So many emotions...

We are HERE!!!!! We made it back yesterday morning at 9:30! We are back in the U.S.A for good. The girls were absolute angels on the airplane. We are so blessed to have such sweethearts. Brielle had an earache that started the day before we left and even she was a gem.

I have so many feelings and emotions right now. I am devastated to leave behind the people and city I love, but so excited to be coming back to a beautiful, smog-free life. I think I have cried more this week than in the last year. Here are some of the expressions that elicited the most emotion:

"Thank you for being nice to me" (said by my friend's live in maid). I saw her randomly in the city before I left and said goodbye and this is what she said to me. I managed to smile and hug her and get through it but as soon as I walked in the door I fell apart on Hoss. You see these people are treated so badly by everyone. The entire city is racist against them and everyone else only sees them as a workhorse. They work 15+ hours a day/six days a week. If they complain with what they have been given then they could get fired with a bad referral letter. This letter means that they will not get another visa and will not be able to get the $450/month that goes to feed their entire family and extended families back home. They live in closets (if they are lucky) or they have to wait until their family goes to sleep and then they may have the couches. Sometimes they sleep in the child's room to make sure the parents aren't bothered during the night. And yet despite this, they are the most beautiful and joyful people on the inside that you have ever met. There was one in my building that never said he was having a bad day. I would see her and ask how she was doing and she would say she was happy everyday and would say bless you and make sure the girls got a hug. This is the same one that I watched with a newborn and a high energy two year old and the smile never left her face. You would never hear a negative word or complaint leave her lips.When I left her I asked if she knew any maids who could use my prepaid cell phone. She said she did but asked instead if she might keep it herself to remember me by. That made me cry too; so I did leave it for her and erased everything but the random pictures of us that we had taken. So anyways, when the last thing that the other maid said to was "thank you for being nice to me" I thought it was just so sad that her life is so hard that the few times I saw her and talked to her she was grateful that I treated her like a human being.

"Lets go Mom! There's nothing left here!" (said by Ashlynn) I was doing the last walk through of the house before we took off to the airport and she was super excited. Hoss had already left early to check in the dog and we were meeting him there. When I heard it leave her mouth I just had to walk to the laundry room and collect myself. I wanted to run out there and explain that even though there was no physical things left in that house there was so many good memories that I was having a hard time walking away from them. Every room I was walking through haunted me with the sounds of the laughter and joy that had filled them. I have such positive memories and the girls have changed so much since we arrived I wanted to scoop up that house and just sit in the living room and remember every smile. It's so hard to grow up and more so to watch your children grow up.

"This way sweetheart", "Your doing good honey" "Great job girls" These were the words I heard when we were traversing LAX. Everyone was so pleasant and nice. It was such a happy change from the foreign words and expressions of the Hong Kongers. We landed and had to leave Hoss in LA to drive Max down because the flight to San Diego couldn't accommodate his size and the rental car couldn't accommodate him and us. So, going through TSA's fabulous checks and navigating the LAX airport with the girls and six carry ons was a bit overwhelming after the long flight, but everyone was so nice to me and the little ones. On a side note, when they offered us a $400 voucher and tickets on the flight 2 hours later to San Diego I would've LOVED to get those tickets, but alas the girls and I were just done at 3:00am our time:)

Alright, well we are happily in the pet-friendly Travelodge. Today Hoss is checking in with that horrible new regulation haircut he will now sport. (I was quite used to his incognito one he wore on the job overseas.) We are getting cell phones and I'm going to sign Ash up for school and me up for the GYM!!!!!! How funny people look at us when we tell them (like the rental car people) No, I don't have an address yet. Nope, no cell phone. We are wandering souls for one more day and tomorrow we will get our housing assignment!

Random Thoughts...

I guess my internet is just really screwed up. I couldn't access it for a while and then it was on again, but I still can't attach pictures. If the fabulous people who tap my phones and watch my computer are reading this then please make it back like it used to be...I leave in four days and then you can adjust and screw up everything for the next person then!

Another random thought...
I love my husband and have to brag...he ran 3 miles in 19min 32sec last week!

More...
No matter how hard you try you still can't catch everything. Ashlynn was doing some crazy blinking last week and we thought maybe it was allergies so we took her in. It was allergies, but they found out she has almost no vision in her right eye and because of this it has become lazy. Thankfully we have 2 years to try to correct it before she is stuck with the results, but poor kiddo!

More...
I'm going to miss this place! The ladies here had a going away for me Tuesday night. We had dinner and sang karaoke. It was great and then they gave me the most amazing charm bracelet with charms from around Hong Kong! I am so thankful for everyone here that has made it so enjoyable. I will miss everyone.

More...
Four days!!!!!! How crazy is that?????????????

Just for a laugh...

Ashlynn at the Canadian Pet Store

When Ashlynn was 3 ½ we left Tunisia, N. Africa for a much needed Summer break and headed to Canada to relax in Calgary with my mom and younger brother, Kelly. It was a fabulous summer and the girls learned how to start calming down around other people; as Tunis had them paranoid. They were paranoid from playing at the park and getting run over by rude Arab boys who had no concept of proper play with little white girls and so, they in turn had no idea how to make friends outside of the American Embassy compound. Not only that but for safety measures I never let go of their hand when we were in public. Anyhow, they were definitely shell-shocked in this Western culture and I suppose so was I.

I say this because as I was driving home from the grocery store with my mother one evening, around sunset, I observed a young teenager in a small pair of shorts and tank top walking along a stretch of road that ran aside the highway. I immediately panicked and took in a sharp breath, and then I started laughing. It had crossed my mind that she wasn’t wearing enough clothing and since it wasn’t a densely populated area she was going to get raped. But in reality, her outfit was more than reasonable for the circumstances of the era and people didn’t have to worry about dressing with everything covered there. Not only that but she wouldn’t be looked at in such a sexual way for her dress nor was it dangerous for her, by any means, to be walking in that place alone.

So here we are in Calgary and for an evening activity we go to the pet store. The girls had never been to a pet store as there weren’t many in Okinawa and it was very limited in Tunisia. As a matter of fact we saw more living (and dead ) species at the food market than the “pet” store across the street from it. As a side note it was a very amusing day the day they had a live squid for sale that crawled across the floor and then stuck to the butcher’s leg for entertainment. We had to go back to the stinky, fish part every time after that but there never was such a “lively” performance repeated. We had to make due with the guys who would smack them as we walked by to show them suddenly flail and gasp through their fins displaying how fresh they were as they called out in French the names and prices. So back to the original story, we walk into the pet store and the girls have ear to ear smiles as they are drawn to the kittens that they have caged at the entrance; and their excitement attracts the attention of the bored saleslady who comes over to engage them in conversation.

Now my girls were slow to start talking and a bit shy from being overseas but once they get started every embarrassing family secret and bodily function could come out in course of a conversation. Brielle is even prone to start improving and fooling random strangers into believing that she goes to a school with 130 teachers and 9 brothers…well, that’s about the time I think they figure it out, but the point is that the girls love to talk. So, here’s the conversation I overhear when the saleslady asks Ashlynn if she has a kitten or wants another one:

I want a kitten but I can’t have one because my brother, Max will eat it (Max is a 130 pound Mastiff, but the lady doesn’t know this). I’m waiting for him to die and then my mom said I can have one. (Keep in mind that the lady still doesn’t know that her brother is a dog.) He’s in Africa with my dad. I wanted to bring him but my dad wouldn’t let me because he’s too big and he’s black.

I was sitting in the background dying! The poor saleslady had no idea and Ashlynn didn’t realize that there was anything wrong with what she had just said. So I had to step in and save her. At this point it wasn’t worth the explanation of why Africa and who Max the dog was. So we just redirected her to the rabbits and away from the horrified lady who still might remember the child who was waiting for her “big, black, African brother to die so she could get a kitten he wouldn’t eat!”

The Tram and the Japanese Tour Guide

OK, so I wrote a post about the fabulous weekend we had and it has pics to describe it, but the pics won't download for some reason. I keep trying, but nothing will come up. Therefore, you will get another tidbit until I can load them:)

The Tram and the Tour Guide.
When Ashlynn started her first year of school I was delighted to have the privilege of taking her to school. This was in Hong Kong and her school was located at The Peak. The most convenient and fast way for us to get there was via tram, straight up the mountain. So every morning we would walk a couple of blocks to the small path which led to the MacDonnell Road tram stop. Along the way we would pass the trash ladies taking out the accumulated trash from all of the high-rises , where they would deposit it in heaps along the road, and the trash diggers who would be pawing through it all looking for anything fixable or salvageable that they could try to sell or give to family members. One old man had a little stand on the road and he would always squeeze every bag listening for the crunch of a soda can to recycle. Then as we turned up the step the aroma of “the stinky stairs” would hit. These were the stairs that every dog in the neighborhood used as a bathroom. It was forbidden to fall on these stairs as your hands and everything else would have to be thoroughly scrubbed and sanitized before they would ever again be considered clean.
Now, the tram itself is a huge tourist attraction. Everyday thousands of people are transported up and down. The views are spectacular and it truly is a fun experience to be going at such a steep incline, in a boxcar, and realize that the buildings themselves look like they going perpendicular to you; like they are going to slide or break off. Also, there is always a point when you are going up and the tram clears the tree line where, if the pollution isn’t too bad, you suddenly come upon a view of the entire Hong Kong skyline, Victoria harbor and across from that you can see the Kowloon skyline as well. It is truly breathtaking.
Yet, it only took us a couple weeks of riding before we forgot to look and appreciate what we had. The tram became another chore in the routine of our day and we didn’t stop to think about its beauty. Most often we would be talking about the coming day or perhaps a dog (usually a small, little guy named George) we had seen on the stinky stairs. That was when the Japanese tour guide came along. He started bring on the tourists’ once or twice a week. This guy got a kick out of going into the aisle at the steepest point and demonstrating, using the angle of his body, just how steep it really was. Well, as soon as he would step into the aisle the entire group would gasp and his smug smile would be appreciated by all as they took pictures and clapped. I loved it.
Every group loved it. Then, as soon as we would cross the treeline he would point, like a proud father, at the beauty of the view. It was great. It taught me to always look at things with fresh eyes. So many times we fall into a pattern and get used to the present, forgetting to open the box and appreciate the contents. Life is about the opening the box and inhaling the aroma even if you already know what it smells like.

Ash's Debut

Brielle being goofy!

Ash singing with the others

I so tried to get a good picture of the two of them, but they were being goof balls and this was as good as it gets...

This is a video of Ashlynn singing her New Years song in Mandarin. She was asked to do it for a Chinese New Year celebration held at Hoss's work for the local nationals. She was super nervous before, but did great on stage. The girls won best dressed too:)

Today's Picture

To make it even I thought I should post this older picture of Ashlynn in her GI:)

Brielle wants to do anything and everything her father does. In her eyes he is a god. Her dreams of joining him in the profession are only shared with becoming "the barbie that rides on a Pegasus" and being a dancer. So, ever since he started Brazilian Ju Jitsu she has been begging to go. Well, today she had to get her four year old shots and was so good that he told her she could finally go:) Here is a picture of the two of them when he was stretching out. She lasted about a half hour before she got completely bored, but I definitely think it was the highlight of her day!

The Security Guard

There is a local gentleman who works on the corner by the pee tree (the tree ALL the dogs pee at) as a security guard. He is rather abrupt and mean looking and he works at an apartment building with signs posted everywhere about not letting your dogs pee on the planters, building and walls. One of my first encounters with him was one bad morning before I had, had my coffee. I was walking Ashlynn to the bus and Hoss was still at PT. So, I had Brielle with me and, as is the custom, I brought Max down with me for his morning bathroom duties to get everything knocked out at once. However, we live on the 7th floor and there is only one main elevator (the back elevator is a crickity, old service one) and the main one kept coming up and down with people in it. This matters because most people are terrified of Max and so I have to wait for an empty elevator to get into. I would have taken the back elevator, but the cleaning lady does trash every morning at 8:00am. When she does this, she takes the back elevator up to the 25th floor and holds it as she hits every floor on the way down. This happens every morning, but usually I can get main elevator within a five minute period. Unfortunately, this was not the morning that it happened; instead we waited for an elevator until I was uptight and we were late to catch the bus; then we had to run down the 11 floors of stairs (including the carport). So, I dropped Ash off at the bus and Brielle, Max and I went for Max’s morning relief. We walked him around for a bit but he didn’t seem to be able to complete the pass on the solid end and after a while we just started walking back. As you can imagine we got right in front of the guard shack and down he crouches. The security guard runs out and starts yelling at me in Cantonese about Max and I just shake my head at him and grab out the newspaper to clean it up. However, as I start to clean it up Brielle starts playing on the cement railing by the road and Max starts pulling at another yappy dog that is walking by. So, I start yelling at Brielle to come down and try to pull back and get Max under control so I can stretch out my free hand to scoop up the poop. It was chaos and the security guard, who had by this time grabbed a jug of water, is watching the whole thing go down with distain; as if he thinks I am the typical out of control, disrespectful American with the crazy kid. I guess it did appear that way, but that is neither here nor there. Well, I know you don’t need the descriptor but it was the crumbly type and it was a disaster. I managed to get all but the tiniest crumb and the security guy is still yelling at me. I can tell you that I didn’t have any more paper and for Pete’s sake it was on top of a storm drain grate! So I told the security guard to splash it down with the purposeful bottle and walked off, cursing him under my breath. It was a rotten morning and hard to recover from.

Flash forward to the present. I have tried my best to forget the incident and every time I pass I make sure to wave and smile. On Chinese New Year he came out of his booth to wish me a happy new year and he makes sure to wave and smile at the kids when we pass. I feel like the one rotten experience was just a fluke and through my respect (by not letting my dog pee on his building or ever poo again near him) he has learned I am different. Now, I look forward to waving at him and his friendly smile. I think I will actually miss seeing him on the morning routine and I hope he will notice my absence as well. Maybe we have both gained something from the experience. I know I have.

Before and After

I thought I'd post the two pictures to show you how much the girls have changed and grown. The first was taken last week and the second was taken over a year ago. How sweet and cute they are!