All good things must end...

Jake picked Sushi for his birthday lunch.

As we’re wrapping up our stay, I thought I would do a little recap of our prolonged visit here in the states.  We’ve actually been here almost 5 months!  That seems crazy to me.  Here are the stats…

• 4 States, 10 cities
• Approximately 46 hours of flight (56 for me) – after we arrive back in Pohnpei, you can bump that up to about 80.
• 26 hours of car travel (not including regular every day driving) in 4 different rental cars.
• 1 wreck (oops)
• 2 Aquariums
• 5 nautical museums to include 3 warships
• 6 “other” museums
• 4 Imax movies
• 1 Amusement Park
• Hours and hours of swimming

Highlights include:

• Seeing the actual space shuttle in Washington DC.
• Actually seeing the Pegasus rocket like the one we found in Rongelap.
• Lego Land!!!!
• Crawling inside a dinosaur and watching its poop jiggle through its body.
• Playing with my (Jake’s) cousins and other kids everywhere we went.
• Seeing most of our family - all across the country.
• Getting to see actual dinosaur bones in the Natural History Museum.

(NOTE:  Jake is having a very hard time contributing as he says, “they were all good”)

• Downloading the new iPad games we didn’t know anything about.
• Buying new toys!!
• And finally….Jake turned 7 years old!

Yeah, we’ve had a really good time here.  But it is beyond time to go.  Andy has been back on the boat now for almost a month and it’s making me crazy knowing we’re just sitting here waiting to see him.  Not to mention, we’ve spent a ton of money.  Enough said about that…

I think we are fully recharged and ready to take on the rest of Micronesia.  I’m looking forward to downsizing again (gotta make room for all this crap we’re bringing back!) and getting reacquainted with our space.  I’ve found that I absolutely hate blow-drying my hair everyday, putting on make up and worrying about what I’m going to wear.  I don’t care for the enormous fees charged for everything from parking to checking a bag at the airport.  I cringed when I paid $10 to get Jake’s haircut and let’s not even talk about what I paid to get mine cut.  I am fully caught up on the current Presidential election and am scared out of my mind for our country – I think I was better in the dark.  I’m sure I can’t say what I really want to say without offending everyone, so I’ll say this…the pace of life here is crazy and the amount of things we try to squeeze into a day is mind blowing.  I know, I used to be that person, but now that I’ve seen the other side and experienced the joy that comes with just being with each other, well…I think we’re ready to go back. 

This will probably be my last post before we head out next Wednesday.  I’ll leave you with a few pictures of Jake’s birthday.  Notice, my cake decorating skills are getting better every year….yeah, right.  No, that’s not a pregnant lizard…it’s a dinosaur.  Jake insisted I make his cake instead of buying it.  

Against my better judgment, I’m putting up a picture of us sporting our dinosaur noses that Jake picked out.  It’s mid week…everyone needs a little laugh today, I’m sure.

I can't figure out of Papa is not happy or if he's really into his
dinosaur role and trying to look menacing...