A thought on the Friday we call "black"

"What do I get for this? I said & the angel gave me a catalog filled with toasters & clock radios & a basketball signed by Michael Jordan & I said, But this is just stuff & the angel smiled at me & swallowed me in her arms. I'm so glad you said that, she whispered to me. I knew you still had a chance." –Brian Andreas

-Rob

Free bird(s)

I heard Micah shout this morning, “Dad, check out the Turkey!” Half awake, I responded “Yea buddy he’s a real beauty”; thinking he was sneaking a peek at our extra large family economy size bird sitting in the fridge. Then he caught my attention when he shouted, “No wait…there’s actually two of them…no three…Oh my gosh Dad, there’s a whole herd of them!!!!” I looked up to see Micah looking out our window jumping up and down. Sure enough there were turkeys strutting down the sidewalk. We don’t live in the country. (Though Christel would REALLY like to). We live in a semi-urban area right across the street from an apartment complex. What makes it even crazier is that it’s Thanksgiving!! Either these turkeys have some serious “giblets”, having the nerve to prance around in public on a day they could end up on a dinner table, or they were on the way to a party to celebrate surviving another year

A few of the brave turkeys Micah spotted

Honour's first Thanksgiving

Ty and Honour

-Rob

Sail on

"There was a single blue line of crayon drawn across every wall in the house. What does it mean? I said. A pirate needs the sight of the sea, he said & then he pulled his eye patch down & turned and sailed away." -Brian Andreas

I love this quote from Brian Andreas because it reminds me of my son Micah. Every now and then we find random works of crayon art on a wall, piece of furniture, garage floor, etc. When asked about whom the artist might be, our kids give credit to the infamous artist called “I don’t know”. But we are fairly confident that these masterpieces belong to our little pirate.

Micah celebrated his 9th birthday this week. What a blast! Unlike his older brother who chose Taco Bell as his choice for the traditional birthday dinner out, Micah decided he wanted lobster! Luckily he only has a birthday once a year.

The whole day had a Star Wars theme…from the party plates to the balloons. Most of the gifts had something to do with Star Wars. The light sabers were swinging all day and haven’t stopped!


Micah says that he is in training to become a Jedi Master. Yoda…look out! Currently he has attained the level of Jedi Knight. According to Micah, (and I did a fact check online at Wikipedia just to make sure he was accurate…and he was), there are at least 4 levels that Jedi’s must progress through. They are:

1. Jedi Youngling: "An unofficial title, this refers to a child with Force potential." Honour was at the Jedi youngling level for only about ten minutes before graduating to Padawan.

2. Jedi Padawan: "An apprentice that undergoes intensive one-on-one training under a Jedi Knight or Jedi Master." Micah thinks he’s training Honour but I think she actually has him wrapped around her finger.

3. Jedi Knight: "Disciplined, experienced Jedi may become full-fledged Jedi Knights once they have completed intensified tests, physical and otherwise. Occasionally, performing an extraordinary (usually heroic) act can earn a Padawan learner Jedi Knight status." Micah performs these acts often. He’s able to comfort a grieving sister in a matter of moments, rescues bugs and worms on a regular basis and he must have raked at least a dozen bags of leaves today.

4. Jedi Master: "A Jedi Knight may become a Master after successfully training a Padawan learner to Knight status." He is currently training Honour at an accelerated pace.

The birthday boy!


Micah training his faithful student.

Honour getting ready to display her newly learned Jedi skills.

Micah's cutest Jedi student.

Micah's most succesful Jedi student.

Okay...so he's gotten a little carried away with the training.

.

Micah- What an exquisite, fascinating, imaginative little human being you are. You approach the world with inspiring, wide eyed wonder and non-stop energy. The world is a brighter and more beautiful place because you are in it. So sail on, my gentle pirate and brave Jedi. And as you embark on your wondrous adventures, make sure you save a space for me. And when the waves get a little too high and the storms a little too strong; and it seems that maybe the “force” is no longer with you…It’ll be okay. Cause I’ll be there.

-Dad (Rob)

Extraction

Extraction: “the act of getting, pulling, or drawing out, usually with special effort, skill, or force.”

Honour attended her first birthday party this weekend. She LOVED it! She came home on a sugar high and very proud of her little goodie bag. She was speaking a mile a minute in Vietnamese, hardly able to contain herself. My guess was that she was either enthusiastically talking about all of her new friends that she just made, or she was attempting to describe her valiant efforts to break open the piñata. In fact I think the piñata really fascinated her because now when she gets something in her hand that is stick-like; from rulers to chopsticks, she swings it like she wants to break stuff open. It’s hard to explain to her that large dogs, terrified cats and human legs don’t break open supplying an explosion of candy. It doesn’t help either that Micah, who is a bona-fide Star Wars maniac and currently in training to be a Jedi knight, is teaching her how to use the same stick-like objects as makeshift light sabers. Once she learns the ways of the force we are in serious trouble.

Contained within her goodie bag of yummy treasures was a small container of blue Play-Doh. Judging by her reaction, we’re pretty sure she had never seen Play-Doh before. It wasn’t long before Christel heard her yelling from the dining room; Mẹ! nuuuuuu! Mẹ! Nuuuuuu! Which loosely translated means Mom! Nose! Mom Nose! (We’ve been teaching her the English words for the parts of her face, and she calls her nose nuuu). Christel ran in to find her with the blue Play-Doh up her left nostril. Now, it’s a good thing that Christel has years of experience extracting objects from the orifices in children’s faces. I think I would have tried to push down on her head like one of those awesome toy play dough making machines which form all those cool shapes when you push down on the lever… just to see what kind of cool shape her nostril would have produced. Fortunately, with great patience and skill, Christel was able to extract most of the Play- Doh. And with a forced sneeze, Honour shot the rest of it out like a blue bullet.

On Monday mornings across America co-workers are talking about what they did over the weekend. On any given Monday you will hear things like; “we went out to dinner”, or “we saw such and such a movie”, etc. Us? We were performing surgery and dodging light sabers and blue bullets! This is the stuff of daily life in our Tribe. This is the stuff we live for.

The realization that Play-Doh probably doesn't belong in the nose. "Mẹ!! Nuuuuuu!!

Almost all gone.


Extraction complete!

Honour's turn to take a picture of surgeon Mom.

-Rob

Liquid rainbows and ruby slippers

We are home.

After leaving Hanoi this week we had a 15 hour layover in Seoul, Korea. During this time we rented a room at the transit hotel in the airport where Christel became violently ill. And I mean violently. The word projectile comes to mind. Now I have always known that my wife is beautiful, but I had no idea until this last week that even her puke is pretty. Actually beyond pretty. It was spectacular. She produced some of the most breathtaking, multi-colored vomit I’ve ever seen. Like a liquid rainbow. By the time we boarded the plane for the 13 hour flight home, she could barely stand or walk. It was heartbreaking.
A little tip: If you’re ever traveling through Seoul and staying at the airport transit hotel, stay away from room 124. Those pretty multi-colored walls were not multi-colored before we stayed there.

Honour was fantastic during the entire flight and Michaela caught up on all the latest movies. As we were making our final approach into JFK, the pilot announced that we were not able to land because of extremely strong winds at the airport. So we circled New York for over an hour. We were finally given the okay to land and the turbulence turned much of the plane into a puke-fest. Nothing like the aroma of Kimchi mixed with stomach acid to bring your last few meals blasting to the surface again. The flight attendants were trying to keep up with the sick bags. Christel waited until we landed and then joined gloriously in the fun. When we finally made it through immigration and out into the cold crisp air, Christel and I both commented that New York City never smelled so good.

We made it to our house around midnight and Tyler instantly fell in love with his new little sister and now Honour already has him wrapped around her finger. I got up a few hours later and began the 22 hour round-trip drive to pick our two youngest kids up in Nova Scotia. (Thanks Steve for making the trip with me to keep us all awake and alive.) They were so thrilled to finally be together with Honour and she’s loving her new playmates.

Looking back over the last week of traveling home, I can’t help but think of what I would have given for a pair of those ruby slippers that Dorothy had. With a few chants of “there is no place like home”, we might have been home a little sooner. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that we are home.

As we were falling asleep that first night in our own bed, I whispered into Honour’s ear, words that I hope will imbed in her heart forever; “You’re home now beautiful, you’re finally home for good.” Honour’s 3 ½ year journey toward home has come to an end. And for the first time for a very long time our sleep comes a little easier and our dreams are no longer restless. And it ain’t because of jetlag.

First day home

Sisters! Honour is concentrating very hard on giving the thumbs up.

Honour, Jazz and Micah as Captain Rex from Star Wars

-Rob