Saturday, September 11, 2004

Guess who we met?

This is a funny story, read on.

For a while I've been chatting through e-mail with a family scheduled to come to Manila. Lisa has asked questions, I've answered as best I could. They have 3 kids and a dog and after a long wait, they arrived this afternoon. Originally they were supposed to land last night but a delay had them stay overnight in Tokyo before completing the last leg. We thought our trip was long.
But they made it and after dropping Rebecca off at a birthday party we swung by their house to say hello. A dog crate was in the yard so we figured we had the correct house, but one doorbell ring... nothing. Another ring... nothing. We were outside the gate and could peek through to their front door, but there was no sign of a dog and no people movements. We'd brought a basket of items to leave for them so we tired to open the gate to leave it by the front door.
I could get my arm through the bars and wiggle the sliding bar out, but there was another latch I couldn't reach. We discussed tossing Katherine over the top of the gate so she could open the latch, but wondered how we'd get her back out if it was locked. A pile of empty paint cans were down the block a bit so Ian picked one for me to stand on and as I was reaching over and just getting my fingers over the knob, the curtains moved back.
"Lisa, the Hoppers are here!"
What a great first impression.
But not all was lost. They were very gracious about our attempts at breaking into their yard and welcomed us into their abode. We did have another purpose for coming over and that was to hopefully keep them busy and talking for a few hours. Perhaps they could beat back the sleep dragon until a more reasonable time. It worked to a degree, as four of the five were active and awake until 5 when we departed. Lisa was obviously yawning by then and I know the kids were beyond their threshhold for exhaustion.
Lisa and Matthew are outgoing and friendly. Ian is Matthew's office sponsor so I know we'll be seeing a bit of them before we depart. I think they'll fit right in.
I just hope they didn't all curl on the couches the moment we left.

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