A few of the things we've missed...

Overall, I've been amazed at how 'live-able' India has been! There have been lots of things that are new or different than the way we do things (obviously!) but with a good dose of flexibility & a thankful heart life is good here too! There are, however, many things that India doesn't have that we've missed. (Simple little things that don't matter much but that we love!)

Here are just a few of them...

1. Ice!!! (Indians drink everything lukewarm because they think it isn't good for you to drink cold drinks so you can't find ANYwhere with ice [plus it probably wouldn't be filtered even if you could find it!] and I LOVE ice!

2. Sonic: There are lots of days that a cold Sonic drink sounds amazing! (or even just a drive-thru of any kind)

3. NCAA Basketball Tournament: (this was Brent's!)

4. Fishing: (also Brent's)

5. Healthy food: any of the food that is "normal" to us is unhealthy, processed junk so if you don't want to eat Indian food your options are generally really unhealthy. I bet we go thru at least one jar of peanut butter a week!

6. Hearing things in our "measurement-terms": They use the metric system here and math isn't my strong suite so I am constantly trying to figure out how far away something is when they tell me in kilometers or how much chicken I am buying in kilograms, or what the temperature is when they tell me in Celsius, etc. I feel very ignorant in a lot of situations.

7. Driving! I miss having the freedom to go places when I want or at my convenience. It really hasn't been a big deal most of the time & I'm SO thankful for our friend who has shared his car with us when we've needed it but I do miss being able to load the kids up and run a few errands to get out of the house some.

8. My Buzz Lightyear toy gun: (this is Bennett's)

9. Not having the lurking fear of getting sick every time you eat or drink. Getting sick is a constant way of life here & it can be a mess when that runs thru with little kids, so I'm constantly evaluating the places we eat at wondering if we're going to get sick from the water they washed the vegetables in or the food that sat out too long, etc.

10. My washer & dryer!! I did a post on this earlier but I've really missed being able to wash our clothes regularly & not hang them out to dry. I miss the "clean-clothes smell" you get with fresh laundry. We have to wear our clothes several wears before we wash them because I can't do that much laundry here so some days I'm really missing regular laundry (I might need to be reminded of this when I complain about how much laundry I do at home! Ha!)

Like I said, these were all really small things... We had to rack our brain to think of ten things to put on this list. The things I really miss are our families and friends! Can't wait to see them all when we get home!