When Greg and I lived in China it was extremely common to visit friends spontaneously.  Daily my friends and I would just stroll over to one another's apartment doors, knock, and walk in...I mean wait for a cherry "Come In!" :)  Sometimes we wanted to borrow a cup of sugar, sometimes we wanted to chat for 5 minutes, and sometimes we wanted to chat for 2 hours.  You never knew when someone might just "pop in" to your home unannounced to spend time with you and I LOVED IT!!! :)

When Greg and I lived in Ohio it was less common for friends to visit spontaneously, but it still happened from time-to-time.  As our friendships grew with our neighbors, soon we were all regularly popping over to one another's homes for unannounced visits and play dates.  Again – I LOVED IT!!! :)

Was my home always spotless?  No – usually there was a pile of dishes in the sink, crumbs on the floor, and toys scattered around.  Was I always showered and presentable?  No – I was often still in my pajamas with unbrushed teeth and uncombed hair.  Did it matter?  No – my friends loved me and my home exactly the way we were.  Did I care when I went to my friends' homes?  No – I loved my friends and their homes exactly the way they were.  We were real with each other.

So now Greg and I live in New York and only one friend comes to visit me unannounced from time-to-time (because I told her I wanted her to and she's such a sweetheart she does it for me!), but other than her everything is planned.  In New York everyone is so busy that everything must be firmly scheduled several weeks/months in advance.  I feel like if I visit someone unannounced that after I leave they'll say, "Can you believe she just showed up without calling?!?!"  I've been struggling here in New York with missing my spontaneous visits, so this is my official announcement – Rachel V. is bringing back unannounced visits to New York!

Here are the four reasons why I absolutely LOVE spontaneous visits:

1)  Spontaneous visits create authentic relationships with people!  None of us look perfect and have perfectly kept homes all the time.  In fact more often than not our homes are a little messy rather than perfectly clean.  Why do we pretend this isn't the case?  Why do we schedule visits so we can make our house look perfect and force our friends to do the same?  I love the genuineness that comes from my friends knowing the V's house isn’t always perfect, but they love me and come over anyway.

2)  Spontaneous visits make me a better housekeeper!  When you know that friends might pop-in unannounced any day and at anytime it forces me to make sure the lunch dishes are at least placed in the sink after lunch and to make sure I'm doing my best to make sure ALL the toys aren't lying around the house at once.  I don't try to keep my house perfect all the time – that would be impossible – but I do try to keep it picked up and my motivation to keep it picked up is increased by regular unannounced visitors.

3)  Spontaneous visits make life more fun and exciting!  I'm an extrovert so I thrive on relationships and spending time with people.  When I know my plan for a certain day doesn’t involve seeing another adult then sometimes I feel depressed before my day has even really started, but when I have a special visit or outing planned it brightens my spirits.  Even if on a certain day I don't have plans to go out or have a friend over, if I know spontaneous visits are happening regularly, it makes me happy to know that friends might pop-in unannounced.

4)  Spontaneous visits remind us that people are more important that schedules!  When a friend comes over unannounced we're always "doing something."  Sometimes that something is important and other times it's not, but either way I can always take 5-30 minutes to stop what I'm doing and spend some time with a friend.  If I'm on my way out the door, then I tell my friend and she comes another time.  If I'm busy completing a time constraint project, then I work on it while my friend is at my home or I tell her I'll need to chat later.  No feelings are hurt in these situations because that's the risk that comes with a spontaneous visit, but let's be honest - usually we can take a few minutes to spend time with a friend regardless of what we are doing because people are more important that finishing all our tasks perfectly on our self-imposed schedules.

So be prepared my New York friends – I'm coming unannounced to visit you soon! :)  Please don't feel like you or your home need to be perfect (my home is almost never perfect either)!  Please don't feel like you need to entertain us for hours on end – a 5 minute chat is enough!  Most importantly – please pop-in and visit me unannounced because I LOVE IT!!! :)  Myself and my home won't be perfect, but you're welcome to push over some toys, sit on our couch, and spend some time with the V's. :)

This afternoon we had our final homestudy visit and received our completed homestudy - hooray!!! :)  We will be sending it on to Life Choices (our placement agency) this week!  We are so excited!

The Truth About All Birth Control Pills - My journey and why we have chosen not to use oral contraceptives.

Two Reasons to Use Contraceptives - You know the first.  Do you know the second?

5 Non-Oral Contraceptives - A resource for young couples who do not want to use oral contraceptives, and would like to know non-oral contraceptive options.

On St. Patrick's Day we ate yummy shamrock pancakes, and then headed to the Cradle of Aviation museum.  Our family has been to the Cradle of Aviation museum several times because we reserve free family passes at our local library - woohoo!  We can also reserve free family passes to the Long Island Children's Museum (FABULOUS!!! - We have been there several times as well!), Westbury Gardens (So excited to go there for the first time at the end of April!), Garvies Point Museum (Indians and sparkly rocks - fun for toddlers if only gone to occasionally), and Long Island Museum of Art, History, and Carriages (Going there for the first time on Friday - will probably also be a "fun for toddlers if only gone to occasionally" experience).  These passes are such a blessing because we wouldn't be able to visit these places, but as Nassau County library members we get to visit them all the time! :)

If you live in Nassau county, head over to your local library and schedule a time to visit these awesome museums.  If you reserve the pass for a weekday the wait is very short - you may even be able to get in the following week.  If you reserve the pass for a weekend you will most likely have to wait 4-8 weeks.  Enjoy!

Christian flying a model of one of the first airplanes.

Learning how many planes can fly at the same time but not crash.

Abbie loves the Barbie Flight Attendant and
usually tries to reach through the glass to get her.

Boys playing flight simulator video game.

Helicopter Pilot Christian

Little Vruggink Pilots

"The moon!  The moon!  The moon!" Abbie always shouts.

The Cradle of Aviation museum also has an adorable little play area for 2-5 year-olds called the Junior Jet club.  It's filled with fun things for little ones to do - helicopter and spaceship to fly, flight books to read, a space station to gather rocks and build with blocks, toy airplanes, airport legos, and even the inside of a real airplane for little ones to practice being flight attendants!

Christian serving Mommy and Abbie food on our flight to China.

We had a great time doing 30 Hour Famine with our youth group.

We had some good teaching times about Mali, poverty, slavery, clean water, homelessness, and child sponsorship.  Greg also led the teens on a "refugee walk" while he taught them about refugees.  We ended each teaching time in prayer.

The teens also served the church - by cleaning out the tunnel under the church and serving the adults lunch (a little torturous when you've been fasting 24-hours but the teens had the best attitudes)!

We also played a lot of games to reinforce the lessons we learned throughout the weekend.  My favorite game was "Dirty Water" - it was a relay race during which each teen had to fill a sock with dirt, race to empty the dirt into a bucket of water, fill the sock with dirty water, and then race back to their team and attempt to fill their water bottle.

Some of the teens had "disabilities" they had to endure during the games.

At the end of our 30 hour fast we broke the fast with a huge pizza feast!  Several of the boys ate a whole pizza pie (look at me talking like a New Yorker :)!

For the next two weeks we are still collecting money for those dying of starvation in Mali, so please give generously to feed those in need!  Every gift of $30 will feed and care for a hungry child for a month!

You can give by credit card online: twv.convio.net/goto/lialcyouth

You can give by writing a check made payable to "World Vision" and mailing it to us.

Greg and I are fasting for 30 hours! Why? To raise money and awareness that nearly 8,000 children under age 5 die EVERY DAY because of hunger-related causes - that's one child every 10 seconds! WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Every $30 you give feeds and cares for a child for a month! Will you do your part and helping feed the hungry?

Go here to give online:  http://twv.convio.net/goto/lialcyouth

Our home is infested with termites!  The nasty little things started coming out of the wall that holds up our stairs (nice!) on Saturday morning.  Greg was on his way home and I called him screaming into the phone, "Thousands of termites are coming out of our walls and covering our living room!!!"  He rushed home thinking he was going to discover me being eaten alive, and found around 30 dead termites covered in a thick coat of ant spray (it was all I could think to do!).  Were there really only 30?!?  It seriously looked like a thousand!

So we called our landlord and on Monday he brought an ant exterminator friend over to spray for ants (Are you kidding me?!?)!  The ant exterminator explained that we do indeed have termites not ants, and nothing can stop the swarming this year (great!  ugh!), but if our landlord hires a termite exterminator then they should be able to do this several month poison process outside that will kill them so they don't come next year.  So now we're just hoping that our landlord invests in getting a termite exterminator so they won't come back next year!  I'm making Greg call our landlord soon if we don't hear back from him with an exterminator appointment date and time.

The ant exterminator told us that the termite swarming should slow down soon, but as of now every day several times 30-50 termites emerge from the wall at once and there are almost always a few scurrying around at any given moment.  Whenever I see them I freak out, spray them with ant spray (It works great - they die instantly!), and try to keep Christian away from them.  Christian thinks the termites are fascinating to watch.

Abbie and I are not as fascinated by the termites.  Whenever Abbie sees a termite she yells, "Bad bug!" while wagging her finger at it, and then if it moves in the slightest she runs away screaming to the nearest family member.  Christian, ever the protective big brother, runs to her rescue, stomps on it with his shoes, and then proudly announces "I killed the bug!"  Abbie then cautiously walks over to examine the dead bug with her brother.

Termites.  I loath them.  May they all die soon.