Family update, early December

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  It's also rich and full on the other side of the world, apparently.  Early this week, my guy wrote to say,

[I'm flying from ] Istanbul on the way to Kuala Lumpur. A half hour ago we flew over the south end of the Caspian Sea. Tehran was a hundred kilometers south of our flight path. . . . We will also fly over Pakistan turning more southeast to avoid Afghanistan airspace. Then it will be India, the Indian Ocean and then Malaysia.

He's been wafting lovely descriptive emails my way of what he's seeing.  He's also having interesting ("interesting") travel adventures.  The most recent is that he's traveled so danged much that he doesn't have a blank page in his passport to go to Vietnam, and they won't let him in with only partially-filled pages left.  Since staying in Malaysia would be a waste of . . . actually, I don't know what it would be a waste of, but it's apparent that some extra trip, any extra trip is imperative. He writes,

So I looked again at the rules for travel to nearby countries that do not require visas for Americans.  The only southeast Asian country that does not require a visa is Thailand.  So I may go there.  

But not directly. The flights from KL to Thailand are expensive on the weekend, so I am staying in Malaysia until Monday when the flights are cheap. I will be in Penang until Monday or maybe longer. Toward the end of the week, I will fly to Singapore as planned.  I was able to cancel my hotels in Vietnam. 

At any rate, that's a little of what my guy is up to.  Somewhat closer, but still out of the country, Xson tells me that he's recovered enough from his terrible motorcycle accident that he's walking again.  Life is still very hard in Haiti, but I'm so glad he's back on his feet (literally, if not figuratively).  From a different distant -- but closer-than-Haiti-- location, Nelson sent a pic with an explanation: 

Nelson:  At work just got done with the front

I myself expressed surprise at what the ground looked like in Minnesota.  In comparison (bringing it back to my home state), here's what it looked like outside my bedroom window this Wednesday.

Snow on the branches! 
There were gorgeous snow flurries as I was walking to the office.

And indeed, December is here. Per the family advent calendar, this is what we did this week

• Make Springerle
  
  

  

  Many elves make light work

  
  
• Put out Santa statues (including the TP snowman outfit my sister gifted me, augmented by a TP sweater a friend foisted on me).
  
  



Well-dressed toilet paper

• Decorate the tree
• Give St. Nick's day donations to charity
• Saw a fab show at our local theater

  

  Ready to head inside for
  Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

  
  
• Mailed some Springerle
• Went to a ballet concert

Achild and Bchild were quite the performers!

The Little Farm library had new occupants come and go (there was some pretty quick turnover in the cow population this week)!

And I know that's a lot, but even so, there was more!  For one, I got an email from the Fulbright folks.  I knew that in December they'd decide whether to pass my application along for further review, or to decline it.  Basically, they're deciding whether to vote me off the island, grant-wise. I'd been steeling myself for hearing "no", preparing myself not to take the decision personally.  So I put all that practice to good use when I got the email saying "a decision has been made".  I took my big breath and opened the email . . . to read that I had to log into the Fulbright site to actually get the decision.  I let my breath back out, logged into the site, and finally found the link to the decision letter.  I took another big breath, opened that letter, and got to read this:

Thank you for applying to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program for the 2024-25 competition. It is a pleasure to inform you that your application is recommended to proceed to the next phase of the review process for a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award (Science, Technology and Education, 24289-PA, Panama). It is being forwarded to the proposed host country, the U.S. Department of State, and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for review . . . 

So, maybe I'll go to Panama next year?  With my guy, of course, since there are lots of nearby countries he can bop around to while we're there, provided he gets a new passport with many more pages.

Finally, just a cute story.  When my kids were young, instead of saying "Don't push all the elevator buttons!!!! No, don't!!", I'd say, "Once the elevator starts moving, we have to hold on the handrail for safety!".   My daughter Inkling, now in her 30's, says she still holds on.  Well, one of my running buddies just sent me this cute photo, which I pass along with an anonymizing star.  

Becca writes: 
"We aren’t old enough for seatbelt races yet,
but we have fully embraced your tip for having
the kids hold on when we ride in an elevator!
No excessive button pushing. Such a win! 

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures. May the elevators you're holding onto all be going up.