Pieces of my heart

Anyone that knows me, knows the loves of my life are my nieces Charlie and Natalie.  When I go home, I stay with my very generous sister, Brianna, and her husband, Ben.  They let me stay in their house, eat their food, and basically disrupt their lives for a few weeks.  I get to spend a lot of time with the girls playing, going to the children's museum, going to the park, riding bikes, swimming lessons, etc.  Except for the few weeks I get to spend with them every year, our relationship is Skype based.

Charlotte was born about 10 days after I moved to India so she was 10 months old when I first held her.  She is going to be FIVE this week and is starting KINDERGARTEN this fall!!  She is very articulate and we play rhyming games all the time and crack ourselves up.  She likes to do arts and crafts type of stuff and draw.  Normally, we ride bikes and go to the park a lot, but it was so hot this summer, we only went once.  We did walk a little over 2 miles one morning to have a picnic near a bridge the kids wanted to go.  We had strawberries, blueberries, and patriotic donuts.

the girls and my sister Brianna

breakfast picnic

Charlotte with the India shirt I got her

Charlotte being a butterfly

selfie with Charlotte, Dolly, and I 

Natalie turned 3 in June and we went to the zoo.  I took charlotte to the zoo on the day Natalie decided to be born a month early!  so it is nostalgic.  She asked for a strawberry cake with green icing - it looked like a watermelon!!

Nat LOVES turtles/tortoises

notice Nat's "It's my birthday shirt"

Charlotte with a blue tongued skink

They take a picture on this tiger every time they go to the zoo

birthday girl with her new bike!

A few weeks later, I took Natalie on her first train ride to Springfield.  We went to the children's museum and Cold Stone.  I took Charlotte on this same trip last year - trying to get them to love trains like I do!  It was fun to spend the day with Nat.  She was a "baby" the last time I was home  - she had just turned two. Now she sleeps in a big girl bed, is potty trained, can hold conversations etc.  We have a game we play where I hold my hands a few inches apart and ask "Is this how much I love you?" she says no and I move my hands farther and ask again and she will stretch her arms wide and say "You love me THIS much." She is starting pre-school this fall - such a big girl!

Waiting for the train in her conductor hat. 

train selfie

excited to be on the train!

digging for dinosaur bones

Ice Cream!

worn out and sleeping on the train!!

The great part about being home is just random moments with the girls.

Puppet show at the museum

Nat being a cheerleader!

Trying to make her eyes match the emoji pillow and she can't wink!

There share a bed while I'm there and I sleep in Charlotte's bed. They are snuggled up in the sheets I brought them from India. Charlotte's favorite color is pink and she has elephants on her sheet.  Nat's favorite color is purple so she got purple and teal Peacock sheets.

Thankfully I am going home this Christmas so I don't have to wait a whole year to see them again!

Amsterdam

I decided to go to Amsterdam on my way back to India to help with time adjustment.  I have heard really great things about Amsterdam. I had be warned to stay out of the way of bicycles - they are everywhere!!  and amazingly I haven't seen overweight Dutch people.  Maybe if the US made cities more bicycle friendly, we would be better able to battle obesity.  I also knew that marijuana was legal but was not expecting to constantly walk through clouds of smoke - I think I smell like pot!
I had three and a half days to just hang out in Amsterdam and I enjoyed walking around the city and just looking at the canals and old building.  I did the Hop on Hop off tour one day and got to hear some history and see the city.  I went to the Dutch Resistance museum and learned a lot.  I also went to see the annex where Anne Frank and others hid for over 2 years.  From 9:30 - 3:30 you can go if you purchased tickets online for a certain time.  After 3:30, you can get in line to see it.  I got in line about 6:30 and waited for 1 hour and 27 minutes.  It was really crowded in the museum and hard to see things.  People were reading everything but most of what they had on the walls were quotes from her diary which I just read a few weeks ago so I didn't need a refresher.  They had documents and actual pages of her diary and the Dutch people were reading every word, but since I can't read Dutch, I didn't really need to see them. Her father was the only one of the 8 that survived and he had the annex preserved as a museum and had her diary published.

my hotel

I went on the Charm of Holland tour to several Holland villages.  We went to Edam which is famous for it's cheese market.  We walked through Marken and saw how wooden shoes are made.  We took a boat to Volendam and had a Dutch lunch.  The villages were so quiet and cute - the windows all had displays of pottery and other things on the sills.   At the end of the day, we went to Zaanse Schans to see working windmills.  The miller showed us how the windmills are used to make oils like linseed oil and peanut oil.

I was supposed to go to Bruges on my last day, but I was exhausted and decided to stay and spend the afternoon with Addie - one of my beloved Math cohort peeps.  She has lived in Rotterdam and has worked at the American School of The Hague for 14 years so she showed me around and gave me some insight into Amsterdam.  We walked around a park, the museum district, flower market, and the red light district - crazy.

Amsterdam Centraal 

Houston

I taught in Houston for 11 years before I moved to India so I go back every year to visit friends.

I met Jamili in 1996 when we worked at Camp Tapawingo in Illinois together.  She moved to New Mexico, then Colorado, then Houston where I was and 20 years later we are still friends.  She's moving to Tucson so it is not guaranteed that I will get to see her every year like I have been.

me and Amira

I have been friends with Karin and Brendon for years and I always go to see them and their 5 kids
( number six on the way!) Karin's parents, Paul and Sally, let me stay with them which is super nice.  I usually get up, go for a walk, eat breakfast and go over to hang out with Karin and the kids.  I don't know how she takes care of 5 kids - including homeschooling - every day.  She's my hero!
We go to the library, read, and play together.

Konnor and Hannah Joy

me and Missa

Konnor with Paul

Brendon and Karin

Konnor and Hope dressed like a cow for Cow appreciation day at Chick fil a

Hannah Joy dressed like a cow for Cow appreciation day at Chick fil a

Hannah Joy,Hope, Konnor, Melody, Olivia, Addison, Melissa, Wyatt dressed like a cow for Cow appreciation day at Chick fil a

Konnor reading in the bathtub at the library

Hope

Melissa reading in the bathtub at the library

playing with trains!

Aunt Bob painting nails

reading with Aunt Bob

They always make a big deal about my birthday - it is always a "surprise"  They make posters for me and a cake and we always have a big family dinner together.