Attack of the visiting family!

I thought that this title was an appropriate (although my family may disagree with me) summary of the events of the past few weeks. My blog was one of the first victims of the attack and is only now recovering from the onslaught. It was a long battle and at points I almost succumbed to the overwhelming fatigue but somehow I survived. Haha. Okay I think it's time to put an end to that analogy. I reckon I probably carried that analogy too far and my mom is probably mad at me for suggesting that their incredibly generous and wonderful visit somehow reminded me of an attack.

In case you didn't pick up on it, my family just visited me here in Thailand. Somehow they managed to find two weeks when they weren't doing something else, scrounged up a few plane tickets and crossed that big wide ocean. I greeted them at the airport on June 15th at about midnight after they had been traveling for about 26 hours. Now, I don't want to take anything away from their incredible sacrifice and the pains of international travel, but I do want to make mention of the fact that prior to meeting them I had slept four hours the night before, was up at 6am, worked all day, traveled to Chiang Mai by bus, flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and met them in the airport at midnight (which for me was actually midnight...for them it was the middle of the afternoon....sort of). Anyway, our reunion was highly anticipated by many and on several times (as my mom later recounted to me) there was actually a countdown in progress. While highly anticipated, the reunion didn't play out as all had thought. It turned out that I was waiting at the wrong gate. To be honest, they came out the wrong gate (but don't tell them that). What ended up happening was Sara wandering around the airport, spotting me from across the corridor and running up to me. Mom shortly followed and I was brought back to where Dad and Kali were waiting with the bags at which point Kali began her steady rulk (run/walk) towards me (she is still recovering from knee surgery). We were reunited at last! The only one missing was Taryn, but she had already arrived in Thailand several weeks ago and was asleep in her apartment as she had to work the next day. We grabbed a limo (they called it a limo but it was nothing more than a minivan) and headed for the hotel.

The hotel was nice. Another nice perk about the family (specifically the parents) coming to visit means that we stay in nice hotels (or at least much nicer hotels than I normally stay in when I travel). We got to the hotel at about 2am and I was immediately bombarded with presents. It seems as though half their luggage was presents for me. I felt bad as they had come to visit me and brought presents. I had nothing for them. We decided to open the presents in rounds and the first one I was given was a tin of homemade cookies from my mom. Apparently she was a cooking fool the week before they left and had made all these cookies to bring with her for my sister and I (and the rest of the family seeing as she made a ton!). It was a wonderful treat! I bit into the first one and it was still soft - a testament to how recently they were baked (and my mom's baking abilities). Despite the jet lag and the long day behind us, we seemed to take a long time to get settled down and ready for bed. I don't think that I got to sleep until about 4 or 4:30.

And that was the first several hours. It was really great to see them all again. It had been just under a year since I had seen them. I left the US on July 4th and they arrived on June 15th. Of course they had changed a bit, but on the whole they were still the same as when I left and we seemed to just pick up right where we left off. It's uncanny how family is able to do that. You can be apart for so long and as soon as you're back together you just jump right back into your old habits and assume your traditional role. That was very comforting.

I'm going to try to recount the visit in several volumes so as to not overwhelm you but as with other entries that plan may very well fail. Only time will tell.

Until then,

Ryan

P.S. Just to reiterate what I said above I do not in any sense truly feel like I was attacked by my family while they were here. I won't say that I wasn't physically harmed (I was...I had to share a bed with my sister Kali who has a habit of kicking and hitting those close to her while she sleeps), but I most definitely wasn't attacked.