New Blogs, Christmas, Vacation

So first of all, I want you to know I've had time to find some new blogs to follow. You have to go to my profile to see them. One is a site where a dad and his kids write reviews of kids books - very cool. The other is I Heart Strangers, a guy in Denver who talks to and photographs strangers. One of his strangers is Yehuda Pollock, my sister's husband's sister's son. It's a cool blog and it's great to see photos of Yehuda in Denver!

Christmas - it's overwhelming, it's another world, it's family and traditions and food and too many presents and it's not mine. I alternate between feeling touched and happy and feeling alienated. The most shocking thing to realize - in the 20 plus years since Alen left Trinidad, this is only the 4th Christmas she's spent at home. And I've been with her for three of the four. This is actually my fourth Christmas with her family - we spent one in England in 1995, the year her grandfather died on boxing day, before we got to see him.

Vacation - a three week vacation follows a predictable pattern - tired and happy the first week, cranky some time during the second week (kids, spouse, culture shock) - then the third week overwhelmed with the thought that this will END and I will have to return to (gasp!) working and housework, etc. etc.

Highlight of the day - Gabi's class at school used their computer class period to write letters to her including great pictures of Trinidad and of airplanes and other stuff they found on the web I guess. Way cool.

Thanks for reading and PLEASE comments on the blog (not on facebook) - I need comments!!!!!