Truth, and a Happy Birthday.

Me: Theo, if you were stranded on a desert island with just one person, who would you want it to be?

Theo, (thinks for a long time): Beth. Because she would get the coconuts open.

She would too. Happy Birthday to one of the most beautiful, helpful, resourceful people that I know.

How do you say "let's take turns!" in Hmong?

About once a week I go "teach" at a preschool for Vietnamese refugee kids. They are all here with their families, waiting to be processed through the UN refugee program. Because they're here illegally, they aren't allowed to go to school for the 4-5 years that it takes to get assigned to a new country. I'm not actually sure how much they're learning, but they sure are cute. I thought I'd give you guys a visual.

Christmas party last week.

They're very bright kids.

This week we had 45 kids in this room.

Snack time.

So many choices!

What happened when Gordon asked Hal to pick a cake for his birthday-

Here's the transcript- "This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! This one! Marshmallow cake!"

I think the blog is slowly drifting off into Facebook and Instagram, but I'm loath to let it go completely. Especially if there's stuff like this to remember:

darcy photo shoot

nature walk at the elem school

dead forest... sssoooo sad.  terrible terrible

picking out a christmas tree with viv and sarah and kids (hal)

beet salad, rach stuffing, lemon/blackberry pie, viv rolls, ham, fancy drinks

staying up late with viv

sarah got sick

blessing baby mae: tim, grandpa, jerry, gordon

claire crying at what she was thankful for and making gordon cry at his

jerry was funny

gwen was fairy queen of the stairs

eric and levi watching stanford play football

beth "i want this pie eaten at my funeral

eric  "why are we even TALKING about your funeral!?"

claire " well?  LOOK at her?!

mae sleeping so soundly on grandpas lap

soccer outside

falling asleep by the fire with eric on the blowup mattress, then being jumped on by hal

watching "girls just wanna have fun" late at night with darcy and syd, sarah, viv, rachel

Dance Party in Ross

Almost as good as that scene in Footloose, wouldn't you say?

Look AT the camera. Just look at it! In a normal way!

At the first real 'photo-op' point of our Nepal trip, our guide took out his camera and motioned for us to group closely together. Initially I was confused, but then I realized...he wants to take a picture of our family. I thought about gently refusing, but he seemed so nice, and I didn't want to be a grouch, so I encouraged everyone to give it their best. We huddled together and smiled. He clicked the shutter and glanced down at the view screen. His smile faded slightly. "One more!" he announced, with renewed enthusiasm. Again, glancing down at the camera after taking the picture, he paused. "Hmmm. Another!"

Multiple times he tried, looking increasingly puzzled each time an image captured. After about a minute I began to recognize the look on his face. It was the same look I've seen on Vivian's face, or Rachel's- really on anyone who has ever tried to capture a group of Gregorys on film.

To quote Grandma Brown, we look good from the back. But, try to pose us in any way and things start to fall apart quickly. Maybe we just spend more time with our eyes closed than most people do? In any case, a retrospective, of Gregory family photos:

This is the photo shoot where I first realized it was a problem.

But, even in casual settings we can't do it.

  

Just put sunglasses on Chris, you say? Well, that works. Sort of.

 

 

I can't just blame Chris.  No, I blame Chris AND Lucy for not taking this seriously.

 

Now the happiest moments are when I get the trifecta. At this point it just kind of warms my heart. But I'm not sure our Nepalese guide really saw it that way.



 

Thoughts From a Sickbed

A night of vomiting and diarrhea left me pretty drained this morning and I spent the day in bed, too dizzy and weak to do anything else. Even sick, you can only sleep so much, so a good part of the day was me just looking at the ceiling and thinking about stuff. Stuff like:

- If a blanket is so soft that you can barely feel it, does it really count as a blanket at all?

- When even the thought of food makes you queasy, why is it impossible to stop thinking about food? "Don't think about those cookies you ate last night...don't think about them...gah! Ugh! Cookies!"

- Did God create cold ginger ale just for me on this exact day?

- It's too bad that I'll have to cancel Pi day this year, as I'm never eating again.

- Is my goal of removing the 3 neatly tied grocery bags full of vomit from the bathroom floor before the maid gets here a realistic one?

- Does any sentence containing the words "before the maid gets here" make me seem pampered and entitled?

- If the best books that I've read this year were non-fiction, why do I read so much fiction?

- I wish I had a really fluffy, non-serious book to read right now.

- Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is straight up quality.

That's all really. I'm sure this has been fascinating, but it was a pretty quiet day.