We are so lucky....

It has been a generosity weekend. Friday night I got home about 8:30pm and Michael informed me that when he had gotten home there was a huge mail bag on the front porch. He then gave me “that look”.... The one that says “Just what have you been up to and ordering off the internet?” I took the fifth on this one and we proceeded to open up the bag. Turns out that one of my cousins & her husband had taken leave of their senses and decided to *spoil us rotten* or more specifically, Tabitha. The bag was actually addressed to her and contained a bunch of summer clothes in her size. Michael kept going on about the three pairs of flip-flops in assorted colors. She will Love that. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect since we’ve been having 80 degree weather in Texas – and yes I know it is still technically winter. Of course currently in Moscow it’s about 30-32 degrees. So I’m all set with warm clothes to go get her & bring her home. But if it continued in the 70-80’s here, then we were going to be doing a lot of shopping in the first few days home. This way, we’ve at least got some breathing space. We really appreciate you thinking about us, Erin & Mark!!

Then just a few hours ago, Michael checked the mailbox for this weekend. Well, my buddies MJ & Tarl decided to help us top off the humanitarian aid bag for Russia, so there were two separate shipments of boys’ underwear in the mail. I suspect that it is only people who are traveling to Russia under circumstances similar to ours who would be delighted to find Spiderman under-roos in the mail, but we were Thrilled! If nothing else, traveling to Russia has put a new perspective on just how blessed this country is. So those went straight from the kitchen counter to the bag full of shoes and are safely packed waiting for transit. Thanks guys!!

Then today Danny & Phyllis came over to loan us their new (bought to record the twin grandsons) video camera. They also brought over some goodies to go into the busy bag to keep Tabitha entertained on the flight home.

The flip side of all this was spending most of Saturday working my way through the items for this trip’s “Gift list”. As usual the items included just sort of make me laugh. I had to take a photo tonight so that people wouldn’t think that I’m making this stuff up. Forgot to add the bottle of cognac though, so just add that in with your imagination. I’m mostly done, just need to track down the lipsticks and then pack up the whole enchilada.

So now it’s about 10:30pm on Sunday and I have no idea where the whole weekend escaped to. Not nearly enough items got scratched off the "to-do" list, pretty much as usual. Just pray that the OB’s decide to have a quiet week so that I’m not at work twelve hours a day when I really still have more loose ends to wrap up before we head to the airport on Saturday....