I'm not feeling so much like blogging today, I'm not sure if everything has become so normal to us that there are no new stories to report, or if there are really just nothing new to report on...regardless, here I am ready to share with you the last two unadventurous days in India. Ok, they haven't been that unadventurous...we are in India for goodness sake.
Saturday night Ryan and I went on a date. Yes, I know I said I wouldn't leave my children in a foreign country without either Ryan or I by their side, but we did it. And everything went just fine. We went to a buffet at a hotel that overlooks the beach and they had a Chinese buffet. We were a little nervous about Indians cooking Chinese food, but overall, it was pretty good. While we were there we even met a couple of women from the states. We were surprised how excited we were to talk English to English speaking people. We didn't start chatting with them until after we had finished dinner, but chatted with them for about 1/2 hour. It was quite refreshing.
Yesterday, Sunday, once again, we headed to church. Ryan was asked to ordain a gentleman to the Aaronic Priesthood and also stand in as a witness to another baptism. We found out that the Vizag 2nd Branch had a goal to baptize 35 people in the year 2012...they hit that goal yesterday with their 35th baptism of the year. It is amazing how the people in India have such a love of the gospel. It makes me feel like a slacker.
We were supposed to go to a couples house (Nazarina and Sunil) for dinner last night, but they called yesterday morning to let us know they needed to cancel. They were so apologetic, explaining at church to us they didn't have time to go to the store to pick up groceries. Instead of cancelling it, we decided to invite them over to our place, we might as well carry the tradition on of having people over for Sunday dinner, even if we are on the other side of the world. The only problem with having others over is we figure out all the things we don't have. For instance, counter space for both Ryan and I to be in the kitchen at the same time, serving pieces, etc, etc. I understand this apartment has not been stocked to entertain people, but it is in our nature so we improvise accordingly, and everyone seems to be happy...until you serve them something they don't eat. So, we decided to do shrimp tacos, which wasn't the problem. The problem was the pineapple-mango salsa (that was so incredible) that went on the shrimp tacos. Nazarina isn't supposed to eat pineapple (oops) that Ryan cooked the shrimp in, and then topped the tacos with. So, we served the shrimp to her on a tortilla (or whatever it actually is) and gave it to her that way. Not so sure she liked it...Definitely sure she didn't like the brownies I made as she said they were "too sweet" and nicely wrapped it in a napkin.
So, locally, the "thing" around here is wearing a string of fresh flowers in your hair, when Nazarina came over last night, she brought me a sweet flower string for my hair. I guess I am officially a local now, haha.
Today I did some grocery shopping and then the missionaries invited Brayden to play bakestball with them this afternoon because it was their prep-day. But, instead of sending Brayden alone, all of us went and hung out with the Elders for awhile. I'm not sure they were excited to have all the kids there, but they soon forgave me when I brought out the pan of brownies and let the boys and the Elders share them. My "eyeball brownies" are the cure-all out here!
After basketball we all headed to the mall, we treated the Elders to lunch, which doesn't happen all too often in these parts. As we're standing in line at Subway, a women walks by and grabs Dallans cheek...like everyone else does, and it doesn't even phase him. He doesn't blink, turn to look at who touched him, nothing. He just continues talking to me about what he wants. The Elder looks at me in shock because neither one of us does anything. I just look at him and say, "all the time, Elder, all the time...". Dallan is so used to the touching now, I don't think he'll have any personal space issues when we get back to the states. He'll probably wonder where all the attention went!
Here's a great "boy" story for you...while eating lunch, some of Dallans chicken falls out of his subway sandwich. He put his elbow on the table where one of the pieces of chicken sticks and says to the missionary sitting across from him, "Hey, Elder", (pointing at his elbow), "Look what's on my wenis!" Haha...Dallan thought he was soooo hilarious! Boy, oh, boys!
Tomorrow we are off the the school again, I need to come up with different nursery rhymes each time I go. Last week, I taught them "Jingle Bells". I told the teacher, "that's a Christmas song". Her reply to me was "I know, but you won't be here at Christmas and I want to know that song". Ok, any other ideas for nursery rhymes out there?
I'll post pictures when I can, when the internet connection isn't being so crazy!
We love and miss our friends and family so much! We are already half-way through our trip!
Saturday night Ryan and I went on a date. Yes, I know I said I wouldn't leave my children in a foreign country without either Ryan or I by their side, but we did it. And everything went just fine. We went to a buffet at a hotel that overlooks the beach and they had a Chinese buffet. We were a little nervous about Indians cooking Chinese food, but overall, it was pretty good. While we were there we even met a couple of women from the states. We were surprised how excited we were to talk English to English speaking people. We didn't start chatting with them until after we had finished dinner, but chatted with them for about 1/2 hour. It was quite refreshing.
Yesterday, Sunday, once again, we headed to church. Ryan was asked to ordain a gentleman to the Aaronic Priesthood and also stand in as a witness to another baptism. We found out that the Vizag 2nd Branch had a goal to baptize 35 people in the year 2012...they hit that goal yesterday with their 35th baptism of the year. It is amazing how the people in India have such a love of the gospel. It makes me feel like a slacker.
We were supposed to go to a couples house (Nazarina and Sunil) for dinner last night, but they called yesterday morning to let us know they needed to cancel. They were so apologetic, explaining at church to us they didn't have time to go to the store to pick up groceries. Instead of cancelling it, we decided to invite them over to our place, we might as well carry the tradition on of having people over for Sunday dinner, even if we are on the other side of the world. The only problem with having others over is we figure out all the things we don't have. For instance, counter space for both Ryan and I to be in the kitchen at the same time, serving pieces, etc, etc. I understand this apartment has not been stocked to entertain people, but it is in our nature so we improvise accordingly, and everyone seems to be happy...until you serve them something they don't eat. So, we decided to do shrimp tacos, which wasn't the problem. The problem was the pineapple-mango salsa (that was so incredible) that went on the shrimp tacos. Nazarina isn't supposed to eat pineapple (oops) that Ryan cooked the shrimp in, and then topped the tacos with. So, we served the shrimp to her on a tortilla (or whatever it actually is) and gave it to her that way. Not so sure she liked it...Definitely sure she didn't like the brownies I made as she said they were "too sweet" and nicely wrapped it in a napkin.
So, locally, the "thing" around here is wearing a string of fresh flowers in your hair, when Nazarina came over last night, she brought me a sweet flower string for my hair. I guess I am officially a local now, haha.
Today I did some grocery shopping and then the missionaries invited Brayden to play bakestball with them this afternoon because it was their prep-day. But, instead of sending Brayden alone, all of us went and hung out with the Elders for awhile. I'm not sure they were excited to have all the kids there, but they soon forgave me when I brought out the pan of brownies and let the boys and the Elders share them. My "eyeball brownies" are the cure-all out here!
After basketball we all headed to the mall, we treated the Elders to lunch, which doesn't happen all too often in these parts. As we're standing in line at Subway, a women walks by and grabs Dallans cheek...like everyone else does, and it doesn't even phase him. He doesn't blink, turn to look at who touched him, nothing. He just continues talking to me about what he wants. The Elder looks at me in shock because neither one of us does anything. I just look at him and say, "all the time, Elder, all the time...". Dallan is so used to the touching now, I don't think he'll have any personal space issues when we get back to the states. He'll probably wonder where all the attention went!
Here's a great "boy" story for you...while eating lunch, some of Dallans chicken falls out of his subway sandwich. He put his elbow on the table where one of the pieces of chicken sticks and says to the missionary sitting across from him, "Hey, Elder", (pointing at his elbow), "Look what's on my wenis!" Haha...Dallan thought he was soooo hilarious! Boy, oh, boys!
Tomorrow we are off the the school again, I need to come up with different nursery rhymes each time I go. Last week, I taught them "Jingle Bells". I told the teacher, "that's a Christmas song". Her reply to me was "I know, but you won't be here at Christmas and I want to know that song". Ok, any other ideas for nursery rhymes out there?
I'll post pictures when I can, when the internet connection isn't being so crazy!
We love and miss our friends and family so much! We are already half-way through our trip!
We were listening to some children's music today and thought of you so here are a few ideas (even though I'm sure you've already used some of them at the school):
ReplyDeleteHead, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
The Wheels on the Bus
Old McDonald
Bingo
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Where is Thumbkin?
This Little Piggy...(maybe you could do it with your fingers instead of toes?)
Hope this gives you at least one or two new songs!