Last Week, Starring Khun Ta, Pancakes, and Lake Bebee

Last week, Khun Ta (grandpa in thai) stopped by for a quick visit. We only actually saw him for a few hours, but they were a nice few hours. He grew up in Dundee which is only about an hour away from here. His 40th High School reunion was last weekend so he drove up Saturday morning, stopped at our place for a couple of hours and then went to his reunion. He spent the night with us, went to church, hung out a couple more hours and then left to go home. We sure do love Khun Ta!

Darin started school. He actually "started" school the week before with a week long 9a.m. to 4p.m. math camp. Classes started this week.

Shae and I made him banana pancakes for his special "First Day of School" breaskfast. The "C" pancake for Cornell.

The excitement is contagious. 

We are really enjoying Sunday afternoons since leaving Williamsburg. The branch we went to went from 11a.m.-2p.m., we always had meetings before and Darin had to stay afterwards as well, it made for a REALLY long Sunday. The drive home was at least a half an hour (depending on traffic) so the kids generally fell asleep for 20 minutes and then woke up as soon as we stopped the car at our house (or we would drive around for 20-30 minutes longer to stretch the naps). We loved our branch, but Sundays were pretty exhausting.

We now have 9a.m.-12p.m. church. The church building is 5 minutes away from us. We come home, we all nap, we wake up and still have a good chunk of afternoon left for exploration. It's glorious. Last Sunday we explored Cornell's lake, Lake Beebee. That's right, there is a lake on campus, and a nice little family friend hike (path) along with it. How cool is that? 

 Have I mentioned how easy Ithaca is making this transition for us? The great part about all this beauty surrounding us is that it literally surrounds us. We don't have to go very far to find it.