Blogs from Columbus, Ohio, United States, North America - page 3

Well, I often like to do things out of order. I am a non-sequitur kind of guy. So I am posting my second blog entry and pre-dating it to make it look like my first. All of this so I do not have to speak in past tense. Yea! We have been matched. CCAI notified us that they had a match for us. She is absolutely beautiful. Her given name is Kai Xin, which means "delighted." We plan on calling her Aislinn, which means "dream." She is our happy dream. She was born with a cleft lip and palate. Her lip has been repaired. We will get her palate repaired when she gets home. "When she gets home;" it makes it sound like she is just away for a few days and will be back soon. ... read more

Straight from Josh's house I went to visit another group of 2p2ers (i.e. members of the twoplustwo forum) in Columbus. I only actually stayed in Columbus for 1 night, and then we went on a 3 day trip to Andy's lakehouse on Lake Tappan, a couple of hours east of Columbus. The trip was really fun, the weather was awesome so we just chilled in the sun with beers and went swimming in the lake (which, due to it's shallowness, was really warm. I don't just mean warm as in not that cold, it actually felt warm on your skin when you got in) whenever we wanted. We also went out on his boat a few times, where I tried tubing - which is incredible. You basically sit in an inflatable donut-shaped ring, attached to the ... read more

Greetings All: My trip back home was a bit of a shocker. The noises I had grown accustomed to were no longer there, so no beeping, unneccessary screaming, spitting, hacking and splashing of mop water. I must admit, though those sounds are at times unsettling, I find a strange comfort in the chaos and find uninterrupted silence a bit sad and lonely. The first five days were spent with me desperately trying to get my sleeping pattern back to U.S time. Then I kicked back, didn't do anything, or see anyone I was suppose to, and instead, I watched good old American trash T.V and read a lot of books. I've really missed using my ability of comprehension and pretty much drowned myself in English related materials. My sister had her twins! A boy and a ... read more

Intensive Planning Over We are finally all set to go on the trip, it was a far more laborious process than I would have liked. Last Minute Planning Begins Now we scurry around for those things we may have missed. My only complaint is how bulky all of our camera and video equipment is, but then that is the point. My Sony that Pat gifted me 5+ years ago still takes amazing pictures, especially when mated to the lens adapter from Sony. But I am betting nothing will beat the Nikon D80 for good pictures of wildlife. Our goals remain as follows: 5 Countries in 3 Weeks: *South Africa *Swaziland *Zambia *Zimbabwe *Namibia Must Sees: *Kruger NP - Seek the 'Big 5' in Famed Game Park *Victoria Falls - One of Seven Natural Wonders, twice as ... read more

We woke up nice and early in Philly, to finish a little packing before heading to get the truck. Getting the truck turned out to be pretty easy, a 16' Penske is our chariot across the country (along with our car towed behind it)...so far, it's not the best thing, but it's an awesome adventure. A bunch of our friends came to help us load all our ridiculous amount of stuff up into the back of the truck, parked on the curb on Spruce until some cop decided to tell us we couldn't park there (even though people do all the time for hours at a time), and then across the street in a loading zone. So a HUGE thanks to all of our friends for carrying our stuff down four flights of stairs and across ... read more