road trip! part two

we left costa rica. that was sad. but then we spent another day with the morrills and ate more good food. i love how that works. and greg and annette surprised nick with his birthday present early: a GPS! i, myself, found it difficult to conjure up any real euphoria, but nick sure didn't. judging by annette's obvious distaste and greg's obvious excitement, however, i think it's one of those man-woman things. it turns out that the GPS came in really handy, as we actually managed to make a wrong turn leaving nick's own street on our way to arkansas... i think it's rescued us about 38 times thus far. severely directionally challenged people should not marry each other. we're really going to pollute the gene pool.

even so, we arrived in bella vista without too much trouble, despite the friend nick picked up that destroyed his digestive system for the next seven days. all better now, but that was fun. the dear boy never complained, though. points!

we spent a couple days with my folks, welcoming daddy home from tokyo, where he'd been for two weeks, developing a severe crush on the country. we also got to say hey to uncle dave, who came to prowl the lake country and start working on his dream home. sorry, dana. we missed heidi's play, in which she starred as miss mary in the secret garden, jonah's piano recital--we got a rerun, though--and jamie's choir concert. we are lame. but they are cool. i mean, jamie works in a nursing home. and she really really likes it.

i had to say goodbye to my studly brother, paulikins, because he's heading out for his mission to helsinki, finland in mid-july, and we won't see him again before that. that was not fun. paul is the coolest kid ever, not to mention the best brother in the whole wide world. he and jonah tag-team for that position, obviously... after numerous requests about whether or not we'll have a mini-me or mini-nick when he gets home in two plus years, jonah finally just told me i LOOKED like i had a baby in my tummy. that must have been why everyone was asking, eh? precious. there is no baby in my tummy, just to clarify.

after a sojourn on the boat and the adios muchachos to the peterson family, we got in the car again, this time with a bottle of pepto, a pack of imodium, and several water bottles in tow. we were the party car! and we only stopped ten or twelve times on the way to ohio! once there, we made a pit stop in columbus to hit up downtown matt brown and the tail end of tony to get the gossip and introduce the husband. ohio is full of really good people. it was so fun to get to make a quick stop there. the problem was that it was a very, very quick stop. we'll catch everybody we didn't get on our way back ; ) but everybody should look up tawshia smith on myspace, because her photography is AMAZING. she hasn't realized this yet, so we're trying to convince her to bow to The Man and go commercial. help us out here.

after arepas and mexican hot chocolate with gillian--with a super sweet wedding present in tow (gillian, you are neat!)--we hit the road again. our bums were very sore by the time we finally arrived at our lovely takoma park basement apartment that night. but we arrived! yeehaw! after 28 days, [lots of] great family and friends, 13 states, 2 countries, and 1 parasite, we're here, storming our nation's capital. or at least its suburbs.

and now it's job search time for me! if anybody has really neat contacts for me with somebody doing any sort of international--or heck, we need help, too; domestic is also fabulous--development work... that would be neat. a focus on human/sex trafficking would be extra neat. just sayin.

loves!
e