refugee family – Tchin Tchin!

A blog about our family, travel, and our empty nester adventures!

It’s been rather quiet around here since we got back from our (second) trip to NYC. We’ve been trying to entice Clay to get over to the house more so we can have a bit more family time. We’ve taken lots of walks on the beach.

We’ve been trying to get all the doctor and dentist visits taken care of while Paige is home for the summer…

Clay has been doing a bit of fishing and even took Paige along one day…but apparently, she is a jinx because they didn’t catch a thing.

We’ve been trying to get everything together (making sure we’ve got converters, etc) for our trip to Paris later this month – I’m flying over with Paige so we can have a few days to museum hop and shop before she begins her Intensive French program in July.

We had my sweet refugee family over for a lovely dinner, with lots of laughter and interesting conversation. I’m so happy to know this wonderful family and to be able to call them my friends! Paige had a little admirer…and taught her how to do a forward roll. AND how to use snapchat filters. I’m sure her parents will be eternally grateful.

The past few weeks have been busy. We’ve been house hunting, for starters. I’m astounded at how some people live. I admit to secretly sort of enjoying walking through stranger’s homes, silently criticizing or admiring their decorating choices, and getting a glimpse into other people’s lives. The inventory of homes here, in our price range, is quite limited so it is a bit of a seller’s market. Even so, it is amazing how many people have simply listed their messy homes…it doesn’t appear that there has been much, if any, sprucing up of the homes. As for cleaning…? Ugh. Just…ugh. (Seriously – how do people even live like that? Much less let strangers walk through their homes and see that they live like that?! Houses stinking of dog, mold in showers, stuff…everywhere?)

We are hoping that as the weather warms up more houses will appear in MLS. Because right now there is nothing. At least nothing that will work.

I spent one day last week driving my refugee family around the area. They live in the middle of Jacksonville and had not had a chance to see much of the city. It was a beautiful day, so we drove east and stopped at the beach. They loved it. Obviously, the beach is a completely new experience for them (Afghanistan isn’t really known for its beaches 😏). They were able to FaceTime their family in Afghanistan and share the experience with them, which was kind of fun. Afterwards, we had a lovely lunch and then drove around St. Augustine before stopping at the store and heading home.

Paige came home for Easter last weekend and it was so nice to relax with the kids and spend time together. One more month until they’re both done with final exams and home for the summer. I can’t wait!