Happy Thanksgiving!

We had an awesome Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for. All our friends came over for lunch around 11:30 and stayed the whole day. We enjoyed stuffing our faces with some great American food. We went back for seconds or thirds for some people at dinner. John and I ended our Thanksgiving night by cleaning up throw up. Kayleigh got sick and I was up half the night with her. I am pretty sure I have had one Thanksgiving with kids that someone was not sick. However, the food and fellowship out weighed the sickness. 

Will I ever figure out life here?

John and I are going on our 6th year living in Asia. I would love to say that I have figured this country out and that for the most part things don't surprise me anymore but today I was proven wrong. This morning around 9am our power went out. This is not unusual since we have lost power on several occasions over our past 6 years. One year it was every Friday and we have even had no power on Thanksgiving before. It has just been par for the course as we live here. Today was different however. Upon further investigation we found out that 600 of the residents in our apartment complex have not paid their power bill so the apartment management decided to punish us all by turning our power off today. In order for this story to really make sense I must go back and explain some details. I few months ago the apartment management was accused of embezzling lots of money so the residents/owners got together and voted the management out. Well, the old management refused to leave so the new management that was hired was forced to set up a temporary tent in the middle of our complex. For the past couple of months we have been going to a small tent to pay our bills. John happened to be outside today after hearing the news of why they turned off our power. He discovered a mob of people tearing down the tent and throwing chairs because they were angry that they were being punished for the others not paying their bill. As if matters couldn't get any worse we heard today that if these non-paying residents do not pay their bills this weekend then our power will be off indefinitely until their bills our paid! REALLY! Today our power came back on at 6pm. So does that mean I will not have power every day from 9am till 6pm or does that mean I will not have power at all until these people decide to pay their bill. Why not punish only the ones that haven't paid you ask? I don't know! Is this an all for one, one for all mentality?! So for now I am enjoying my power for the next two days. After that, if the threat is real, I have plans to move the food in my freezer to a friends house that doesn't live in our complex. I'm really just speechless. I'm so confused and frustrated that I have no real reaction right now. I'll let you know in a few days how things are going.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was really fun. We basically did a repeat dinner of all the amazing food we had for Thanksgiving but we switched up the desserts a little bit. I was assigned to making a pumpkin pie. I wasn't really nervous about making the inside part but I was extremely nervous about making the pie crust. I couldn't just run to my local grocery store and pick up a frozen pie crust. I had to make one from scratch. It turned out just fine. I was pretty excited. We had a great time of eating, fellowship ,and singing some Christmas carols. Then everyone left to put kids to bed and to rest up for Christmas day.



It didn't come out perfect but close of enough for me to feel like it was a success.

Picnic Time!

About a week ago we had a picnic with my friends Erin Ashley and Marianne. Erin Ashley just recently returned from America. It was so good to see her and catch up. Her daughter, Emma Grace and Kayleigh have lots of fun together. The kids had a great time running around and laughing. We ended up setting up the picnic at a hotel to get away from the crowd of people. Kayleigh and Emma Grace got a little too close to the sprinklers and got a little wet! We had a great time.

Here we are with all three strollers, two of them are double strollers!

Zeb hanging out on the blanket. A picnic with Zeb means that I fight to keep him from eating other people's food that he actually doesn't have the ability to eat yet even though he tries.

Zeb's First Solid Foods

On November 12th we started Zeb on solid food. We gave him bananas and he loved them! You can tell by the picture below just how excited he was about them. Starting solids for him was way past due. My little Kayleigh could have cared less when she started her first solid foods but Zeb was more than ready. Milk was just not enough for him any more. The first couple of days the food just poured back out of his mouth but now he has gotten the hang of it.

Easter

We had a great time celebrating Easter this year. We attended the International Fellowship and then went back to Josh and Danielle's home for some great food and fellowship. It was nice to be with our team on Easter since they are our family here. Josh has a piano and let Kayleigh play on it for a while. She really enjoyed banging on the keys!

Thanksgiving Bounty

This is our fourth Thanksgiving in East Asia and I think it was the best food we have had in those years. As you can see we had about 14 dishes made by 6 people. Kayleigh enjoyed the people much more than the actual food which again gave mom a huge headache! But she endured Kayleigh's fast and eventually had a great time. We have a tremendous amount to be thankful for. Thanks be to God who gives us everything we have, especially great food in a land that does not serve Western Food.