Nine months interlude...

I am now a student at Johns Hopkins University, in Bologna, Italy. Nine months lie between my new life here and that ferry ride across the Straits of Gibraltar.










Those months were spent working at Play Mart, the family playground business ... including working with a great team certifying our playground equipment to meet international playground safety codes, analyzing the recycled content of our plastic lumber, making a short-film of how are playgrounds are made from milk jugs and giving tours, to name a few fun items. I also got to spend quality time that I dearly missed while in Morocco with my parents, siblings and little niece and nephew.

The whole crew: L-to-R, top row first: Nathan, Laura (his wife), me, Dawn (bottom row:) Priscilla, Gracia, Mom, Dad, Samuel, and Tabitha

This is Gracia, running away from her "aunties"

And little "mambo" aka Samuel

I also soaked up every minute I could spend at my parents' luxurious abode... we gardened and landscaped and potted flowers and cooked and watched movies and took strolls through the neighborhood or down to the lake. This was basically my life outside of work. A lovely interlude between "roughing it" in Morocco (if you can call my Peace Corps service that..) and an intense graduate school program.





















My sister, Dawn, also happened to be transitioning from Virginia Beach at the same time I was there. We were able to reconnect as adults, having both lived in different places ever since she left for college in Texas.












Mom, Dad, Priss and I went to San Francisco one weekend in May on a whim. Priss wanted to move there, but it somehow didn't "click". Instead, she visited me last month in Washington DC (during pre-term, before I flew to Italy), fell in love with the place, and has already moved in with my friends!


Mom, Dad, Priss and I went to San Francisco one weekend in May on a whim.
Priss wanted to move there, but it somehow didn't "click".























Instead, she visited me last month in Washington DC (during pre-term, before I flew to Italy), fell in love with the place, and has already moved in with my friends until she gets established. Hopefully we'll live together next year when I return.



Like clockwork, one of my Cedarville friends gets married: every six months to a year. Always a perfect excuse to reunite. The problem: the group of ladies standing behind the bride, waiting to catch the bouquet of flowers has dwindled ... to me. The boys have almost caught up to the girls, so I'll have to decide if I'm going to keep us on schedule or remain the single friend who hops around the world, giving them a life to live vicariously.


Photos courtesy of Dennis Beach, Tabitha Beach, Dave Black