It's a New Year

My last blog post was back in September.  The fourth quarter was a busy time.  Annie, the mother of my daughters, came to visit in November.  She stayed until we flew back to the states for Christmas on the 2d of December.  Annie was here with me in Bangalore for about a week after she arrived.  Then she went up into northern India on a tour.  Agra, Delhi, Veranasi, Jaipur, Pushkar et al.  She was gone about eight days. 

I caught up with her on day five in Jaipur. From there we went to the camel fair in Pushkar. Jaipur and Pushkar are both cities in Rajasthan. Rajasthan is truely an interesting and colorful place. The camel fair was over the top. We stayed in tent in a compound run by the tour company Annie had hired for her tour. We were quite comfortable for the two nights we were there.  The tent had a bathroom with a great shower.  The hot water supply was solar and plentiful.

We got back from Pushkar in mid-November.  We did some Christmas shopping in Bangalore and then spent Thanksgiving in Bali, Indonesia.  This seems to be a tradition for us.  The Thanksgiving before we had been with my cousin, Judy, in Cancun.  We enjoyed that so much we decided that leaving in the kids in the states and finding a beach somewhere was a good idea.  Bali was a great place.  Beautiful, reasonably priced and relaxing.

The first week in December we headed back to the states.  We layed over for a day in Frankfurt.  Annie knew about the Christmas fair in Frankfurt so we stayed in a hotel near the fair and paid it a visit.  It was cold.  Going from Bali to Frankfurt was a big change.  How cold was it in Frankfurt?  So cold that Annie didn't want to shop.  Oh yeah, our four star hotel didn't have any hot water.  I complained.  I told the manger, "I had a better shower in a tent in Rajasthan in India than I had this morning in your four star hotel."  He was nice but he wasn't that impressed.

Annie and I got back to Arlingon on the 4th of December.  I got right back on an airplane and flew to North Carolina to visit my grandson, Michael Lee, his wife Karrah and to see my great granddaughter, Paityn, for the first time.  It was a short visit but a good visit.  Michael was deploying to Afganistan the following week.  I'm glad I went.  Michael is a US Marine and I am very proud of him and his family.  I got a little more in touch with what it means to a young family when Dad goes off to be in harms way.  It goes without saying that Michael is a brave young man, but Karrah is also a very brave young woman in her role.

I got back in Wichita on the 6th and went to work for the next two weeks.  My oldest granddaughter, Ashleigh Ann, got married to a very nice young man the week before Christmas.  Jess, Mara Mae and I went down to Fort Worth for the wedding.  Ashleigh's mother, Alice Ann, came back to Wichita with me and stayed for three days.  We had a nice visit.  I am very blessed with the relationships I have with my children.

 Alice Ann went back down to Fort Worth for Christmas and I spent Christmas with Jess and Ginger.  I stayed with them on Christmas Eve and got up with Mara on Christmas morning.  Her mother told her not to come out of her room any sooner that 0530.  She woke up at 0500 and read until 0530.  She was so excited.  She still believes in Santa.  I asked her about this.  She told me, "some people don't believe in Santa.  Some people choose to believe in Santa."  That pretty much explained it.

I was due to come back here to India on the 6th of Jan.  I left Wichita a couple of days early and went back down to Fort Worth and spent some time with Annie, Alice Ann, the newly weds, Jenny and Leith and Lulu.  Leith and Lulu are a couple of kids who have accomplished alot in the last couple of years.  They have moved from Jordan to the US, integrated into a new high school, a new peer group and are doing well in school.  I'm impressed.

Now I'm back in India, blogging again.  Oh yeah, and resting up.