volcanic fallout

Early Sunday morning I received a call from Dan's cousin's wife with whom I haven't talked in years. She told me that they had been trying to get a hold of us as her husband Chris was trapped in Berlin unable to fly back to Vancouver and could he come visit us since he wasn't going home. After absorbing the information in my drowsy state, we realized what a wonderful blessing this was for us. Chris and his family are some of our favourite people on the planet and it has been a shame to have fallen out of touch with them since both families have moved so far away (we both used to live in California about an hour away from each other). After quickly making travel arrangements for Chris (train from Berlin to Prague and then from Prague to České Budějovice), I sprung out of bed to get the house in order, bake a cake, go grocery shopping, do laundry and prepare for The Arrival. The girls were equally excited as they remember their Uncle Chris as being a pretty funny guy. Dan and I then hiked through the forest and talked about where we would take Chris and what we would do. This is such a treat for us! In the early evening we picked Chris up at the train station and upon our arrival home we were treated to a welcoming committee fit for a king. While we were gone the girls hung welcome banners and posters all over and had prepared notes and their special brand of comix for Chris. We settled down to dinner and a late evening chat, catching us up after maybe 10 years of very little contact. We are truly looking forward to the days we have with him.

(I probably will be blogging very sporadically this week)