Day 1: What do you miss most about home

I have several thoughts on this- I miss so many things about home! Here is the short list:

1. Family and Friends! I'm lucky that I get to skype with my mom, dad, brother and sister fairly regularly, and I keep in contact with a lot of my friends through email and facebook. This is the first time I've been away for this long and it's been really hard to not see all the people I love.

2. Our car- although I love that most everything is within walking distance and I can just put the baby in the stroller to go to the grocery store, friends houses, campus, etc. I miss the ease sometimes of driving a car. Especially because the car has air conditioning and walking around here pushing the stroller can get very very hot. I especially missed it when I had strep and had to go into the health clinic and then to the pharmacy to get antibiotics (strep throat+pushing a stroller 1 mile just to get a prescription in 95 degree weather= no fun)

3. Stores like Target- I just think back now on all the things you can buy in Target, really anything you could ever need. There is just nothing like that available here. We can get basic groceries and some other necessities, but it's very limited. I think I might cry when I walk into Target when we move back to the states.

4. My dishes- this sounds like such a little thing, but living in this rental with a semi-furnished kitchen (meaning we have 4 plates, a few forks and spoons, 1 pot, 2 pans, you get the idea- it's everything absolutely necessary with no extras) makes me miss my beautiful dishes I got for our wedding, along with all the other kitchenware that just makes cooking so easy. I miss our nice sharp knives, our blender, all my different sizes of pots and pans, all my measuring cups (here I have a 1 cup measuring cup and a 1/4 cup measuring cup and that's it), our pretty silverware. This might sound ridiculous, but I will appreciate all our stuff so much when we get back!

5. I miss getting dressed up! I miss being able to wear layers, high heels and actually styling my hair with a blow dryer and curling iron. Someday. . .

And just for Heidi, who would be extremely disappointed in me if I posted anything without pictures of her sweet little nephew- here are a few pictures I snapped of Chaser today.

Although Chase doesn't have a super cute happy face here (it was really hot and he was really tired) I thought he was acting so funny. He loves loves loves keys. He had his head rested on Ben's chest, but one hand was always reaching over for his keys.

Chaser in his stroller. He has been quite the somber kid today. Maybe he's finally getting a tooth? In the picture above he's smiling at a little friend who was playing peek-a-boo with him. It was one of the few smiles he gave out all day.