'Under a Blood Red Sky'

Today is New Year's Day. Most years I feel like it marks the end of a long holiday season but this time it is like the starting gun for what I expect to be a 3-month marathon. Next week is my daughter's 7th birthday so in addition to a special celebration with her classmates at school, we are having 7 girls sleep over the following Saturday. On Friday, we have to take the kids for their dreaded vaccination appointment and the week after that, Grandma is coming to visit so that Edmund and I can make our "preview" visit to Lagos. Somewhere between now and then, we need to get our visas, pack and prepare for the trip, plan Clayton's 5th birthday which will take place after we return and continue to tackle our relocation To Do list which at this point must be visible from Mars, or at the very least, Sweden.

Link to Lyrics that I love

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'What did you expect from...'

Last year at the SXSW festival there was a band called The Vaccines whose music was featured as a free itunes download that I of course picked up on my daily Starbucks run. The song is totally inappropriate for any grandparents that may be reading this so I will refrain from divulging it here. However, the song was running through my head as I got jabbed not 5, not 6 but 7 times at the Company Health clinic. Apparently the batch of vaccines I had in 2001 when we went to Guatemala only had a shelf life of 10 years (and HOW has 10 years gone by?) so I had to get re-vaccinated for a few not-so-pleasant illnesses and heaps of Nigeria-specific ones. Typhoid, Yellow Fever, Rabies, DTAP (Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), Flu, meningococcal, Hep A, Hep B, Polio.. I could go on (and I'm sure I will in a related post!).

Luckily, the stick itself doesn't hurt. The idea of putting my kids through the same thing, however... anyone have a pony for sale?

Link to Lyrics that I love

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Test post with a pic

This is a test post on Dec 26... Today we did X, below is the pic!

Uluru, Australia, September 2008