Our Day With a Mini Van

On Saturday, Kyle & I helped my family out by moving most of Amber's stuff home from school.  She lives ~2 hours away from home, which means ~3 hours from us, so our day was supposed to have an early start.  The goal was: get to my parents' house, exchange cars, drive to The Ohio State University, pick up Amber, head to Piada for lunch, go back to her dorm, pack up her stuff, get it into the van, and then head back to Findlay so we could have dinner with my dad before he left the country for 2 months.

I was supposed to have a meeting at 7am with my co-facilitator for the upcoming Indiana Baha'i Summer School, but received an email the night before saying that he had been up late with his family and would probably call when he woke up, around 9am.  So I had changed my alarm from 6:50am to 8:10am so that I'd be able to shower before the meeting and be ready to go as soon as it was over.  Our goal was to be out of the house by 11am (but hopefully a bit sooner).  Unfortunately Luckily I had accidentally left my phone on vibrate that night, because my co-facilitator ended up calling me at 7:30am!  I was very much asleep after getting in late from visiting Angela in Cleveland, and I'm surprised I had enough sense to grab my laptop before heading to the living room.  Unfortunately for Kyle, I did not have enough sense to close the bedroom door [and if you know me you know that I have a very loud voice at times] so Kyle didn't really get to sleep in either.

After our great collaborative meeting, I was ready for another few hours of sleep so I hopped back in bed (it was 8:30am at this point).  I had already shut off my 8:10am alarm during my phone call, so there was nothing left to wake us up.  We woke up to beautiful rays of light pouring into our bedroom.  It was so peaceful.  It was also 11:25am.  Oops.  FAIL.

After texting Amber and saying we'll be late...closer to 3pm...we both showered and were out the door by 12:30pm.  Amber's response was actually "thank goodness, I just woke up."  Whew!  Once we got to my parents' house, we talked a little with my dad and Emily and then picked up the keys to the van and headed out.  It was really fun to think of us in that van.  We've both agreed for a while that we will never have a van, so it was our one day of pretending to be "van parents".

Kyle driving the mini van.

Our drive was really uneventful.  We had an uneventful (but delicious) lunch.  Packing went smoothly.  Kyle finally got to see what Amber's dorm looked like.  And we were on the road again - this time, Jasmin in the driver's seat.

When we got home, we spent time with Emily while my dad made some last-minute errands.  Mom came home from work and we had some good laughs with her.  At some point she brought a shirt out that apparently had been a hand-me-down from Asiyih to Emily, but Emily never wore it and somehow it ended up in Mom's room.  After trying it on over my clothes and deciding I didn't like it, Emily helped me take it off...except it got stuck on my hair...and the following picture was taken:

Note the picture on the wall.
I'm the only child who made the cut!

We finished off the evening at Texas Roadhouse where my dad ordered a gigantic sandwich and a full slab of ribs (ribs were being shared with me).  I don't think he realized how much food he was ordering, but it was ok because Kyle & I took the extra ribs (at least half) home for his lunch.  It was nice to spend that evening with my family (minus Amber) because my dad's going to be gone until the end of July, and at that point we'll be traveling so we won't see him til August.  Emily says I became very family-oriented before I went to Ethiopia, but I really feel like my love of family increased ten-fold when I was in Ethiopia.  Especially after the plane incident.  I don't want to take our time together for granted, and we never know when will be the last moment we will see each other.  

My dad should be at his final destination by now.  I hope he's safe and having a fun time with his family - some of which he hasn't seen in at least 5 years.  Such is the life of an international family - and I love it.