Daughter No. 2 has returned from her trip to the South Pacific. She still isn't home because now she is in Florida with her youth group. During her brief touch-down at home, she deposited some great pictures from her stay in Fiji, in New Zealand, and in Sydney. Brief photo tour:
No. 2 in the middle--with two students from a Fijian high school. Funny, we were told to send school supplies, so everyone loaded up on Dora the Explorer type things, thinking they would be spending time with little kids. They cleared out the elementary age gifts before handing over their donations when they realized they would be spending time with kids their own age. Oops.
The entire People to People delegation on top of Mount Manganui in New Zealand. The story goes there was a beautiful woman mountain and a smaller slave mountain, not so beautiful. The slave mountain mooned over the beautiful mountain and sent night fairies to send his message of love. Upon rejection, he asked the night fairies to end his misery by sinking him out to sea. They got only so far when the sun came up, and they dropped the poor guy in the middle of the ocean where he sits to this day--Mount Manganui.
Given the sheep to people ratio in New Zealand (12:1, or 15:1, depending on who you ask), one must return with a sheep photo.
It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water. ...
Comments
Gorgeous photos, too. Daughter no.2 looks so grown up already. You must be very proud of her, Robyn.
And I have always wanted to visit Sydney.
I must admit to a terror of kangaroos, however. I witnessed a zoo employee getting kicked by one as a child and it gave me nightmares for weeks. Kicking kangas STILL show up in my nightmares occasionally.
And now she is in Florida. Ah. A beach. Sounds lovely.
I'm jealous.
And what a great trip that must have been!