initiation night

I think we are the luckiest people in the world. Lots of people think we are worthy of their time and money, enough so to make a trip across the world - well, maybe WE aren't worthy, but the friendship we share is certainly worth it. Since we've been in our new location, we've been so happy to host our first visitor, Kim M who came out in october, I think? Then, visitor number 2 was Cassie C. who came out in january. And then...

With happy hearts, we welcomed our friends tom and rikki to our city on thursday night. Well, technically, it was friday...since their plane was delayed for like seventeen hours. They arrived at a very weary 1:45am.

Since no one is really in a mood to participate in record-breaking activities at such a sleepy hour, we postponed their induction into the couch club until tonight. Joining our couch club just means that you were an overnight visitor at our home and were able to take a group picture with us. (Though I'm sorry to say the tradition started after kim and cassie came, so we may have to re-do their stays with us!) We're trying to keep a record of guests so that emma and mantha can have pictures to go with all the sweet memories they make.

You all have a standing invite to join our couch club, but of course, you must be present to join.

But then there's a special little secret about being an overnight (or even just a late-night) visitor at our house. It is quite similar to when you were 12 years old and had sleepovers. Sometime after the clock struck midnight, all the giggly girls started getting delirous and who knew what silly things might take place. That's sort of the idea. So if we ever have the honor of hosting you as an overnight visitor, you have to be sure to stay up and chat late into the night - at least midnight. Then, there's all sorts of fun traditions we have.

They are not illegal or immoral traditions, or there is no way our friends john and rachel would have participated. they are much too upstanding for anything like that. Just good, clean fun that of course, must all remain highly secretive unless you are here. (Now if that doesnt' tempt you to go to your nearest travel agent...)

Of course, seeing that the visitors were tom and rikki - good friends that have shared almost a decade of memories with us - we had lots to talk about and fun times to share. Even though we were all insanely tired, just the mention of the after-midnight traditions was enough to keep us awake. When the clock finally struck midnight, well...

that's all I can say about that. Except that...

Please congratulate our newest members (and record-breaker of the after-midnight-festivities, way to go tom!), Tom and Rikki M.

emma-isms

more funny things from emma today:

"momma, emma's feet are freezing!"
- said while walking down the road. A few minutes before, I told emma to bring her socks and shoes to the door because we were getting ready to go outside. When I returned from getting samantha, I saw her with her jacket and shoes on, ready to go. I praised her for being such a big girl, and we went outside. After her comment, I looked down and realized her socks never made it on.

"look, mommy, it's a mo-gor-cycle!"
-spoken while walking down the street, noticing the dusty motorcycle parked on the side.

"I've got the luck of pizza in my heart"
-emma's rendition of "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart...spoken during the part that should say, "I've got the love of jesus in my heart." I guess we'll have to speak a little more clearly in the future...

more fun in the kitchen

Last fall, josh and I started keeping tuesday nights (after the girls go to bed) open so that we could spend time doing something together. It's crazy how even though we do a lot of stuff together, when the girls finally go to sleep, it's like we try to catch up on the rest of the things we can't get done when a nine-month old is clinging for dear life to your pants legs, or when emma comes up to you six trillion times a day asking, "What's this, mommy?"

Usually these nights we play scrabble, or lay in bed and talk about the future, or watch the occasional movie. But last night I had a little something different in mind.

I've been reading this blog about a woman from texas ( I think I mentioned this before?) and she had a recipe for sopapillas on there. So last night, josh and I bolted ourselves in the kitchen and we did it! We made sopapillas! It was really a lot of fun, trying to figure out exactly what we were doing.

We had a few casualties - my instant-read thermometer (another new purchase) got fried, along with two of the sopapillas - but other than that, they turned out pretty good! I sort of felt bad for the little guys though, because in my mind I was expecting Ted's sopapillas. [for those not from oklahoma city, ted's escondido should be listed in the top okc attractions, but sadly it is not. it is by far the best tex-mex on the planet, and is greatly missed by yours truly.]

It should be said that everything at ted's is beyond sublime. Going to ted's is like going to enchilada and cheese dip heaven and seeing little sopapilla angels. It's really that good. So of course, our sopapillas were no match for those guys. But it was still good, and really? how many people make sopapillas?

my newest purchase

I am pleased to announce that I am the proud owner of the new Luby's 60th anniversary cookbook. Well, I don't exactly have it in my possession, but I pushed submit after entering every detail of my life known to man (including those crucial credit card numbers) and supposedly it is on its way to my mom's house, a fact she has yet to be informed of.

Why luby's, you might ask? Luby's is none other than my all-time favorite restaurant when it comes to good ol' southern style cooking, and it comes with a double helping of memories, too. Ninety percent of my memories of luby's center around my grandparents; I would guess that nearly every time I spent the night at their house or was with them during a meal time, I was given the special honor of walking the line at luby's. It became sort of a tradition - my papa driving his caddy down the bumpy backroads which I could never seem to follow as an 8-year old, getting chicken fried steak with double macaroni every time, my papa always asking for a sliver of my chicken fried when his was all done, and splitting strawberry shortcake among all of us. I remember when I was very young hearing nana warning me, something about the extraordinary amount of starchy foods I was consuming in a single meal, but as I grew older, I think she just gradually came to expect me to get the same thing (is that right, nana?!)

When we were back in the states last year, if I was meeting nana for lunch (which I'm sorry to say, I should have done about 75 more times than I did), it seemed strange if we didn't eat at luby's. One time we ate at chilis, and really, who can argue with chili's, what with their great fajitas and molten chocolate cake? But, luby's was usually the place of choice, and that's the way it should be. In fact, I even considered delivering samantha at a hospital only because it was five minutes drive from luby's.

Then, for some reason, all the luby's (ok, well two of the three) in oklahoma city started shutting down, and the nearest luby's was 40 miles away. that is a crying shame, I tell you.

But now I own the luby's cookbook. Not that I will be able to whip up a batch of mac & cheese just like luby herself, but at least I've got a tangible way to clutch those memories whenever I want. Plus, it's just cool to say that I own the luby's cookbook.

Here's a question for anyone who wants to help me out - the luby's recipe calls for grated american cheese...but I've never seen grated american cheese, only sliced (like for sandwiches) and processed (like velveeta). What's up with that?

So anyway nana, come on over...we can whip up some luby's together... :)

on a happy note

so here are some pictures that make me feel better after posting a more heavy post (see below).

One afternoon playing on the bed with puzzles...

This is samantha making one of her favorite faces - the "ohhhh" sound. she truly does it all the time. She'll turn around and look at us really fast, cock her head, and then make the "ohhh" shape. she doesn't actually say "Oh" which kind of adds to the fun of it all. :) and one more of mantha, whipping up some dinner for us at her favorite hangout, the kitchen. So I've been lamenting the fact that my apartment complex doens't have anywhere for me to let the girls play. I've had this raging debate in my head - I don't, absolutely DO NOT want to move, but I want a place where the girls can play. Then, I finally listened to my house helper (who is almost always a source of very accurate and wise advice, from all matters practical and otherwise) and we took a trip down the street to a public park. It's only two bus stops down the road from my house, even faster if I take a taxi (which I SO like to do, because let's just face it - it's no fun hauling a baby, a stroller and a strong-willed toddler on a bus. Anyway, we all went last week and had a really great time. The park isn't quite as fab as the brand new one we went to in the States, which had all manner of state of the art toys, top-notch safety standards, and everything else a young paranoid mother would want. But, we had a great time. Here are a few pics...

This is emma holding mantha's hand (as I often do with emma when she is in the stroller), while our house helper and good friend is moving them along. Emma felt like such a big girl - a feeling that is becoming and more important to her - by helping mantha and holding her hands.
On the seesaw, which emma really likes.
mantha working on her steps... And, for ten cents you can buy a bag of colored pellets and feed the six million pigeons that flutter all around the play area. Of course, emma wanted to feed the pigeons and of course my friend thought I just must do it, as it would be so fun. So emma quickly used up all her colored pellets and made friends with another little girl who then donated to emma more pellets. Emma was real happy - she loved all the birds.

and this one of emma was taken yesterday as we were out enjoying the warm, spring weather. I just thought she looked so grown up holding daddy's hand and walking down the street instead of riding in her stroller.

reflective thoughts

the last week has really been a strange one for us. Four different times in about 5 days we received word about people - some we don't know, some who are friends, and then others are quite close to us - who are facing a lot of tough stuff. They are all things that honestly would test my faith and make me ask a lot of hard questions. I have thought a lot over the last few months about what a "normal" life I have had, about how few true hardships and tragedies have come into my life. With those thoughts in the back of my mind, I have really struggled with some of the situations that we are watching people we know go through. How would I react? i pray - just as i am praying for these - that my faith would be pleasing to Him, that any difficulties would only serve to make me more confident in who He is. And yet, I consistently watch people rise over - so victoriously through His power - these tragedies. I am inspired and encouraged by their faith, and pray that if I were to face tragedy, I would respond as they have.

Though I don't really think I am superficial, I also don't think I'm a particularly reflective person, so it was a surprise to me when these words just came to me as i laid in bed last night. As I read over it, it gave some sort of tangibility to the heaviness in my own mind as our friends and those close to us are struggling. So as you read it, don't worry if I'm losing my mind or having a breakdown (because I'm not...I promise!) I just needed an outlet for some of the thoughts that had been swimming around in my brain.


Unabashed,
Tragedy does not need the cover of darkness
to hide his deeds.
He comes and goes
as he likes,
delivering his burdens
and vials of bitter herbs.

A name has been chosen,
a delivery made.
His rapping at the door is felt
far beyond the household
whose doorway he darkens.

In that instant,
a life is gone,
certainty disappears,
dreams vanish,
plans carefully and thoughtfully made
now fall aside
like a yellowed newspaper
left in a forgotten place.

Shock is replaced by grief,
grief clouds faith,
faith asks hard questions.
What-if’s and second guessing
hover around like hungry vultures
looking to feast
on our faith.

But there is One,
One to whom even old man Tragedy
must bow a submissive knee.
He is no stranger to the burdens
Tragedy brings.
And He invites us –
He invites me –
to relinquish,
to give up,
to transfer ownership
of the burden
Tragedy has left.

And we wait.
We wait,
while He works,
while He changes us,
while He clothes our faith
with certainty that seems
much too good
to be true.

move title correction

I put the wrong movie title on my last post; the title is "the pianted v e i l". The reason it's mispeled and typed that way is so that my blog won't come up when people are looking to read about the movie.

a night at the movies

after a long week of language study for josh - so long, in fact, that he has lost his voice and can barely speak - we decided to watch a movie tonight in honor of the fact that it was Friday, people should have fun on friday, and our supermarket down the street finally had that butter flavored popcorn. Josh stopped at a movie store on the way home and bought a new movie; we put the kids to bed and snuggled on the couch, passing the scrumptious popcorn back and forth.

One thing about us is that we don't own a tv. We haven't bought any movies since we got here. We are so out of tune with entertainment life. Our friend tom, who incidentally will be here next week, announced that he's got the first five episodes of amazing race in his possession and will be bringing them across the ocean for our viewing pleasure.

"Oh, " I replied dumbly. "I didn't even know a new season had started."

"Not just a new season," tom assured me. "It's all-star season!"

How could I not have known? Anyway, so the fact that we are out of touch with reality can sometimes hamper our movie selection, and then the fact that most of the movies are described in asianese adds to the difficulty.

When josh came home with a movie called the painted door, I took one look at it and knew immediatly why he chose it: the scenery on the movie cover looked like it could have been our backyard a few years ago. We used to live in a breathtakingly beautiful area of asia; truly one of the most beautiful places in the world.

As it turns out, the movie was only released in january (something we had no idea about). There were a few blush-and-turn-away scenes (why again do they show men's rears on screen?) but the story was intriguing and the backdrop of the movie was like reliving scenes from our past. I swear, it could have been me with a backpack and a water bottle walking down some of the paths and rice fields they showed in the movie.

I'm not such a great movie critic, and if you saw the movie and didn't like it...well, at least you got a taste of what life used to be like for us! (Not that we lived as rough as they showed in the movie, though!) I will say it was very authentic (since it was filmed on location, I guess that's obvious) and it's like a little history lesson rolled into the movie.

Oh, and i also drank a coke with my popcorn... :)

just a simple trip to the store

I had two things I my list when I went to the store tonight: bowtie pasta and apples. How is it that I managed to spend a small fortune? Well, ok, it's actually because the store FINALLY got refried beans in (after months of none, ggrrrr) and butter flavored popcorn (as opposed to the always-in-stock chocolate, strawberry, and lemon). They didn't actually have the bowtie pasta, but that's ok. Refried beans more than make up for that. It's little unexpected surprises like those - and also the imported mangoes that found their way in my basket - that can make going to the store worthwhile.

That, and also the taxi rides home. Tonight's contestant was a 27-year old guy who was obviously trying to play the part of joe cool. He had his shiny black hair all spiked up, was dressed like he came from an Adidas catalogue, and had the air about him that this taxi-gig was just "temporary". Anyway, right as we were making the U-turn into my street, he mumbles under his breath, "So, where are you from?"

"America," I answered back, trying to give him an out of the conversation, though it was obvious he wanted to talk...but of course, he couldn't make it look obvious. That disinterested interest, I guess.

"Jordan!" He exclaimed right away. "Aaaaah, Jordan!"

I chuckled quietly and affirmed his answer. He, too, does live in America.

There is a little-known fact about me that, unless you knew me in junior high and high school you'd never guess...but I used to have this thing for basketball. I don't know what happened to me now, but...oh wait, that was two kids that happened to me. When I was a teenager, I followed basketball like my kitchen cockroaches follow the scent of that peice of fajita meat that flew over the skillet a few days ago. Every game, every stat, every team, every record. But every stat, every team, every player paled in comparison to the man himself. Other players' stats existed only to highlight the chasm between good players and once-in-a-lifetime players. I was blinded by his talent, and drawn in by his charisma. Quiet and self-respectable off the court, commanding and overwhelming on the court. (though these were all my feelings before his recent divorce). Anyway, it was pretty insane. But hey, I was 14 and watching basketball instead of doing who-knows-what.

So, one year my family went on vacation to orlando, and it just happened that we were in town when the bulls were playing the orlando magic. This was back when shaq and penny hardaway played and made orlando a title-contender. This was also at a time when the bulls were on the cusp of greatness, and were undefeated for the season. So my dad, being the cunning and resourceful fellow that he is, somehow managed to finagle getting 5th row seats for him, my brother and I. It's weird that I don't actually remember much about the game now, except that I remember being so close to the court, I could see Mr. Jordan's sweat and his eyelashes, and that I was so excited it was hard to actually focus on the game. But, the end of the game was heartbreaking. The bulls lost. I think it's possible I might have cried.

But even in defeat, they still made history. That season, the bulls went 72-10 and set the NBA record for wins in a season. That would make the game we went to one of only ten losses, giving me a secret advantage when it comes to playing trivial pursuit.

Ok, so back to my story. I'm sitting in the taxi with joe cool driver, thinking that he must also be a basketball fanatic, so surely he would see the tragic irony in the fact that the only time I ever saw jordan was in the first loss of a record breaking season. I quickly calculated the mental and linguistic energy it would take to begin a conversation like this, and jumped right in.

"Hey, guess what?" I announced, right after his "Aaaahh, Jordan!" comment.

He shoots me a quizzical look. Most asian people only grunt their responses, so I expected a grunt, but I only got a look.

"What was the name of that team that jordan played for? Chicago something?" I asked for clarification, because I didn't know the asianese word for bulls. He filled in the first missing language peice.

"Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Well, one time when I was a kid I went to go see jordan play and it was so great, but you know it was really sad too because do you remember that one year when..."

and then I stopped. I realized I didn't know the word for wins, losses, record-breaking, or Orlando magic. I didn't know the word for courtside tickets. I certainly didn't know the words for tragic irony.

I stumbled my way through it. It looked something like this:

"What do you call it when you have two teams that play in a match and one team is really great and they are the best, and when one team is not the best?" Ok, got winner and loser down. Now, how to make that into win-loss record...?

"And when no one has ever done something before and you are the first person to do it, do you remember how the bulls were the first team to get this many wins...? Ok, so we got that.

I'll just say that by the time I finished my story, we had been sitting in front of my apartment complex while joe cool driver just sat starting, stupefied, at me. His face was betraying the secret thoughts in his mind: why is this foreigner telling me this? what the heck is she actually saying? is she ever going to pay me so I can end this agony?

In exasperation, I sighed, "Do you understand my meaning?" In his best "joe cool driver shows sympathy for the bumbling idiot" impression, he winced. "Yeah, yeah, right."

Just when I think I'm getting somewhere in this language, I have to open up conversations like this!

today...

today...

...my heart melted. I was mindlessly picking up books in emma's room, and she sauntered in. She looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "mommy, I love you." Big hug. Sweet kiss. I almost died.

...I drank in the sweet, bubbly laughter samantha rewarded me with after tickling her belly. I realized today that I hadn't heard her laugh in a while, so I thought a game of tickle-peek-a-boo would remedy that. I was right.

...emma played the guitar with josh for our family worship time...her first time actually using the pick. It was much improved from her previous attempts. She loved the attention, loved the way she had to manipulate her fingers to make the pick work, loved feeling like a big girl.

...at dinner samantha said, "Da-da! (more!)" The "more" part was in sign language, which she's been using fairly consistently the last weeek or so, but today was the first time she tried to get our attention by calling our names. (Yes, I'm sorry to say that I'm "dada" too right now...)

...I felt thankful that samantha's skin has continued to stay relatively clear. She still has some redness, but compared to how things have been, well...I've already talked about that enough. I'll move on...

...I felt convicted about how easily I live my life without making an intentional effort to love people. I make intentional efforts to be kind and polite, but to go that extra mile and show love? Not so much. And further, the ultimate show of love is to share deeper Love with them, and sometimes I feel too rushed, too busy, too preoccupied to take those extra moments. But those extra moments are when True Love is shown.

...I went to my landlord's house. she's getting ready to move apartments, from her semi-dinky apartment to a new ultra-fab place. Truly, it will be a fab place. She will live on the 12th and top floor of her building and will have a huge deck (which she foolishly plans to enclose). She has a spiral staircase and a two-story living room. A master bedroom the size of my entire house. Large and spacious bathrooms. And yet, in typical asian fashion, her kitchen is like the size of a doghouse. Ok, maybe not a doghouse, but like the size of an entryway closet. I kid you not. It's so small. I don't have a super-fab deck or a spiral staircase, but good heavens, at least I can move around in my kitchen!

...and now, at this moment, emma is laying in her bed rattling off all the asianese phrases she knows. I can hear her, saying "See you soon! Be careful! Sooooo careful! Thank You! Thank YOU! One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight..." She's cracking me up.

by jove...

we just might have a winner! With guarded optimism, I'd like to report that yesterday and today have been two of samantha's best days in months in regard to her skin. Maybe things are clearing up with this rice business. Wouldn't it just be the most ironic thing if she was allergic to rice? I think.

Lately, emma has started the "what's that?" stage. Everything she sees immediately needs clarification, even things she knows. Pointing to her favorite dora doll she asks, "mommy, what's that?" Holding up a crayon, she asks, "what's this?" Looking out the window at the big bird flying through the sky, "what's that?"

But my favorite one came yesterday when her ear must have itched or something, so she reaches and scratches the inside of her ear. She pulls her finger, looks at it questioningly, thrusts it in my face and demands, "Mommy, what's that?"

Hmmm... "Earwax," I told her.

"Oh," she said, matter-of-factly. "It's earwax."

Tonight after dinner and the subsequent hour of chaos that is getting ready for bed, the four of us sat and played on the couch. We made faces at each other and laughed, held hands and danced together, emma and mantha played peek-a-boo while mommy and daddy made sound effects, we held the girls upside down and tickled their bellies...and time just got away from us. It was so relaxing and so fun to sit down and enjoy being a family together. Praise the Lord for giving children and for His blessing of sweet fellowship together!

what is the culprit?

It's no big secret that we've been trying to figure out the cause of samantha's eczema recently. This undertaking has caused me to take drastic measures, such as not drinking coke, eating chocolate, or other dairy foods (including but not limited to CHEESE ah-hem), nuts, fish, shellfish, and egg. It actually hasn't been as hard as I had originally thought, thanks to my 5-pack of gum that I bought so I can chew whenever I get a craving for chocolate chip cookies, cheese and crackers, or coke and popcorn.

Anyway, the whole point I was going to make was that we've been consulting with a nutritionist to find out why samantha hasn't gained any weight in the last two months and is now hovering around the 10th percentile in height and weight for her age. As we were going over her eating history, the hard-to-forget projectile vomitus due to the rice cereal was mentioned. Later in an email, the lady suggested that I add rice to my list of things I was eliminating. Rice.

Rice. Rice. Rice. I eat rice every day, sometimes twice a day. Everyone I see eats rice every day, sometimes twice a day. Everyone in this entire stinking country eats rice every day, and I'm just now realizing this could potentially be the missing link to my child's eczema? How could I not have thought of this before?

No wonder the expensive creams ($40 a tube) and medicines don't help. No wonder my special, home-made laundry detergent hasn't helped. No wonder my sacrifice of coke, chocolate, and cheese isn't really gettign anywhere. Because I'm eating rice every day!

It's still too early to tell if it really is rice, though that seems to be a logical conclusion that I am only just now making. But it comes at a good time, when I was really discouraged about progress in treating her skin. I did some research and learned that rice is a very uncommon allergy in america because it is not considered a staple food, but in places like japan and other countries in the far east where rice is considered a staple, as many as 10% of the population can be allergic to rice. As I mentioned above, it does seem to be a sort of missing-link...like, making some sense of why we haven't been able to get rid of the problem. but I've been disillusioned before by solutions that haven't worked, so I'm not going to get my hopes up, but we'll see.

In other news, I was googling sopapillas today because I've been craving them like nothing else, and I found a lady's blog outlining how to do it. She's a texan (I know, I have to give a little leeway) living in new york and her entire blog is dedicated to down-home food. it was like pulling at my heartstrings when devoted several posts to Luby's, then more to chicken friend steak, and many handfuls to tex-mex. I think I have found a new recipe site! Sopapillas sometime this week, woo hoo!

Here are new pictures of my girls, being all fun and cute:

Emma has been trying to encourage samantha's crawling ability by getting down on all fours with her! They love chasing each other around the house and playing hide-and-seek or peekaboo!

I'm afraid samantha is going to be an early walker - she's already cruising well around the couches and standing up whenever her hands are free to pull her up.Emma helping me make cornbread and minestrone soup. She's actually a really good helper in the kitchen, and loves sitting on the counter and feeling like a big girl!And the big news of the weekend is that we painted our living room! The color looks a bit weird in the picture, but actually I really like the finished (or, partly finished) project. It really makes our house feel more inviting and totally changes the look of the place. Emma caught us painting last night about 9:30 and sat on the couch and watched with wide-eyed fascination. We still have a lot left to do, both in the living room, and in other rooms that we are wanting to paint, but it's been a fun thing to do together.

unbelievably ticked off

that was not the original title of my post, but it has become the new one. The original title was "the craziest thing I ever saw" but that was before I accidentally clicked on some link and it opened the webpage in my blogger window. What's that about? Couldn't it have opened in a different window and left my innocent post alone? Sheesh.

So now i'll have to try to remember everything I said in my last post. Ok, here goes nothing.

The truth is, I'm a bit pessimistic about the country I live in. Sure, I love living here and my freinds and stuff. But, I seldom root for my host-country to succeed in the international arena. I attribute it largely to the fact that so many locals I know have been oppressed, swindled, or taken advantage of by corruption and bad leadership. Every time I read some news article heralding all the advancements and opportunities where I live, it's hard not to sigh and think, "If only these writers lived here...had friends get cheated here...had lives torn upside down..." So, it's true. I'm a host-country pessimist. I cringe when I see some of the latest fashion trends. I cringe even more, and sometimes even harbor contempt, for some of the ways I see people behave - like the kid who pooped through his split-crotch pants on the mcdonald playland, or the girl who peed through her split-crotch pants inside - inside! - the grocery cart, or the very public lovers quarrels, which seem to become more and more common out on the street corners.

So, you can imagine that I don't get too worked up over national holidays, other than the fact that usually josh is out of school. But THIS holiday, I was totally wrong about. THIS holiday was cool...so cool, in fact, that I wish it was an American holiday.

Imagine it's fourth of july. There are no rules, no zoning laws. No fire marshalls, no nothing. Fireworks are a dime a dozen. Your social status is directly tied to the amount of bling that you can produce with fireworks. That's generally the scene.

As soon as it's dark enough, every resident in this 5-million-plus city starts simultaneously, it seems, lighting off their firecrackers. I'm not talkign about little tanks that whirl around and have a little candle flame at the top. I'm talking about the huge ones that light up the night sky, like when you open your blacked-out hotel curtains after you wake up in the morning, thinking it must be still like 5am when really it's almost noon. I'm talking about starbursts so big that you can barely contain it within your field of vision. Glittery, shimmery sprays and high-powered booms...one after another after another. And on it goes for hours.

We live on the 10th floor of our building, so we could see out over the entire city. There was not one second in the span of an hour where someone, somewhere was not lighting off firecrackers. Huge bursts of light were going off everywhere. Imagine the best fireworks show you ever saw, and then multiply it by like, a million. It was truly that amazing. I've never seen anything like it, nor will I ever see anything like it in America, what with all our laws and regulations (which are a good thing!).

People across the street were lighting Roman candles out their windows. Finally, someone from our building grabbed their sack and started lighting theirs off down in the courtyard right under us. Our apartment was eye level with most of the bursts they were setting off, sending blinding shards of light - pink, green, silver, blue, gold - into our rooms. The booms were so loud, I thought my chest cavity would never recover.

Emma was scared. But it was a reverential, impressed kind of fear. She loved watching it all, but only if she was enveloped in the protective arms of mommy or daddy. If we moved, she moved with us. She was quite insistent. I almost didn't know if she'd actually be able to sleep because things were so loud. Honestly, it was so loud, even in our house. It was hard to hear each other talking.

But emma went to sleep, and josh and I watched the fireworks long into the night. I've had to come to grips with the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed this holiday. But, don't worry...I'll keep it a secret.

emma keeps us laughing

It's like the language flower has bloomed in emma's mouth (as if she wasn't already verbal enough!) Recently, she has been cracking us up with funny things that she says.

For example...
Yesterday, emma and I spent a good five minutes putting all her books back on the bookshelf (because one of samantha's favorite pasttimes is crawling unnoticed into emma's room, using the bookshelf to pull up, and then one by one pulling every book off. She thoroughly enjoys the activity as she seems to do it multiple times a day.) Anyway, after we put the books on the bookshelf, we came out to the living room. about half an hour later, emma walked into her room, threw her hands up in exasperation and rattled off these sentences:

Mommy! Oh no! Sa-nantha all the books on the rug! No ma'am, Sa-nantha! Books on the shelf! No books on the rug!

She was truly and utterly distressed that her time spent cleaning up the books was in vain and her room was already dirty again. Funny times, that girl.

Other funny things that have been coming up a lot:
Don't do that!
Don't say that!
Mommy lay down! (as in, lay in her bed with her at bedtime so she can prolong the misery that nightly sleep must be to a toddler)
My name Emma!

And to leave you with a final, toddler thought:
Yesterday morning, emma woke up at her usual bright and cheery time of 7:00am, and came bounding in to our room (how we gave birth to a morning person is beyond me). I staggered out of bed and VERY grudgingly walked to the kitchen to get emma's milk, but got distracted by something in the living room on my way there. Emma looked at me impatiently, and said, "Mommy, get Emma's milk."

I ignored her, as is my usual custom when she doesn't ask politely. (She must say, "Mommy, may I have milk please?") But it was too early for her, I guess. She didn't get it. She looked at me and said it again. "Mommy, get Emma's milk."

When I still didn't do anything, she said, "Mommy, get Emma's milk. In the fridge. Put (it in) the cup."

I still didn't get a please out of her, but I was so cracking up that she had specified that the milk should go FROM the refrigerator TO her cup that I was willing to cede this little battle to her.

make sure...

hey, I just wanted to say that when you check my blog, some of my vacation posts are not getting posted to the very top of my blog; they're sort of getting buried within the other posts. So, if you are just doing a quick check to see if anything is new, "the lost sheep" or this post will be the top one...even though I have posted recently. does that make sense? sorry for the confusion. I think it's because I started a bunch of blog drafts on the same day, and then when I have time, I'm going in and editing the drafts with content and pictures, but it's keeping it all under the same date of feb.28. ok, you get the idea.

I do have a great story about events that occured yesterday, but it will have to wait until tomorrow because josh and I decided we're going to try to start going to bed at 10:00 so that we can wake up at 6:00. hmmmm...we will see how that goes.

AND, I might add...I have not had any coke or any chocolate since we left Bangkok. We are partly doing an elimination diet to see if anything I'm eating is contributing to samantha's eczema, and partly trying to get the caffeine out of my system to see if it helps samantha sleep any better during the day...so yikes! no coke and no chocolate. what a boring life. fortunately, there's this great pinapple,mango,guava juice they sell here that is really good...but it's not a coke. :( bummer. the things we will do for our children...

the lost sheep

we interrupt your regularly scheduled vacation update to pass along some good, hallujah news!

The three boxes of books we were waiting on have arrived!!!

It was kind of random how it happened...josh went to the post office yesterday to pick up a package that arrived for one of our friends. While josh was there, he asked if there was really no package for us, since we had been waiting for months on a few packages to arrive. After a little bit of hem-hawing (is that how you spell that?) a light clicked on in someone's brain and they said, "Oh yeah...we've had a box here for about four months that no one ever came and picked up, but just yesterday we sent it back to the city central post office to return to its sender."

"well, can you get it back?" josh asked.

they made a call to the central post office, and saved the package just as it was about to be returned to america. It arrived at our post office today, all three boxes.

My bible has been rescued. Mantha's baby book is no longer lost in mail abyss. Emma's got about a million new books to read. The lost sheep has been found!

hotel life

Well, Im sort of losing my appetite for writing about my vacation, even though there's a whole big story about this carnival thing that emma went to, with lots of new pictures. But I keep feeling guilty because I have NEW stuff to write about, I don't want to rehash old stuff. But the truth is, these pictures of samantha that I took in our hotel room are just TOO cute to leave sitting the draft black hole.

So there they are. Cheers to samantha, who by the way now crawls at moderate to high speed all through the house, deftly navigating her way up and down the step in our home. Whenever she hears emma laughing at some unseen location, she kicks it in high gear and belts out a little shriek to let emma know she is coming.

Her favorite pasttime, as I mentioned before, is pulling all the books off the shelf, though that just barely edges out "crawling around chasing emma on the floor" for first prize. She has officially mastered "more" in sign language, and is really good at waving "hi" and "bye" to people when instructed, and sometimes, just whenever she feels like it.

All my grandest efforts - and they truly feel grand, I must say - seem to leave me a little more confused than ever about exactly what is making my child's skin so nasty and eczematous (yes, that is a word). I've now gone over a week without chocolate or coke, my two previous closest companions, and almost a week with no dairy - cheese, butter, cream, milk or anything containing those ingredients. We have made our first batch of free-of-this, free-of-that laundry soap, but so far, that doesn't seem to have helped much either. She's such an enigma, that little gal. But, at least she's cute, huh?

adventures in paradise

or, otherwise known as "a day without children."

yes, that's right...one of our days in thailand, we were able to leave the girls in childcare without any meetings or anything to go to except hang out with our team. So, our first order of business was to sit around and chat. And eat oreos. Double stuff oreos. With coke.

Then, we decided to go to hard rock cafe for lunch. what beats hard rock? not much. plus, my dad sort of collects (or maybe I collect for him?) hard rock shirts, and even though I have been to this place many times, I had yet to get him a shirt. So we went to hard rock for lunch. I had fajitas and josh had ribs. And we shared a huge plate of nice fat cheesy nachos. And we took a picture. then, after a leisurely walk back, stopping at starbucks for a lovely raspberry frappachino that you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT BUY IN THE STATES but can buy in Thailand no matter what those crazy US baristas will tell you...we went back to our hotel and rented jet skis.

Jet skis seem to go so slow when you're watching them from the beach. But when you're hanging on to Mr. Eggroll for dear life as you rocket over the top of small waves, it doesn't feel like you're going so slowly anymore. In fact, I think most of the ride I was screaming. Most of them were happy, oh-this-is-real-fun-type screams. I think a few of them might of been screams of fear, though. Just don't tell josh. I told him I wasn't scared. :)

But then, when our time was almost up, Josh had the bizarre idea to make me try to drive the jet ski.

hmmmm.

So we go back to shore to trade places, and here's a rundown of the brief 60 seconds that I was piloting the jet ski.

Get on the jet ski...

manuever with great fear to shift my weight to accomodate josh hopping on behind me. Nearly crash.

Josh is on. Push the red button to go, but the jet ski guy wasn't out of the way. Knock him in the head with back of jet ski.

Get tangled up in boat anchor that is parked near jet ski. Jet ski owner guy falls into rope.

Josh is afraid jet ski will be taken down by boat anchor. Jumps overboard.

I alone am left. I inch my way back to shore. Immediately get off jet ski.

when rumors are true

It's 8:45 pm. I'm flopped out on the bed in the hotel room, reading the current copy of Newsweek that we picked up at a magazine stand. Emma is asleep in her blow-up dora bed to my right, and samantha is across the room, peacefully sleeping in her little samsonite travel tent. Josh is out with our friend Kevin, catching up on all the things that have happened since we last saw him.

With quiet urgency, the hotel door opens. Josh asks me if I am presentable. What does that mean, I wonder. Presentable, as in there are guests at the door wanting to come in and chat, or presentable, as in I'm not naked in front of the door and it's ok to come in?

His face was lit up with excitement. "Downstairs, Rach. Go downstairs! I've saved you a seat on the front row!"

I guess I better back up a bit. A few weeks before we went to Thailand, our friend told us she had heard a rumor. Rumor was, that while we were in Thailand, Shane & Shane were going to be there, too! [Note: Shane & Shane is two guys, both named Shane :), who are Christian recording artists.] I wanted to believe it, in my heart of hearts, but couldn't bring myself to belive in case it wasn't true. The disappointment would have been too much to bear! But shortly after we arrived, we discovered...it's true! They willingly came to be a part of our time in Thailand, occasionally doing worship for the large group, and having a free concert one night too!

So, back to the story. This particular night, when josh and kevin were walking through the hotel, they saw two guys fiddling around on guitars in the atrium. They both thought, hmmm, these guys are pretty good, let's go listen. The closer they got, they realized who it was. They were one of the first people to notice them and pull up chairs, hence the front row seat. That turned into an impromptu concert - nothing fancy, a little makeshift stage and a 20-story tall atruim with which to fill their sounds.

Josh sat for a while and then had the thoughtfulness to run up to the room and switch places with his wife, who was living blindly in ignorance with her Newsweek. After hearing his great news, I threw on some sweats and flipflops and ran down to the elevators, where I could hear the melody of one of my favorite songs echoing off the walls. I got down in time to hear a bunch of my favorite songs and several new ones too!

One truly funny moment during that little gathering happened right in the middle of a more somber, reflective-type song. It was almost like there was a little bit of reverence in the air, not exactly reverence for them, but it felt like no one really wanted to move, or say anything, or do anything that might throw things off and make them quit playing. Except for...the little thai waitress that worked in that part of the lounge. The entire staff had been busily at work, oblivous to the unknown american playing the guitar. But then, out of nowhere, this one waitress bowed her head low like the thais always do, crossed in front of the stage and gave Shane E. a little peice of paper. She gave her little thai "wai" (see bangkok pics post for more info) and then scurried off. Shane E. looked at the paper, with sort of a puzzled look on his face, then as realization came, you could see it all over his face. He looked over at the desk where the waitstaff had gone back about their business, and gave them a big thumbs up.

When the song was over, Shane B. asked Shane E. what that was all about. They had some "dialogue", you know the kind where the move the microphone so that know one else can hear exactly what they are saying? And then, Shane B. said, " If I knew 'Hotel California', I would SO play it right now!"

Sorry to say, they didn't know hotel california. :)

I felt particularly thankful that the guys decided to come out and share their music with us. From my understanding, it was totally their initiave and their idea. Of course, I wish they would have done the worship every day (though I felt so blessed by those who came to serve in that part), but we really enjoyed the concert they gave. It felt a little awkward trying to get a picture of them; you know, they were here to serve, they were leading us in worship...it just felt a little strange pushing my way up to the front and then blinding them with my flash just so I could get a good picture as proof that I saw them. So, I just took one quick picture from my seat (which, at the official concert was kind of far away) and called that that.

I was just glad that this time, the rumors were true!

bangkok pictures, or a post full of emma

Well, I intended this post to have most of our pictures from bangkok, but as it turns out, it's mostly just a showcase for Emma. Hmm....sorry about that.

And since I've already blathered on and on about how I love bangkok and everything, I can spare you those details in this blog and just summarize the pictures I'm posting. Though, I will say that I left out one very critical detail of my indulging in creature comforts whilst in the world's most polluted city: I bought the newest book in the Shopaholic series...AND a second book by the same author. Fun, truly fun, self-indulgent times! I'm sorry to say that the shopaholic books have absolutely no value in them at all except that they sometimes provide that much-needed respite from my humdrum life. The main character finds herself in several morally compromising situations that certainly go against everything I believe; most of the humor of the book is derived from her extreme superficiality and lack of depth. So if you are looking for encouraging, uplifting, make-you-a-better-person-type books, then don't look to me for advice. But if you want to give in and indulge in something that add nothing to your life except a few (or maybe a lot...) extra laughs, then you should try them out.

Moving right along...this picture is actually not from bangkok. It's from valentine's day when our family went out to an american cafe for ribs. Last year on valentine's day, josh, emma and I ALL went to hideaway pizza together (though our young family looked a little out of place with all the smoochy couples), so we decided to make it two years in a row! And obviously, we were stuck in the same room with our kids, so it's not like we were going to be able to ditch them for the night or anything! Anyway, this picture is included in my bangkok section because it didn't really fit in any of the upcoming posts i have planned, and it's a cute family picture. Incidentally, it is one of the few times in the last year that I have worn a dress. And I might add, it's amazing how a cute dress can make you forget that you usually have spit-up or leftovoer carrots on your clothes and you usually don't make it in the shower too often during the week. Cheers to cute dresses! :) Many of you may remember one of my favorite pictures of emma right after she was born; I think here she was like ten days old or something...But here...she's like...TWO!

Watching the fountains at one of the beautiful new shopping plazas. ("malls" is too casual of a word for these gigantic places...)

Getting filled up for a long night of shopping...a bloomin onion goes a long way!First stop: the brand new Bangkok Toys R US! We had planned to visit and pick up emma and mantha some fun toys. Among the final-cut items that made it back home were: a lovely purple sequined dress and high heels for dressing up, 5 bottles of finger paints, and a slide! Emma had a slide that she used during our 8 months in the states and she loved it...so when we found a similar slide at a good price, we decided samantha would have fun with it too. So we bought the huge thing, and somehow managed to pack it in a big sack and get it back home. Crazy stuff. Here, emma is doing the traditional thai greeting, called "wai", which is folding your hands together and bowing. You can see that Geoffrey is also "wai-ing" to all the customers. Like a kid in a candy store...And on the way home, we piled into a traditional thai tuk-tuk and I embarrassed my husband by asking the driver to take our picture. The slide is tethered on to the back of the tuk tuk with a bungee cord. Maybe the miracle is that it didn't fall off in crazy bangkok traffic!