Bountiful Surprises (2nd edition)

My apologies for not staying more consistent with these blogs. Thank you all so much for your positive feedback. Once again, I've been very busy the past few weeks...which means I now have plenty more to blog about (still struggling a bit to find sufficient time...I apologize in advance if this is not tremendously coherent). 

Alright...to properly explain my latest excuse for busy-ness, I must transport you back in time to last Thursday evening (March 3rd). Brooke had asked us (Jerri K and I) if we would accompany her to the airport to pick up a person as a favor for a friend. She sounded a bit reluctant to do it, and explained that it would just be really nice to not have to do it alone. I thought this a little strange since the person she was picking up was a female and Brooke was going to be taking her daughters with her (and she doesn't usually have much problem chatting with people she doesn't really know), but flexibility is key here (and we were getting dinner out of the deal... :) ...yeah, I'm still in college student mode!). Anyways, as we were driving to the airport, the girl called Brooke to let us know that her plane had landed and she would be sitting in the lobby waiting for us. Brooke told the girl that she was going to send two young ladies in to collect her and gave her Jerri K's description so she would know who to look for. When we got to the airport, Jerri K and I hopped out of the car and went in to look for this girl...only then realizing that we had no idea who to look for...good grief. 

I wish now that I would have had my camera with me to take a picture of what we found in that lobby.... We had looked through one mostly empty seating area and moved on to the next when I saw (from the side) a young lady sitting towards the front staring at the lobby doors. From her body language, I thought she could very well be our fare...then as we walked a little closer I realized that she looked very similar to our good friend Filicia from Beaumont...she actually looked a LOT like Filicia...enough to actually be Filicia...what were the odds?!?!? Sure enough, about that time, she turned and saw us and had just enough time to smile and stomp her foot that we had "snuck up" on her before Jerri K was squeezing her tight and repeatedly touching her face to be sure she was really there!!! A few tears were shed...a few more threatened...and after about 5 minutes of hugging and pinching and face-touching, we determined that we did indeed have a huge blessing standing in front of us...one we would enjoy for an entire week! :)

When we finally escorted her out to the car, Brooke was absolutely beaming and when I turned to the little girls (Bella and Alex) in the back seat to explain who this "new girl" was, they were both mirroring their mother's face...they'd been in on it, too!!! (At least for a few hours!!!). I found out later that day that Leslie and the boys (and I'm sure John, too) had known about it for several days as well!!! We live with a bunch of REALLY good secret-keepers!!! I couldn't believe it! (I'm definitely going to be the weak link around here next Christmas...I can tell already!)

Anyways, we had a wonderful week with Ms. Filicia...she was such a huge encouragement to us both (and we did lots of "touristy" things with her...so those will be some of the blog subjects later this week, hopefully).

Here's a picture of Jerri K and Filicia with one of our new friends in Dubai...this was taken at Safa Park (one of the greenest places I've seen in Dubai) and shows a lovely portion of the Dubai skyline (that's the Burj Khalifa on the far left...the tallest building in the world!...and we went up to the 124th floor!!!...but more about that later....)

P.S. I told you I'd keep you updated on interesting drinks/foods I've tried...I've discovered some relatively inexpensive juices that I've been experimenting with. So far...Strawberry is good, Mango is good, (strawberry and mango mixed is good), Orange Carrot juice is good (as in, the fruit orange, not the color), Guava juice is not so good (unless it's mixed with the orange carrot and some lemonade...then it's not too bad...just adds some texture to the drink!). Also, the Fruit punch I tried was pretty good...but Mango and Strawberry (and of course, Red Orange) are my favorites. :)