An American Surprise

Well, if you haven't heard... I am currently in America. It turned out to be a successful surprise for my Mom to celebrate her 50th birthday. About a month ago, I was seeing pictures of little Abe and it made my heart sad that I wasn't there to cuddle this little guy -- then I started thinking. Hmm, my mom's 50th birthday is over my spring break, and easter -- AND tickets cost half of what they normally do. So, I let Daniel in on my little secret and he picked me up in Indianapolis at 1 am last Saturday morning. After 40 hours of being in transit, I was glad he didn't play a joke on me and forget to pick me up...

So, we decided to go to crash at Anna and Andrew's since they were up in the middle night with Abraham. We fell asleep on Anna's couches and I woke up to her poking me me saying, "NO WAY, no way, What are YOU doing here?!" It was pretty fun surprising her too. She called mom to see if she could stop by with Abe, which of course thrilled mom. So, Anna and Abe walk in, then Daniel walks in and says, "Hi Mom," then I walk in the door and say, "Hi Mom, Happy Birthday!" And her mouth was dropped and she just stood there in shock. She wasn't expecting to see any of her kids that morning, let alone ALL three. We sent a picture to my Dad of me holding Abe, and he couldn't quite figure it out either, it was a great surprise.

On top of meeting my nephew, and being here for my mom's 1/2 century birthday -- I also found out that I had a job interview at the International School of Indiana in Indianapolis. Yea, it turned out to be by the Lord's grace since I left the "o" off of Hello in my greeting when I applied for the job. Not only is it a job interview, but it is in a great part of Indy and their philosophy of education is aligned with what I believe in. AND, the principal of the school taught in the Philippines for 12 years, traveled to Chiang Mai a few times -- and even walked into the interview with a Starbucks mug from Bangkok. The interview couldn't have gone better and I am going up on Wednesday to tour their campuses... so things are looking good at the moment. 

So, it has been an incredibly blessed time being home so far, and I have gotten the chance to have coffee and meals with friends I hadn't seen in a few months which has been so good. The picture is my family with the Wilz family, who have been family friends since we were in elementary school. They had us over for great food and wine and it has been fun for our families to grow up together. It was fun to get one giant family picture of us all together, notice how symmetrically we lined up. I have gained a pound or two with all of the good American food and been catching up on my American TV fill -- including the Amazing race which just happened to be in Thailand the episode that I watched. I haven't seemed to been able to be warm yet here -- however I will have 100 degree weather to look forward too when I arrive back home in Chiang Mai.