I’ve been pretty regular (read obsessive) in keeping up with my new MySpace account. I’ve been back and forth on the phone with my sister looking up as many people from the past as we can think of. We’ve now successfully located Shawn, Petey, James and Lee from Baraka. They are all doing well and seemed to be excited to hear from us. You should have heard our squeals of delight as we found each one of them. We were like pigs in mud. I am now trying to figure out a way for Ellen and I to take a roadtrip to Baltimore to see them. It’s a really long drive, but I’d do it even to spend a single Saturday with those boys. It’s so funny that our year in Kenya with them was wraught with difficulty yet ended up forging such strong bonds of love and relationship.
Tonight my friend Sara is coming to see the house and have dinner with me. Tomorrow night our friends Emil and Meghan are coming over to do the same. This was the motivation I needed to push forward in the settling in process. I finished painting the dining room table and chairs. They turned out great! I can see the imperfections, but hopefully no one else will notice them! I also wanted to get the basement full of boxes sorted out and organized. Last night I was up late, but I accomplished my goal. Nearly every box has been sorted and tucked away. It’s so nice to walk downstairs and not be met with boxes everywhere! I’m looking forward to getting our new couch so that we can move our current one into the basement. The den area is pretty weak without it.
I’ll try to post some pictures of this progress soon!

I don’t think I realized it was a 12 hour drive! Oh well, it could be fun to spend that time with Ellen and I would LOVE to see the boys!
The table wasn’t too hard. It required sanding with 2 types of paper, a coat of primer, two coats of paint and two coats of wax. Ok, it was alot of work! But I love it!
I always look forward to seeing your little steps of progress settling into your house. I’m glad I get to see it evolve. Was the table a ton of work? HOpe you have fun with Sara and Emil and Megan. Tell them I said hi. Dave and I are driving to New Jersey for the weekend (for a story for his job). I’ve driven to Boston for the weekend too…all about 12 hours each way…just like Baltimore would be. It’s possible but also can be considered somehwat insane:) I’ll let you know how the drive goes this weekend.