I can't believe he dumped me!

It is the season of “lasts”: last trip to Fresno, last Sunday at Pasadena Mennonite Church, last trip to the Pacific Ocean. Each “last” is sad but we seem to manage to enjoy ourselves anyway. We were home from Pennsylvania for less than 48 hours before heading up to Fresno for a few days. Most of our belongings have been in a storage unit in Fresno for the past several years. When we moved it up there four years ago, we thought it would only be for a year while we moved in with my parents and just until we figured out where Peter would go to graduate school. Graduate school ended up being in Prague so that was another two years. We just left it there this past year when we moved back in with my parents in Pasadena. You may be wondering why we stored our things three hours away. Location, location, location. It was twice as much to store it here in LA and since my brother and his family live in Fresno, we could access the storage unit when we were visiting them. On this trip to Fresno, we loaded everything onto a truck and had it moved up to Washington where it will be stored with Peter’s parents for the next three years. Who knows what will happen in three years, but by then we won’t have seen our earthly possessions for seven years. It will be like Christmas when we finally open all those boxes again! I haven’t actually missed much of the stuff in storage since I am a functional kind of person and I don’t really care what dishes I eat off or what linens I use as long as there is something that works. I did pull out my bamboo Menno Simons wall hanging that I have been missing and will take that with us to Zambia. I also have my Ten Thousand Villages nativity crèche and advent calendar that is special to our family that I take with us wherever we go. Everything else went onto the truck and we will meet it in Spokane to unload it. The loading went much faster than we expected so we had more time with Kevin, Rhonda, and the kids. In talking with other people going out with MCC, we kept hearing over and over that the toughest part of this MCC assignment is being away from family for three years. We echo that sentiment and will really miss having regular contact with family. We are doing our best to store up that connection with all the visits to family this summer but know that it will still be hard.

Sunday was our final day at Pasadena Mennonite Church. This church community has nurtured us and challenged us for more than a decade. We know that our next church community will teach us and shape us and be a gift to us in unexpected ways, yet it will be hard to let go of PMC. In the afternoon we had a farewell swim party and enjoyed being surrounded by friends and getting to hang out all together one last time. We have had many swim parties over the years, thanks to Mom and Dad’s hospitality, and so it was fitting that our final time be full of splashes and laughter and plenty of snacks. We have made good friends here in Pasadena.

Our final trek to the beach was on Tuesday. We joined Ty and Annika, good friends that we have known for 18 years. It was a beautiful day, slightly overcast in the morning but not cold. Ty and Annika have inflatable kayaks that we took turns taking out in the ocean. The waves were quite big so it was a bit of a challenge to get past them to the gentle swells beyond. Brendan and Ty went out together and had a marvelous time. The tough part was riding the waves back in, and at the very end, they got dumped. This was pretty scary for Brendan and he swore he would never get in a kayak again. The next day when we processed it further, I divided the kayaking time into three sections: going out, paddling around, and coming back. Brendan said going out and paddling around were both awesome but coming in was horrible. He realized that the entire excursion wasn’t all bad and that helped a bit. When I showed him the picture I took of the kayak flipping over, he said it wasn’t as awful as he remembered. Soon he was asking when he could go kayaking again. After lunch, I asked Peter if he would go out with me, not on a date but in the kayak. We had our challenges getting out and I ended up pretty wet when the waves were crashing on me but we made it. When it was time for us to go back, we paddled like crazy to get to shore on the waves but the kayak folded, dumping me out into the cold water, but Peter stayed in and gracefully made it to shore. I couldn't believe he dumped me! That's what I get for asking him out. I was really hoping that the lifeguard would see me and come to rescue me because that would have been so dreamy, but it didn’t happen. Peter thinks it has something to do with the fact that I had a life jacket on and I was standing in three feet of water. One of the gifts of the day was seeing three dolphins at two different times in the day. I had never seen dolphins playing in the ocean like that and it was amazing. Brendan and Jason, along with Ty and Annika, built an elaborate sand structure complete with several tunnels. It was a good day.

Ty and Brendan coming into shore

Oops.

Annika knew she had it coming . . .

And now we are up in Spokane visiting Peter’s family. Our flight was delayed yesterday, causing us to miss our connection but they got us on the next flight. We had to run to catch that flight but then found it was also delayed for 15 minutes which gave us a few spare minutes to catch our breaths and watch the other passengers arrive at the counter out of breath, just like we had. Quite entertaining. Passengers commented on how our boys were great travelers and we agreed. Yesterday morning, Brendan and I counted up how many planes he had been on in his 6 3/4 years of life. By the time we reach Zambia, he will have been on 80 planes. Pretty incredible. He thinks he has earned the right to go first-class. He told Peter that we should fly first-class to Zambia and if we asked MCC, they would probably pay for it. Peter tried to explain the price difference but Brendan didn’t believe it. So Peter took him to the internet and punched in flight prices for first class and economy to Zambia. They made a deal that if the difference was only a few hundred dollars, then we would ask MCC if we could upgrade. Peter is brilliant. The difference for our family was about $18,000. Brendan realized that was a bit more than a couple hundred dollars and has reconciled himself to flying economy.

Some of you have taken to using Jason’s phrases in your household, like saying “bezzert” for dessert and “ba-dult” for adult. So here is another daily phrase to add to your vocabulary: “Knock it off and find your manners!” We hear that about seventeen times a day, most often in a baby voice. It’s not the most endearing phase that he is in right now.

Jason in one of his silly moods

Brendan often has original sayings coming out of his mouth. When we arrived at Grandma Gail and Grandpa Roger’s house, they were so excited that they had a hard time winding down at bedtime. Brendan stated, “Falling asleep is impossible, like climbing Mount Everest naked.” Where does he come up with this stuff?