We were at a meeting last week with the school counselor at the boys' school. She had asked us as a family to join a team to help evaluate and come up with new ideas for her action plan. At one point she was telling us about current clubs and groups that are either meeting or have met in the past -- ways to offer support to children in certain areas -- and she asked us if we had any other suggestions. Ben (8) raised his hand and asked, "What about 'The Forgetful Club?'" No one knew what he meant, so we asked him to elaborate. "You know, for kids from families that forget things all the time." Thanks, Ben. We had a particularly bad week last week -- I'm quite certain that we won the 'Most Absent-Minded Family of the Week (Year?) Award"!
That said, we are especially busy and distracted these days as we prepare to go to Peru. We keep commenting that while we are going about our daily lives here, there is a little girl going about her everyday activities who will soon be part of our family!
Ali's first birthday was on October 19th, so, God-willing, she will be a "Mayes" by the time she is 16 months-old. (As an aside, we have decided to keep her name as is, with the Spanish pronunciation and spelling, but we are going to call her Ali.) From the four current members of the "Forgetful Club", we appreciate your patience and especially all of the kindness and support you have offered to us!
This past Sunday we took her to our favorite church in town that we used to go to when we lived here in 2008-09. The Catholic priest, "Father Freddy," was still there and as engaging as ever. Alejandra sat through the entire service peacefully, which did not go unnoticed by Tim and Ben. We had lunch afterwards at the local bakery (below) where Tim did so much home-schooling with Jen three years ago (at Table #7).
