What I Miss -- a guest post from Ethan

We're just days away from the halfway point of our time in Israel/Palestine. I asked Ethan what he misses (since he's the one who mentions missing home the most) and he wrote a long list. I'm grouping his items a bit more than he did....

In general, Ethan misses (in his own words):

• Being nearer to family
• Libraries
• Unlimited free refills of soda
• Having a car
• Friends
• Going to the creek
• Recognizing places as we drive about
• Lazy mornings where I can wake up at 10:00 and eat breakfast then
• Our church Truro
• D.C.
• Snow
• Being with family during the holidays
• Food: smoothies, Krispy Kreme donuts, pizza, caramel frappuccinos, Costco samples, hamburgers
• Cereal, waffles, pancakes, and coffeecake for breakfast
• Our homeschool organization IBCHE
• Cherry blossoms
• Having a larger variety of clothes to wear
• Eating in our dining room as a family
• More toys
• Being more naive about the conflicts of this world. (Though people need to be more aware about the injustice and suffering happening in Israel and everywhere.)
• Doing more stuff as a family
• Camping
• Having people visit our house

About our home in particular:

• Having a 2-story house
• Having 2 bathrooms
• A larger kitchen
• Our trampoline
• Large carpeted areas
• More windows
• Our sunny kitchen with butterflies fluttering outside the window
• More sitting space
• Much more counter space
• Vents in our rooms which let in warm air
• Our Wii machine
• Our TV

There are a few things I didn't include (he listed 60!!), but I think you get the gist. A theme I noticed, especially when I probed a bit by asking him questions, was he misses familiarity and he misses a sense of home. I wonder if he'll still say the same things when we leave 4 1/2 months from now.