First I want to say how cute our family is, they love playing games and they really do love each other and are great at working together.

This visit was my first one with my new phone.  I know the little boy loves games, so I showed him angry birds on my phone.  He immediately got the hang of it.  I was glad to see how into technology he was and how easily he picked up on things.  He showed it to his dad and his mom who got really excited!

This is where the confusion starts.  The family doesn’t speak much English still, so they asked me how much it was.  I told them that the game was free, but the phone was 100 dollars.  They got really excited about that and all of a sudden they took out a HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL! I was so confused! Liz and I thought they wanted to buy my phone! I told them I’m sorry but I can’t sell them this!

So, they kept talking about iphones and ipods and what not, which confused me because I don’t own one.  Then they put someone on the phone who asked me if I can go to the store and buy them one of these.  Finally, we had to explain through a translator that they needed a phone contract to get an iphone.  We felt terrible for the confusion, and they must have felt a little embarrassed too because the father said sorry later. Maybe sometime later they can get an iphone and a contract with them, otherwise Liz and I will research if getting another device that doesn’t require internet, or contracts, or monthly fees would work out.

Otherwise the visit went wonderful!

Last week when we went to see our family, I brought my mom who was in town. I had asked the week before if that was okay and they were excited. When we arrived everyone was very gracious and excited to see us. We ate some delicious food as usual and the mother in our family even packed some up for my mom to go because she liked it so much. I was a really interesting experience because the mother was very comfortable with my mom, perhaps because they are a similar age. She spoke to her in English quite well and asked her her age and how many kids she had. It was really interesting and I was actually surprised because through I think the mom has a basic knowledge of English, she does not use it often around us. After the meal the mom left to go skype with her brother at a friends house and we stayed with two of the children. We played mancala as usual and I actually won this time! We helped with homework and talked a little but about Nepal and its population compared to Chicago and things like that. The older son was reading a Nepali/English dictionary in order to better his English. It was definitely a different kind of day, everyone was relaxed and it seemed like my mom visiting made it more of a family occasion! It was just a nice and quiet Sunday afternoon.

I had so much fun with my family on this trip. The youngest daughter was home tonight and she is 100% adorable. Her English has even improved a little since we first saw her which I think is great for a 4 year old. This time was much more silly and relaxed with the family than it usually is. Sarah brought her camera today and they all went nuts posing for pictures and wanting to take them, especially the baby. She must have taken at least fifty pictures of things like her brothers backpack, the wall, etc. It was hilarious! It took her the longest time to realize she needed to hold the button down longer, but once she figured it out Sarah couldn’t get her camera back!

We also discovered that the eldest son and the older daughter have facebooks, which we then of course spent time finding and friending them. It was so crazy to me that they’ve only been here since July and they already have up and running facebooks!

Their cousin was also there and she was a riot as well. She is much more Americanized than our family and speaks English really well, which is really helpful a lot of the time, especially because her family was celebrating Thanksgiving and she informed us that our family would be with them. I was happy that they had family near by to spend the holiday with because me and Sarah both went home for break and wouldn’t see them for a few weeks.

I had given them my cell phone number a few weeks back in case they ever needed it and on this trip I got a chance to look at the phone they use, my contact name was Hollis Teacher which I thought was pretty cool. We’ve gotten into this great habit of helping them with their homework and I found it neat that they referred to us as teachers, especially because to them it seems like a role worthy of trust and respect. The eldest son actually called me on Thanksgiving too! I think they were just checking the number because he didn’t say much but he did sound like he was having a good time with his family for the holiday.