I lost my grandma at Wal-mart

 Almost a full week behind! Bear with me.

Day 133 (Sunday):
  This was almost a whole week ago! Yikes! The beginning of the week was crazy busy with family and a last minute road trip...we'll get to all of that, I was hoping to catch up Thursday night, but that's when my strep throat went into death mode.

Okay, for real, last Sunday.  Well actually, I forgot this picture from Saturday night.

He was tired.

Let's try again, Sunday, we traveled from OKC to Paden to go to church.

On our way to church

Zonked out.

 Kees has never been to Sunday school in America. He's been in the nursery, but never in Sunday school.  And in Thailand our church didn't have Sunday school, so this was epic.  I originally thought I'd just see if he could stay in the nursery with Kora, maybe I could stay for a while and then when he got used to being there, I'd go to my class.  My mom told me their nursery is actually pretty full, and since Kora isn't typically the one who is shy of strangers, we opted to have Doug drop her off at her class and I went with Kees.  I stayed with him the whole time. He never quite felt comfortable, but I'm trying to let him ease into things at his own pace.  So far, in lots of situations, he has surprised me with how brave he is, it just takes him a while to adjust to new surroundings and people.  I can easily forget how overwhelming it must feel for him.  He has spent the majority of his life in Thailand and rarely interacted with kids his own age.  It felt so strange sitting in the tiny chairs, looking at these big 4 year old kids and realizing that Kees is one of them.  He's always been "the white kid" or the "foreigner".  Now he blends right in, but his little life has been a far cry from what you'd call "normal".  As a mom that stresses me out.  I know kids are resilient and I know God is bigger than all of this, but sometimes when it's YOUR baby, you just wish you could do more or make things easier. 

Charting a path.

 Our story was about Paul and Barnabas and their missionary journeys.  I was able to share with the kids about how we traveled by plane to tell others about Jesus, but Paul and Barnabas had to go on much longer journeys by boat and then walked.  Kees warmed up enough to tell me about our plane ride.  He didn't look at the other kids, but he talked loud enough for them to hear, it may seem like nothing to you, but to me, that's progress and a hard step for him.  Little by little.

After Sunday school, we went to Big Church.  Do people still call it that?  Anyway, I left Kora in the nursery, assuming no news is good news.  When my mom came in the sanctuary, she asked where Kora was and wanted me to go get her, so she could show her off.  I should have said no.  She lasted for a couple songs and then Doug took her back to the nursery.  She cried when he left, but no for long. When I picked her up afterwards, she was covered in lemonade, my apologies to the lovely ladies who watched her.  She's a handful or two.

Nice try Gramee, she can't be contained.

Kees playing with an airplane.

Kora got really excited when she saw Grampa on stage, she kept pointing and chattering.

We came back to my parents house and had a yummy lunch. My mom made roast and mashed potatoes and I even got sweet potatoes to boot with pecans and marshmallows.  There were homemade rolls and probably some type of vegetable that I didn't eat, I had to save room for a second helping of sweet potatoes.

Ta da

This is the box from Kees's new car seat, we had been borrowing one.

Love those babies.

 My parents and a group from their church go to the nursing home once a month to sing songs and share a brief sermon.  My grandma, dad's mom who lives with them, went as well.  We stayed home, I considered going, but didn't feel up to wrangling Kora.  When they got back, I took my grandma, we call her Mamaw, to Wal-mart. Kees came with us because I bribed him with the promise of a new hot wheel car. He was reluctant to leave Kora, but I reminded him it was nap time and she'd be sleeping.  Sometimes he'd actually rather stay home and nap with Kora than go somewhere with me.  That kid loves his sister.  We saw this cricket on our way to the van.

One of my friends from church was telling me that I'd be trading all my jing joks for crickets/grasshoppers...I can't remember which, anyway, I've only seen one cricket, it wasn't IN the house and there have been no droppings left behind.  So yeah.  (P.S.  Have you ever noticed that Jiminy Cricket is green?  I never knew, until high school, that there was a difference between crickets and grasshoppers, I thought it was like lightning bugs and fireflys, same same, anyway I think Disney contributed to my misunderstanding by having a GREEN cricket.

Lies I tell ya!

 My mom, who is typically not tech-savvy, has dramatically upped her game.  She emailed me two lists for Wal-mart, her own list and Mamaw's.  She also instructed me that if they had the motorized scooter at Wal-mart, that Mamaw could go by herself, but if she had to walk, I'd need to stay with her.  I didn't really "need" anything at Wal-mart, and my mom's list was short, I figured when Mamaw was done I'd grab the couple of things and check out.  I underestimated Mamaw on a mission.  She got through with her shopping, checked out, and scooted herself to the van, but I had the keys.  When she saw I wasn't out there, she came back in.  In the meantime, I had walked around the whole store looking for her and was a little worried myself.  Just as I was coming around to the front of the store, she shot in through the doors, and said, "Oh there you are, I've been looking for you!"  Whoops, I'm guessing I probably won't be allowed to take Mamaw shopping again, at the very least, I think I'll just stay with her next time.  After she found me, I still had to go get the few items I needed from my mom's list, and then wouldn't you know, the line was crazy long and the person in front of me had some type of issue with their card.  We finally made it out alive, got home a little late for church, but still managed.

She's got a list, and she's not afraid to use it.

Kora is eating fake fruit loops, Kees picked them out at the store, they're called "tooty fruity", when Grampa was telling Kees about it, Kees was confused because when he goes to the bathroom he calls it "toot-toot", a random thing he came up with when he was a toddler.  He said, "What, toot toot on the cereal?"

Hiding under a blanket is always a good idea.

Back in the box.

Right as we were packing up to leave, the kids discovered and destroyed Gramee's calendar.  You're welcome.

And then Kora moved this stool over to this counter, we caught her before she got anything, but I'm kind of curious what she would have done had we not found her.  But not curious enough to leave her unattended.

Grampa helped Kora grab these wind chimes, she didn't really want to let them go.

We drove back to OKC late, and went right to bed. We had a big day planned for Monday...a zoo trip!