The start of our vacation

Zeb is sitting on a chair at the gate waiting to board the plane to Thailand. We had so much fun trying to get him to say crazy things.

Vacation In Thailand

We just got back from a great vacation in Thailand. We rented a house with our good friends the Huffmans. Some of our other good friends rented a house down the street as well. Our house had a pool so basically we spent most of the day swimming. We are convinced Kayleigh would swim all day everyday if we let her. We had to convince her to leave the pool to eat and then right away she would return to swimming again. We visited the beach one afternoon. Zeb loved it and giggled with glee when we put him in the sand and the ocean. Kayleigh doesn't love it but showed much improvement from this summer when she wouldn't even walk on the sand! She actually got down in the sand and played and even got in the ocean. We were impressed. We had a lot of fun! Our dear friends the Huffmans are moving back to America this summer so it was an especially sweet and treasured time to spend with them.

Zeb waiting to board the plane.

The pool was too deep for the kids so the Huffmans brought a pool for them to play in while we were there.

I included this picture because I found it amusing that our children thought the ATM was really fun.

An Inside Look into Kayleigh's school

Kayleigh loves going to school. Every Tuesday and Thursday she insists on wearing pig tails to match her friends. Before she started wearing pig tails to school I would put a bow in her hair and when I picked her up her hair always looked different. I really think her teachers like styling her hair. It is pretty amusing to see what new hair style she has when I pick her up. She has had a month long break from school because we have been on vacation, had a conference and the school was closed for the holiday. She starts back next week and is really looking forward to it. Below are some pictures of her classmates and an inside look at her classroom.

Kayleigh and all her classmates.

We pick up Kayleigh at 11:30 but most of her classmates stay all day so they take a nap there.

Kayleigh loves the fact that they have a piano! She loves music and really likes to sing and dance. She often comes home singing a new song that she has learned.

And the bathroom, need I say more?!

The front door of her school.

Hot Springs

I wanted to make a New Year's resolution that I would blog more especially when I compared my total blog posts in 2009 to 2008. I had less in 2009 than 2008! I was disappointed. However, I'm not getting off to a good start. It is already February and I only have 4 posts. I need to get myself in gear!

Last week we spent time at a hotel in our city that has lots of hot springs. Fortunately, for us we have had a very mild winter and most days around here are in the low 70's. This made it easy to go outside and swim in what was basically like warm bath water. The kids had a blast! The thing that Kayleigh loved most about the whole trip was wearing her flip flops outside in the winter time! Below is a picture of the kids in our bathtub in the room which basically was like a small swimming pool. It was a fun time to see some friends that we don't see very often.

The kids in our bath tub!

Dressed and ready for the hot springs.

John and some of his buddies!

We Have Power!

Lots has changed since my last post. After blogging last night we found out that our friend/foreigner negotiator went to the power company himself to talk with someone to get some answers. He found out that the old management company and the new management company owe a lot of money to the power company and that is why our power was going to be off. So basically we pay the management company our power bill and instead of turning around and paying the power company they are just holding our money! We decided late last night not to move to our friend's house because the power company said that they would only cut our power off from 9am to 6pm daily. Today however, after 9am came and went we still had power. We contacted our friend and he said that the new management company came through and paid their unpaid bills so for now the power company has backed off. We are certainly so thankful and are not taking our power for grant it. There is also news that we may be able to apply to pay through direct deposit so our money would go directly to the power company and not to the dishonest management companies. This will hopefully prevent this problem in the future. We are so thankful for all your prayers. John and I certainly felt pretty hopeless but God certainly showed us that he can make an impossible situation possible!

For now we move....

Nothing has been resolved in the past two days so it looks like we will not have power. The plan for now is to move to our friends Josh and Danielle's house. They and a few other friends are out of town for most of the week and have graciously offered us their places. We and two other families plan to make the move tomorrow once they turn off our power. We have a friend that lives in our apartment complex that also owns a coffee shop in our complex as well. He has been the spokes person for all the foreigners that live here. He said it doesn't look good and there is no end in sight. He did contact the U.S. consulate and was able to talk directly with someone about our situation. They have filed a report with the government and we have also heard they are sending a representative here tomorrow. We hope this will bring good news for at least the Americans that live here. It is still not clear if the power will stay off the whole time or if they will turn it back on at night. We have many friends that live here that are going to ride out the power outage. We plan to keep in touch with them to find out what is going on. Hopefully, my next up date will have some better news. The other wives and I planned our meals for the week. We are going to try and make the best of this time by having lots of fellowship together.

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.

The Tent

We got Kayleigh and Zeb a table tent for Christmas this year. I'm not sure who is more excited about it me or them. When I was little I used to go to South Carolina with my grandmother to visit my cousins. I remember the first thing I would look for after our long drive was if my Aunt Barbara had her table tent/house out for me to play in. All it consisted of was some cloth that hung over a card table that someone had made to look like a house. I loved it though and looked forward to playing in it every time I visited. I had long forgotten about this table tent until recently when a friend of mind blogged about her mom making one for her girls. I got really excited and decided that I would get one made for the kids. I really do think they love it especially when friends come over. So far they all get in and find it really fun to scream at the top of their lungs. Not what I had in mind for the tent but there is room for improvement. Anyways, I am glad that I can share a little of my childhood with Kayleigh and Zeb.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas! It was really fun watching the kids open their new presents. Zeb received several trains which he loved! Kayleigh received a pink dress for her doll which she also loves. She claims that the baby doll will be a part of my sister's wedding in the spring. We will see if Holly goes for that! We had everyone over for brunch and then opening gifts. We did secret Santa. John and I both agreed that this was one of the best Christmas seasons we have had since we have been here. I think having so many kids around made it a lot of fun for us. Plus our Hong Kong trip was icing on the cake!

Kayleigh received a princess themed gift from her friend Brennan which included the Cinderella movie. She was really excited!

Zeb received this awesome truck to ride around on outside from his friends Bright and Zion.

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.