It was beyond a privilege to have my sisters here (nearly a month ago! Whoops!), and that hasn’t fallen on me lightly. I felt like I kept reveling in it throughout their trip. It is a privilege that we have made a new home here around the world, we’ve fallen in love with this community and made this little border town our normal. And then further, we have family we love that makes incredible sacrifices and efforts to jump around the globe and visit us here, in our little place. We get to vacate together to exotic places; we get to sit together around street food and share the experience. I get to introduce them to the little kids that know our names, to the women who fill our home every day; even to the pad Thai shop owner that knows our order and knows I can never remember how to say “lime” in Burmese. What fun to say, over and over again, “These are my orders sisters! All three of them! Yes, we do look the same, don’t we?”
It was a gift beyond so many gifts.
Round 1 arrived first!
And when Round 2 arrived, we hopped ourselves right into a taxi!
And we skipped across town to another airport to catch a flight to the beach at 3am, because why not?
And we started out this epic trip with the extravagance of a few days on the beach! Again, it’s all just beyond words.
We were on the beach for my birthday, which was just the best day ever. We had a slow breakfast at our AirBnB before heading out to my favorite beach. They brought huge 3-0 balloons from the US, and my sweet hubs managed to drive an hour to the nearest place to get helium 🙂 So of course we spent the day snapping photos and carting huge balloons across the island in our little rental car.
We spent a few days exploring the different beaches, and decided that might be the best place to get over jet lag!
And we did a puzzles, because #nurtureovernature is a thing. I laughed when one sister pulled a puzzle out of her bag; and then the next day as two of us sat down giddy to do a puzzle on our holiday.
One of the things I looked forward to most with my sisters coming was to run with my sister, Keri. She’s my favorite running partner: probably because we’re the same height and build–scarily similar–so we run at the exact same pace. I love the conversation and ease of running with her, and I’ve been dreaming of it in anticipation of this visit.
She graciously got up with me at 6am on my birthday (with jet lag!) so I could start my birthday early and with running outside (the way all good days begin!). And for our last day we ended our run at the beach, where the others met us with Starbucks.
We certainly know how to holiday, since we all come from crazy lives (theirs for kids and careers chaos; me for my friendly neighborhood chaos!).
And honestly? I had a drastically awful birthday a few years back; it ended in the ER with a community stabbing, and it was a rough recovery. It had some lasting traumatic effects, where I’ve dreaded my birthday the past few years. This was the best, and I so thoroughly enjoyed the rest, the waves, the swimming and running and being outside. My sisters and husband! That’s a lot of favorite people in this extravagantly beautiful place.
It was really redemptive. And I’m not sure what more you could ask for on your 30th birthday 😊
(Okay, well, maybe for your adoption agency to place you; for your favorite neighborhood to grow and thrive and break cycles, but hey–one miracle at a time!)