Out of Office

I'm off to the Coast with a group from Lombard Mennonite Church, so will be a bit unplugged for the next 7-10 days or so. Be assured that I will be busy, sweating, and slathered with mosquito repellent and sunblock. I'm sad to be leaving the kids again so soon, but I don't have another trip without them until September!

Driving

Besides defending my dissertation and getting the kids' visas renewed, while we were in the US I also got a new driver's license. It was crazy! My old license had expired while we were here in Colombia, but because I was turning 40 I needed an eye exam at the DMV. Well, I figured out much later that I could have had an eye exam here and had it validated somehow, but I thought I had to actually go to the DMV, which is why I couldn't just renew it online. 

So I had to take both the road and written tests again. It was me and a bunch of tiny little nervous teenagers. The written test was nerve-wracking - I had to review a lot and take practice tests online but some of the questions were really hard! Some sounded like trick questions and I would overthink them. Some things I just didn't know. But my muscle memory for actually operating a motor vehicle was fine, so the road test was super easy.

Here are a few random photos of the kids playing at the Children's Museum, but it kind of went with the car/driving theme :-)

Sogamoso

These photos are from about a year ago, in a lovely retreat center called Finca San Pedro (just to be clear, nobody was forced to do yoga against their will). It was high and cold and I had to up my blood pressure meds. The greater part of the group hiked up to a páramo, and Andean tundra, but the kids and I and two other stayed back for a relaxing time exploring the city. 

Part of our team at the time

We are currently planning our July retreat for this year, which made me reminisce about these photos that I never shared last year (my current blog renaissance is holding up fairly well for the moment...!)