Thinking of Home [Emma and Lily]

Emma:
I’m really looking forward to getting back to America. Our first plane leaves at 5am, so we have to be at the airport by 3am, so we have to get up at about 1:30 to load up the car and take the hour-long drive to the airport. We will get back to our house at about 12am that night and hopefully be able to fall asleep by 1. I can’t wait to see my friends, grandparents, people at school and church, and my cats, my chickens, my lizard I have yet to buy, and anybody’s horses. I also want to be back in my house and to have grass and trees almost everywhere, even if all the leaves are off the trees and the grass is covered by snow like I want. Getting water out of the tap and not having to boil milk and having it cold is going to be great.

Lily:
It has gotten surprisingly cold here this winter; every day I wear my coat and slippers around the house, because we don’t have heating. I am very happy, though, despite this chilly weather, because we will be home soon – in seven days, I’d like to add – and my parents are always talking about airplane seating arrangements and what we are taking home, and what we are not. There’s lots and lots of things I’m looking forward to in America, but I’ve realized there’s some things I’ll miss about India, too.

Things I Cannot Wait to get Home to:

Grandma and Grandpa
Alex, Maggie, Tessa, and Annie
My house
My bedroom (this could fall under the category of “My House,” but I think it deserves its own category)
My church
A backyard to play in
My kitchen, especially my dishwasher
All the delicious food Grandma makes
Grandpa’s Seven Layer Dip (*hint* *hint* for when we go to dinner at your house for the first time in 6 months, Grandpa)
Zelda, Bleu Cheese, Gidget, and Parker. And, I guess Willa.
Lots of other things that would take too long to mention

Things I’ll Miss About India:

Shrimps as long as my hand
Charcoal, my favorite restaurant in the world
Going to Coffee shops all the time
My Brain has gone blank; I can’t think of anything else

A visit to Ravana's Homeland [Emma and Lily]

Emma:
Last week my family and I went up to Sri Lanka for one of my dad’s former student’s weddings. We stayed in the capital, Colombo, until after the wedding and then we went down to an area called Bentota and stayed right next to the beach for a few days. There was also a river right next to the hotel and to get to the hotel you had to go on a ferry across it. One day we went on a 2 hour tour down the river. We saw a lot of water birds and two of these really cute water monitors. The best part was when a guy with a pet baby alligator came over and I got to hold it and put it on my shoulder. Clara had wanted to go on a Ringo ride, so I agreed to go with her since she had wanted company. In the end, I loved it and she was terrified, but when we stopped halfway through the ride she said she was fine. There was a really nice beach too. The waves were really big on the first two days, so on the third day we decided to rent body boards, but then the waves were tiny for some reason. If you walked down the beach for a little while there was tide pools. They were really cool and had crabs, eels, tiny fish, and sea urchins. It was a fun vacation.


Lily:
Two nights ago we returned to our flat from Sri Lanka, that little island off the coast of the tip of India. The reason we went there was to go to my dad’s former student Lahari’s wedding. Our first destination was Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka and the city in which the church where the wedding was held is located. The wedding was Christian, and Lahari looked very pretty in the white and gold sari she wore in it. After the service, there was a reception at the Hilton hotel. It was really fun and there was lots of dancing and a buffet bigger than you’ve ever seen for dinner.
After staying five days in Colombo, we took a pretty drive down to Bentota, a town on the coast of Sri Lanka. We stayed at hotel Ceysands, a really cool hotel that we had to take a boat to because of the river right in front of it. There was a boathouse there with all sorts of water sports you could do on the river, such as Ringo rides, water skiing, jet skiing, body boarding (for the ocean, not the river), and lots of others. Well, Clara had her heart set on the Ringo rides; I guess she thought it would be fun to be pulled around on a tube by a boat. She finally talked Emma, who wasn’t thrilled at the idea, into going. Emma didn’t really want to go, but she went anyway. (I rode with my dad in the boat, to take pictures.) Emma ended up loving the ride, and wanting to go again, while Clara on the other hand hated it, and was too horror-struck to even talk for a while after the ride.
The ocean was so nice; it was warm and the waves weren’t too rough for most of the trip. Emma and my dad rented body boards, but then found the waves not big enough. My dad gave his board to Clara, who had a blast riding the small waves.
Another thing at the boat house was a boat tour, that we took. It was so much fun! We cruised along the river and saw all sorts of cool birds, and two water monitors, which are these big, slithery lizard things that swam lurked in the shallower parts of the water. There was a man we saw whose job was paddling around in his canoe, showing off his pet baby crocodile. The crocodile sat on Emma and Clara’s shoulders. I hate reptiles, yet anyway petted it bravely. We went through an awesome swamp thing that was like going through a tunnel of trees. We also went to a no-machine, all hand-work coconut product factory. They showed us how to make rope with coconut fiber. This is how:
1. Soak the coconut in water for three months.
2. After 3 months, take the coconut out and peel off the now soft shell.
3. Hack up the shell till it turns to fiber.
4. Let the fiber dry.
5. Twist and roll the fiber into a rope.

Well, that’s all I have time to tell for now; I have to go read Heidi during my five minute break from home school.