Daron, Melanie, Stephen, Kassie, and Kenny

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Welcome Cousin Sterling!

After months of waiting for our next visitor, we picked Sterling up from the airport early this morning... not even the rainstorm could dampen our excitement!  Cute Sterl emerged from the gate as happy as could be, even after drinking an energy drink and staying awake FOR THE WHOLE FLIGHT!  So even though it was 1AM to his body, he vowed to stay awake with us and play all day til tonight... we'll see how that goes!




And once we got home, the anxiously-awaited 'early Christmas' began... fun gifts that everyone sent from Texas! Candy corn, cowgirl boots, Cheetos and Costco vitamins - yahoo! New books for Mel, and Kenny's favorite Tom and Jerry movie - we are set.  THANK YOU EVERYONE! Aunt Jenny got bumped from the flight and had to stay at a hotel in Newark, so hopefully we'll be able to go pick her up tomorrow and do the welcome partying all over again!



The boys lost no time getting into their Age of Empires game...



So much for Sterl lasting the whole day... he zonked out after 2 hours, so we're having reading time waiting for him to wake up. I keep reminding the kids he'll be here for a month, but they're anxious to play with him!

This "Flags of our Fathers" book already touches my heart. The story of the 6 soldiers in the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photo at the end of WW2. The author (son of one of the soldiers) tells the story of each boy in that picture, and of pre-war America... a time that is forever gone: "It was a town of manicured lawns and clean streets with no litter. A town where women swept their sidewalks and the slam of a screen door could be heard for blocks. And where people sat in swings or on the steps of their front porches on tree-shadowed summer evenings, listening to the cricket-song swell up from the grass, and watching the first fireflies of twilight, and greeting their neighbors who strolled by."
I would have liked to live in that era. This immortal moment captured became photography's most reproduced image... on everything from stamps to statues.

{...a few hours later}  THE SLEEPER HAS AWAKENED!  So... off to the park!



How often can you stand in 2 countries at once? Here we are coterminously straddling Switzerland and France! The border is right by our home...


Feeding our cute Crassier chickens and peacocks ~ (and Kenny too, apparently...)



Millions of apples! Our generous friend Kiki's personal orchard ~

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