birthday stroll con't

I think one of the BEST presents one can present is taking the time to be present. And that is exactly the gift that was given our family by cousins the weekend of February 20th. We had flown into Virginia Thursday evening/Friday morning and who should just show up but Uncle Dave and two cousins. What a screech of surprise reached our ears Saturday morning as the girls discovered their cousins had snuck in after a very long car ride Friday night.

It is interesting that the word PRESENT has so many meanings in our language:

–NOUN pres⋅ent

a thing presented as a gift; gift: your time with us

pre⋅sent –verb (used with object)

1.	to furnish or endow with a gift or the like, esp. by formal act: to present someone with a gold watch, or your time

pres⋅ent –adjective

being with one or others or in the specified or understood place: to be present for a wonderful weekend.

I so thank you Vosteen cousins for making the tremendous effort it took to see us for such a brief time.

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Birthday stroll, 2009

On February 20, 1994 Vaden was born in Williamsburg. Prior to her actually entrance, we had to walk, and walk. Therefore in honor of that day we showed Vaden where she had "walked" just before the grand arrival. Here are a few snippets of the day in CW, which by way was as beautiful as 15 years ago.

The MUST for tourist foto!

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Cultural thoughts

We have been living in Germany for over three years now, actually three years, two months and fifteen days, but who is counting. And the longer I live here, there is so much more I find I don't know and am not even close to knowing. When I say knowing, I'm talking about the kind of knowledge that is so deep that one does not even know they know it. It is the kind of knowledge that you have to think hard about even knowing. In short, it is cultural. My latest example concerns time. Yes, we all know and joke about the Germans being a very time sensitive people, they like to be on time for all things. Which for me means always being in a rush, but I have yet to see a German person rush to get anywhere; for whatever reason, they are there on time or before, as I come skidding in the door sideways just to not be more than 10 minutes late!..I'm telling ya it is cultural, from the time a baby breathes its first breath.

Now the other type of time awareness I have discovered recently is the view of chronological time. Last week while in a ladies group, the subject came up of how long our family was going to be able to stay in Germany. I answered that we would be leaving sometime in the summer of 2010. The response was "So SOON?" In my mind I'm thinking, ok that is 18 months away...a lot can happen in 18 months, it is a whole school year and a half, it is one and a half winters,two springs, two summers away...my American cultural was showing. The German folks take their long term thinking very seriously. While most Americans may start thinking of a summer vacation by around January or February. A German family knew last fall where they were going for summer break and it may be camping just a couple hours drive away. These are not good spontaneous folk as a whole. So eighteen months is in the foreseeable future.

But getting back to my ladies' group, I feel so honored and humbled to get that response, they really do see my time with them as short. So in order for me to honor that I need to be aware and not flippant about time...on my watch or on my calender.

Nature at Her best!

This is what Wils and I were greeted with this frosty morning, March 18, 2009. I have rarely seen anything so beautiful as what met our eyes. Enjoy God's gift to us.

I wish I could have the music of the Frost Fairies from Fantasia playing for you.

(click for closer view)

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