Back again

We just got home today from our five day break. I have a love hate relationship with five day breaks. In order to go away, someone has to come and basically take over our lives as dorm parents, usually a teaching family who work all day and then dorm parent all night! That means copious notes on our students, their schedules, their homework load, their likes and dislikes. It also means I bake up a lot of food to leave so the people staying here don't have to find their way around my kitchen. It also means we have to clean our apartment and wash all the sheets and towels before leaving. That alone takes the whole first morning of our time off and then we pack up everything we might possibly need, find transportation since we don't own a vehicle here (other than a scooter) and go away somewhere. That's the hate part of the equation.

The love part is the time away. Its good to get off campus, away from the activity and noise - did I mention we live RIGHT next door to middle school? Its good to see some new scenery, eat some different food, sleep in, stay up late and not have to worry for a few days about the needs of 11 other people...just the two we are biologically attached to! Funny thing is we end up talking all about our 'kids' while we are away and miss them quite a bit. We laugh at the silly things they say and the cute things they do and worry about whether they are doing OK in our absence.

Anyway, this trip we headed back to Genting on Friday for the jungle race. But alas, Kaleb was sick Thursday through Saturday and woke up Sunday morning with a sore tummy still so the guys couldn't do the father/son event. We packed up and headed into KL, stopped at the Batu Caves which are amazing to see after the 400 stair climb. We also wanted to shop at IKEA but couldn't get a parking space so left and came back to Penang. We booked into a hotel a few blocks down the street in a suite with an attached bedroom. It had an amazing view of the Malacca Straits. Kids went to school and Tim and I slept in, read, ate, had full body massages and sat by the pool.

Now we are back at it after reading five days worth of emails and all the notes Gerry and Beth, the willing and kind teachers-turned-dorm-parents, left for us. The good news is next semester the whole school has spring break so students fly home and we get 7 days off to stay in our apartment if we want to or to go somewhere with another family. That'll be great!

P.S. I'll post pictures when the camera battery is charged.