Seoul Incheon Airport

We are waiting in the Seoul Korea airport for the last leg of our trip to Beijing to start the 2012 China Heritage Tour. Incheon is a very modern, fast-paced airport that caters primarily to international travelers, I guess because there are not too many other major destination points in South Korea. The flight from Atlanta to Seoul was a fourteen-hour flight over Canada, Alaska and Russia, jogging far enough westward to avoid flying over North Korea. (Remember when North Korea shot down a passenger jet because they said they thought it was spying?) Like other Asian airlines with international flights, the service is incredible and more reminiscent of what it used to be like flying in America. The attendants actually appear to enjoy their jobs, volunteer to help the elderly and those with small children and they serve meals promptly without pushing alcoholic beverages. They did offer wine with dinner but that was the only time.

In the airport, it is more of the same. A woman using a scrubbing machine on the corridors stops to rub out a smudge her machine has missed. In the bathroom another man, whose name and picture are proudly displayed on a placard as if "owning" the place, wipes down finger prints from the handles almost before they finish flushing. The Asian people, coming from all over it appears, are beautiful, young, apparently affluent (from where I'm sitting I can see Tiffany and Co., Fendi and Dior), dressed mostly western and move place to place chatting happily with their companions. We have only seen a few families like ours, e.g. Caucasian parents with Asian children, but we've seen a wide variety of other mixtures, e.g. Caucasian wife with Asian husband and bi-racial kids. When we arrive in Beijing, we'll see many more like us as 450 people are signed up for the heritage tour, the largest one ever assembled for children adopted from China.

As we sit in the airport we are practicing the phrase in Mandarin, "We are followers of Jesus and God loves orphans" in response to the question we hope Chinese national television will ask us if we are chosen for an interview. We'll get back to you on that one.

Discovery Cove officials catch Lowther family trying to disguise mammal as “Uncle Al” while leaving park (Lifted unapologetically from annual Christmas newsletter)

ORLANDO--While other park visitors stood by in apparent disbelief, a Fort Mill SC family was apprehended going through the Discovery Cove exit pushing one of the attraction’s pet dolphins in a stroller. Newly activated security scanning equipment revealed that the identity of the stroller’s occupant was not “Uncle Al” as the family claimed but Cindy, one of the park’s aquatic stars. Cindy was released unharmed back into one of the park’s salt water pools while the real “Uncle Al” was found at the “all-you-can-eat” buffet enjoying his fifteenth hotdog.

“It was a simple case of mistaken identity,” Paula Lowther said afterward. “Our daughter Janegrace is always finding animals that need a home.” She added that her youngest daughter had recently adopted a stray cat from Charlotte which she named Ricky Ricardo. Lowther’s other daughter LiLi said she doubted all along that Uncle Al was a dolphin. 

As seen before the attempted abduction: Todd, LiLi, Paula, Janegrace, Lesa and Uncle Al

Local authorities detained the family until Lesa Tollinchi, Uncle Al’s wife, posted bail. “I told the cops the Lowthers had recently moved from Colorado and probably had never even seen a dolphin before. They would have known that Al was not a Bronco!” she added with a mischievous wink. Tollinchi was not charged as an accessory although one police officer was seen twirling his index finger next to his temple and rolling his eyes as she gave her statement. 

Judge Judy is reviewing the case.

After nearly 20 years of working in a variety of hospital emergency departments across the country, Paula is transferring within the Carolinas Medical System as a school nurse for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. She is thankful that after working level one trauma centers from New York to California and Florida to Colorado, she has never been shot or stabbed. She hopes to be as fortunate as a school nurse. In the photo above, Paula scrubs off after a particularly messy day in the ER.

Following my retirement in 2009, Paula and I visited my oldest daughter in Charlotte NC during the summer and decided if we were ever going to make a move, there was no time like the present. So Paula found an ER nursing position at a new facility in south Charlotte and we found a community we liked just south of the border in Fort Mill, South Carolina. We moved into our new house in January, got the girls settled into their new schools and began to settle into southern living. But we've learned that many in the south have come here from elsewhere, many from New York, Michigan and Ohio. We are enjoying being closer to Paula's family and my oldest daughter and her family in Charlotte.

The view we left behind in Colorado. Taken one early November day from our front porch.

And finally, our newest addition, Ryanne Celeste Lowther, with proud parents Jamie and Nate, and big brother Aedan.

A miscellaneous selection of photos for the last year...with grand-daughters Jordan and Stella.

This has been an eventful 2008 so far. A new granddaughter, Ryanne, born to Nate and Jamie. A lot of cardiac rehab for Todd. A new exchange student from Mexico, Elisa. A new puppy, Mushu, to reduce blood pressure. And "nurse of the year" at the St. Anthony Central Emergency Department!

Here's some more recent photos of Janegrace, from ballerina to bookworm...to party queen!

OK, it's been more than a year since our last post. LiLi likes to steal the camera and secretly take pictures of herself. Will the webcam be next? Yikes.

LiLi thinks Hannah Montana is the cat's meow. I'm not sure she's too furr off.

Paula, with small group friends, Diana and Jordan, betrothed Jamie and Nathan, with sons Colin and Carson, friends David and Linda. You know the rest. El Rancho Colorado after Saturday night service at Lookout.

Janegrace has been taking modeling lessons, as an insurance policy to attend Colorado School of Mines as a geologist in the class of 2018What do you think? [Jesus said a lot of angels could fit on the point of a pin. Here's one of them.]

We had a great time visiting Breckenridge last week and a wig and hat store there. Tell me, if you can, are we having fun?

Original New Poems

by JaneGrace Lowther

Home Sweet Memory

In splashing waves of summer
I will catch you in a raindrop
But you will fall
But the sweet fragrance will last forever
And your spirit will rise once more

My Summer Memory

In snowflakes of winter
Some things will change
Not a roar of a bear
Or a purr of a cat
But you will not notice
The last petal of the rose will soon fall
But summer will come back soon

Check the blog of my 89-year old dad. The link is located in the Links section.