Finishing the list

[aadler]

One of the last things I delayed posting about because I was busy with it at the time: our son Kevin visited from China last month.

His company had him scheduled for another convention in Las Vegas; this time, he put in for some time off when it was over, and we arranged a flight for him to our current state. (Last year, we met with him in Vegas itself, but his job kept him so busy we had very little time together.)

We stayed busy this time, too, but most of it was together. On different days, we got together with each of my brothers, their kids and the kids’ spouses, Susan’s brother and sister-in-law, and our daughter’s godmother (who’d gotten to know Kevin well while she and Susan were working together). He also went to Mass with us at the hilltop church we’ve been attending, and we got his name put onto a joint checking account at our bank, so we now have means for transferring money to him internationally without jumping through numerous hoops.

While all that was going on, I had him in a small cabin at our RV park, which kept him closer and was cheaper than renting a room for him in town. Then, toward the end of the visit, we drove to center-state so he could meet with old college friends, also married now; this did require hotel rooms, for him and for us, but considering how infrequently we’ve been able to see him (not counting the two months in China last summer for our newest granddaughter’s birth), that wasn’t any real problem.

Susan very much wants to live in China — Shenzhen — so we can be closer to those granddaughters as they grow up. It can’t happen any time soon, because she has to have any number of follow-up visits as she recovers from the gastric bypass surgery; plus, we’ve done much less actual traveling in our three years of RV life than I had intended, just from one cause or another, and I’d like to do a little bit more before leaving it behind. That’s the goal now, though, to get her where she can be happiest. We’ll see how that goes.