What Could Be More Fun Than... COUSINS?!

Here are some pics of our recent visit to the US.  One of the highlights was getting to be with Abby & Micah and Gregory & William.  What fun!

It's been a long, long time...

Hi Everyone!

We're back in India after several weeks of traveling all over the US.  We had a great time with family and friends, but we were so happy to finally get back home!  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting pics of our travels, but not today.  All of the boarding students return to school today, and classes start tomorrow.  I've been back in Ooty for over a week, and have been working in the clinic like crazy.  India is in quite a state right now because of influenza, and even though it hasn't reached international news (because it's not new to the rest of the world) it is creating a lot of panic around here.  Needless to say, it makes my job a lot more difficult.

Well, enough about that.  You'll be glad to know that I got all of the rat poo and pee cleaned out of my kitchen cupboards.  And we were able to find places to put all of the stuff that we brought back from the US.  The girls were really happy to be back in India, which we didn't really expect but it has been really great.  

What was I thinking?

I consider myself to be a pretty discerning person - a fairly self-controlled and rational thirty-one year old woman. However, there is a man here in Ooty that has more influence over me than any person should have over another. He gets me to do things that I know are completely nonsensical, and even if I tell myself, "I'll never do that again" I find myself drawn to do it.

The man happens to be the ingenious owner of "Modern Stores" in Ooty. Take last week for instance... Just because I had not had tortilla chips in soooo long and he happened to put them on the shelf on the exact day that I was craving salsa, I purchased this one bag of Hint of Lime Tostitos for $6... TWICE! And then this week I had a chocolate craving on the exact day that he got in a new shipment of peanut M&M's (I hadn't seen them in India before) so I bought a single serving bag for $2... TWICE!!



I seriously need to reclaim control of my life.

For the record, though ... I spent over $3 a few months ago on a small package of Ritz crackers only to discover that the Monaco biscuits that cost around 75 cents taste almost as good (actually, they taste really good when you eat them with peanut M&M's).

Don't you just hate it when this happens...

Have you ever been trying to find a parking space across from your favorite restaurant, only to discover that only one available has a cow parked in it? NO, BECAUSE THIS ONLY HAPPENS HERE!!! Actually, that's not true - I'm sure it happens other places in the world, just not back in the US.




Well, on Saturday we went to the Hyderbad Biryani House and happened to get a parking spot right next to the cow (as you can see above). Don't be deceived - this picture was not taken out in the country, but rather about 50 feet off of the busiest road in town. Anyway, when we came out from eating we noticed that a car had parked right by the cow. Actually, it's not really a car but a "car-van-can" that we immediately recognized as belonging to our friends, the Palms (they had just gone into a coffee shop next door). As we were getting into our car we noticed that the cow was not sitting down anymore, but had stood up and was resting it's "behind" on the passenger door of the "car-van-can". By this time it had started raining (not a slight drizzle, but a good monsoon shower), so we did what any good friends would do and took a picture of the cow so we could show it to the Palms later in the evening when they came over for dinner!

What a luxurious life...

I am not making this up...

On Friday night when I was walking home from the school clinic I heard a mouse running through the flower bed by our front door. When I got to the door I shook one of the plants to scare the mouse away since I knew from experience that it would try to run inside once the door opened (this has happened once or twice before, and we managed to catch it and put it back outside). So, since I wasn't sure if I had scared it off or not I opened the door really fast, got inside the house, and shut the door - almost all the way. I would have shut it all the way, except that THE MOUSE WAS IN THE DOOR! I SHUT A MOUSE IN THE DOOR! Well, actually I think it was a shrew, but that isn't the point!

Anyway, I was pretty traumatized by the whole thing, and yelled to Ryan to come and see what I had done. That was a bad idea because what I didn't know was that earlier in the evening Ryan and Addie had been watching it outside running through the flowers. Evidently they had made friends with it, and the fact that I killed it made him a little bit upset. So, needless to say I had to clean up the mess by myself (and it was messy).

Why Addie doesn't have a bed...

I think I've mentioned this before, but Addie sleeps on the floor. I know several of you will have problems with this (Virginia), but it really is the best thing for her. When we moved to India we tried to get Addie to sleep in the little room next to ours without any luck. Since it was monsoon season the room was cold and slightly damp, and she wasn't interested in it after spending the first two years of her life in a porta-crib next to our bed.

So, we put her little bed at the end of ours, and it worked out fine until we went in one night and couldn't find her anywhere. She was under the bed - fast asleep. Now this wouldn't bother us if we lived in a warm, carpeted house... but we don't! Our house has cement brick floors that are cold and hard and cannot be fixed by a throw rug. After a few nights of moving Addie up to her bed after she'd fallen asleep we decided on a great plan - we put her mattress under her bed. This worked for a few nights except when she would sit up suddenly, hit her head on the wooden frame, and start crying in the middle of the night.

So, we took out the bed frame and just left the mattress on the floor which is still there to this day. However, there are still many times when we still can't find her when we go to bed at night. One night I noticed that she had cleared off the bottom shelf in my closet and had fallen asleep in there (too bad our camera was broken). And several nights we've found her under our bed.

See if you can spot Addie in this first picture... then look at the other two to see if you were right!






ps. yes, there is another small mattress under our bed. We thought it would be good for Addie if she happened to roll off of her bed, but most times she just rolls onto the floor.