Back to Bangalore Part Deux

Hello everyone! Eric and I have just returned to Bangalore from our three week holiday in the United States where we had a wonderful vacation spending time with our family and friends. I hope that you all had a very happy holiday season. Christmas time just isn't the same without snow and cold weather and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn't bothered by the temperatures at all, in fact I think that I spent more time outdoors while we were visiting than I had while we were living in the US. I feel that we were so lucky because none of our flights were affected by the winter weather but we were also able to enjoy plenty of beautiful snow while we were visiting. Our plans were only altered by bad weather one time during the entire three week period which was wonderful because we had the chance to see and spend time with so many of our friends and family. There are so many things that I enjoyed about our trip home but the things that I will probably remember the most: hanging out at the farm with Mom and Dad just relaxing, the time that I got to spend with my baby niece Natalie, even when she was projectile vomiting all over me, Matt and Janele hosting their first Christmas, Kevin opening a bottle of wine with a deck screw, power drill and a pair of pliers, snuggling with my parents' super-wonderful cats Bubbles and Opie (pictured below), dinner with the family at the Iowa Machine Shed (all 30 of us), and talking to Jill for hours about who knows what and introducing her to America's Next Top Model (sorry Jill). And did I mention the food??? Oh, Mom spoiled us something fierce, I must have gained 20 pounds! I am already missing the comforts of home, but we were able to bring back more than 2 whole bags (around 70 pounds probably) of food from the US to help us get by for the next six months.



Our return to Bangalore was uneventful, and after the hell that we went through in Delhi trying to get to the US for Christmas, we were very grateful for that. We picked up our girls Mira and Chaya the day that we arrived, we were so anxious to see them and bring them home since we had missed them so much! They recognized us right away (thankfully) and after chatting with Yasmine and JP for a bit, we set off for home. True to form, Chaya whined and cried all the way home, but as soon as we got them both inside they hopped right out of their baskets and made themselves comfortable. We opened all of the new toys that we had brought back for them and they set about to making an unholy mess. Some things never change. They seemed to be a bit skinny to me, but I am not sure if that is just my eyes playing tricks because I became so accustomed to seeing and playing with Opie and Bubbles, both of whom are literally three times the size of our girls. They seem to have settled in with us once again as they are eating well and are as naughty as ever! But we wouldn’t have them any other way…



To tell the truth, it is difficult to be back in India, I think that it always will be hard to leave our life in the US for our life in Bangalore. I wish that I could say that it gets easier for us but it just doesn’t. There are some wonderful things that we have experienced while living here, but it is not our home. We could live here the rest of our lives and not feel like this is home and also never be accepted as anything but foreigners. We are grateful that we have the opportunity to visit the US every six months, without those emotional and physical recharges I think that living here would be impossible for us. So with that in mind, we are already counting the minutes until we can visit home again in July. Thank you to everyone who made our trip this holiday season so special, we appreciate everyone taking take to visit with us and we will see you all again soon!

Sweet Opie loved to sleep with us at night!

Bubbles is the softest kittie ever!