang. Here's some pictures of me with the stars of the concert. Sorry, I got a little celebrity happy.

The Hottest Day of My Life

Friday was the first hottest day of my life. And then came Saturday: 109 degrees Fahrenheit. So hot. However, humidity was about 6%, so I've probably endured worse in humid Michigan even though the temperature was only 90 degrees or so. Sarah and I spent some time in the new pool, which you can see here reflected on the side of our Weber kettle.

The lovely lady herself, loungin oppulently in the luxury of our inflatable pool.

If we look a little strange here, it's because we're so hot, and there was a bee bothering us.


P.S. (posted by Sarah) The water coming out of the cold water facet was so hot at first you could burn your hand!

Pink and Pregnant

The tummy continues to grow.

And Sarah continues to dislike pictures being taken of her at inopportune times. As would anyone.

Gingerbread House Extravaganza!!!

Last Thursday Sarah and I took part in a Gingerbread House event at church. We had asked beforehand and were told that it was not women only. When everyone had taken their seat I was one of two men there. I was in the midst of over 200 gingerbread house constructing lolly eating women. It was pretty dang frightening at first, but once I realized how much better I was at making gingerbread houses than most of them I did all right. Sarah's house was real sweet - she loaded it up with a lot of good things to eat.

The raw construction materials.

Sarah carefully putting the roof on her house.

My nearly completed masterpiece.

Again, from the back.

Sarah's work of pure inspired genius.

The lovely lady thinking about what will happen to the house later.