Our Ship Came In

Last week, our ship came in. After some fun paperwork, the container was delivered in front of my mother's house.

Amazingly, everything was exactly as I had put it four weeks before. Nothing had shifted. All of the boxes were in the same place, and all breakable items remain unbroken. Anyone's doubts as to my claim of being a professional packer are now ended.

For my next trick, I removed everything from the container, by myself except for the lathe table and two work benches, and fit them into the left side of my mother's garage, which is SMALLER than the inside of the container.

The hard part was moving everything twice or three times. It needed to be taken out of the truck, put up on the driveway, and then neatly packed in the garage.

Believe it or not, this was all very fun for me, though I was sore for two days afterwards.

Here are some more pictures, which should be self explanatory. Dick and Chie helped me take the three really heavy things out with ramps and ropes.

Grandma's 65th Birthday

Craig's mother turned 65 years old yesterday. Actually, we said she was 49, but who's counting.

We ate pizza and Thai "salad rolls." These "salad rolls" were non-fat, no cholesterol scrambled eggs, somen, various leafy vegetables, cucumber and daikon rolled up in translucent tapioca sheets, like tortillas. We dipped them in a Thai chili sauce, of which their were two choices: mild and moderately spicy.

After dinner, Grandma opened her presents: a pillow made from recycled Indian clothing material by women in India; a rechargable, portable vacuum cleaner, and an upright vacuum cleaner. The latter two were things she wanted because her house has a central vacuum, but hauling the giant hose out every time she needs to vacuum the entry way carpet was too much, and sometimes there is just a little spill, like of dirt from a flower pot, and that is where the portable vacuum will be handy.

Kirie made Grandma play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" before each present, and it was very funny because Grandma kept having trouble with timing. Annie (Craig's sister Heather's younger daughter) "helped" Grandma unwrap her packages, and then she spent the next hour playing with the wrapping paper.


Then, of course, since it was a Roberts gathering, we played "Pounce," a card game that we love to play. Each person has their own deck of cards, and we play kind of like Solitaire, but all of the aces get put in the middle, and anyone can play on any cards out in the middle. It was a very fun game of pounce, with many funny moments. Sometimes we were laughing so hard people had tears in their eyes.



Part way through the Pounce game, we had a birthday cake, which Craig made (low calorie, very low fat, whole wheat carrot cake with non-fat cream cheese frosting) and three kinds of sorbet (blueberry, lemon and mango). It was all very tasty! Grandma had trouble blowing out the candles (five of them, four representing ten years, and one representing nine years). Craig's camera batteries ran out, so there are no cake pictures. We'll have to get them from Dick's camera later.

The moment they've been waiting for!

Well, it finally happened.

School wasn't cancelled, but it was delayed two hours because of snow.

Kirie got up about an hour earlier than usual because she was excited about the snow.

The busses are on snow routes. The snow is still coming down.

Chie has a spelling test today. Now she has extra time to study.

75% of us have made it to Oregon

Chie, Kirie and Craig are now in Oregon. Craig has only been here since 2/19/2007, but Kirie and Chie came a month before that.
Chie and Kirie are enjoying going to school. Kirie had a "baby" last week: a ten pound sack of flour. She had to take it with her everywhere she went and always keep it in her sight. "His" name was "Dwain." Unfortunately, Dwain fell on his head one day when Kirie was trying to lock the front door on her way out, and he developed a leak. Kirie was fairly distraught, and since everyone else was already out, she needed to call a neighbor help her bandage him up and get to school.
Chie has a spelling/vocabulary test every Wednesday. It has been a challenge for her, and we are all helping her to try to learn to use the words she needs for that week.
Craig has found a few job leads, and has applied to a number of jobs, but no interviews yet.
Hideko is still in Kumamoto, studying to be a Japanese teacher and finishing up the last ends of us leaving Kumamoto. She won't be able to go to Oregon until Craig has a job and applies for her visa and residency.

Stay tuned...