J-bird flies off to India!

Whew! In the past 3 weeks two children arrived home from college, my semester ended, all the snow melted, one child left for three months in India, my high school son went white water rafting, and our first a lamb of the year was born!

Here are pictures of J, ready to go to India. Doesn't she look excited??



J is with a volunteer program in India and will be working with disabled children. For years she dreamed of going to India, probably--partly at least--because I lived there when I was little. She heard all of my stories, and met my nanny, Helen, when she came to visit a few years ago. J is not a person who can envision things, and likes to know exactly what is going to be. When she was little she liked to be told exactly what we were going to do during the day. If there was any deviation from that plan she got quite upset. Before she left for India she told me that the hardest thing for her was not having a frame of reference for what it would be like. "It isn't as if I can say, 'well, it will be sort of like this, or sort of like that,'" she said. "I know it won't be like anything I can imagine at all."
So far India has not disappointed her and I can't imagine that it will! Even her first moments and days were eventful.
J arrived at night and had to take a rickshaw with her escort because the car that was to meet them was stuck in traffic, while waiting for her hotel room to be ready the electricity went out several times, she took bucket baths, bought a sari, visited a temple on a holiday, and she left just a week ago!

'Bye, J, have a great time!!!

Easter egg! Here is a sugar egg my son made in his culinary class. It even has a rose inside. You can see that a little in the picture taken from above.
His class made all of the flowers and the egg forms.

Off to Austria and Germany!
Away goes my son, meeting his school's bus, which we jokingly call Das Bus, to the airport and off to Europe for two weeks. He has his ski boots, helmet, ski pants, and oh, yeah, a few clothes in those two bags.

Relief
This is my son, just after finishing everything for his college applications. It was an ordeal, but it is done!!! If you could see the face behind the camera it too, would have relief written all over it.

End of a race day
He is tired at the end of a race day. The days start early, and as evidenced by this picture end after dinner. Although each race involves only two runs the racers take advantage of being at a new mountain and ski all day.
There is also a lot of standing around waiting to go, which can be pretty cold, especially in a GS suit!

The picture was blurry because my hand was not quite steady with the long exposure needed to take it in low light. Rather than discarding it, though, I added an effect which blurred it more, which I think somehow adds to the sleeping subject.