Independence Day

The American Embassy sponsored an Independence Day celebration, and our family went tonight with some friends. This definitley goes down as the most interesting 4th of July ever.

It was so refreshing to hear English in all the conversations and to get some of the food we haven't had in months. Our family had hot dogs (with pork in them), sloppy joes, real pepperoni pizza, Dr. Pepper, Mt. Dew, milky ways, and hersey bars. The Dr. Pepper was absolutely incredible. The very best part about the entire food experience was that I didn't have to think about what I was going to say to the cashier. Usually while I'm waiting in line I am premeditating what to say in the new language. Tonight I gave no forethought to my order. That was a nice break for my brain.

At 8:00 the "king" showed up on a motorcycle. Yes, Elvis himself entered the celebration. Elvis and his entire band took the stage. He took the microphone and yelled, "Are you ready?" with a thick Central Asian accent. Uh, "I'm not sure" was my thought. The Elvis impersonator was not American; he was a native of this country. English was definitely not his first language. When he sang, though, you could understand the words pretty well. He sang those famous Elvis songs. You know, songs like "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Twist and Shout." Really...there were more Beatles and 50's songs than actual Elvis songs. But he threw in "Hound Dog" and "Proud Mary". It was very entertaining, and we enjoyed it thoroughly!

After "Elvis" performed, Annie told some friends that she was in love with Elvis. One of the girls made fun of her because Elvis is actually dead. Annie said she didn't care; she still loved him.

The evening was capped off with a great fireworks display. I am thankful for the sweet evening we had to celebrate America's birthday when we're so far away from the states. Happy 4th of July to everyone reading this!

Wake up and smell the coffee

Mike's going to language school, and I have an instructor who comes to my home (our picture is to the right). This morning we started our lesson with my instructor asking me a bazillion questions in the language I'm trying to learn. My job was to answer the questions. If I see the question written, I can sometimes "get it", but when it's entirely oral it is more difficult. I was completely stumped on one of the questions. I asked her to say it again. She did. I still didn't understand the question, so she repeated it a third time and even slower. I still didn't understand. No matter how slow you go, if you don't know the vocabulary words in the question, you'll never understand. My instructor stopped the lesson and told me to make myself some coffee. "Miss Lisa, please go make yourself some coffee." I really wasn't in the mood for hot coffe on a summer morning where the heat was already rising. "Please, Lisa, go make some coffee." I really didn't see how coffee was going to make me understand vocabulary words that were never in my brain to begin with. "Miss Lisa, you must drink some coffee. Please." Oh well. She really would not proceed with the lesson until I made myself some coffee. I made some, and it was actually pretty good. And believe it or not, I was more in the zone when I went back to the balcony.

Awesome babysitter

This is our first official babysitter overseas. The girls LOVE her! She recently graduated from the international school. Please pray for her as she has many decisions to make regarding the future.

I almost took her cape

I almost took her cape. I could use it here.

Jump Rope

The girls made up this jump rope game. I'm sure the neighbors below us LOVE it!



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My 1st International Father's Day

I have been wondering what Father's Day would be like in another country. As we sat down to breakfast on Sunday morning, cards were everywhere! After reading through them, I thought I would share a few quotes from my children: David: "I tried to find a picture of the Bengals but I couldn't." Abby: "I love you so much. Why do you have to be allergic to dogs AND cats?" Annie: "Be willing to stand alone. Never give up. Don't forget to smile. God made dogs different." Emma's card is filled with stickers. Next to the sticker of a hippo, she had her sister write, "Oops! I farted!" So, in the midst of a crazy couple of months, it is nice to know I am loved and that some things will never change!!

All Around the Mulberry Bush

At the picnic there were some wild mulberry trees. These little berries are absolutely delicious. They are sweeter than blackberries, and there are no thorns involved. All the kids enjoyed picking and eating them.

Neighbors

These are pictures of my two favorite national kids, and they just happen to be our neighbors! The 9-year old boy is the chess champion at his school, and he and David like to play chess together. He is a very bright boy, but he also has a silly side. In this picture he put a branch in his shirt and was walking around like he had antlers. His little sister is my favorite national baby. She has such a happy disposition, and her favorite jabbering is "LiLiLiLiLiLiLiLiLi." I'm convinced she's trying to say my name. I work daily with her on saying it. Her mother thinks it might be her first word. She just learned to walk, and this baby will just melt your heart!

Picnic

A neighbor invited me to a picnic for ladies and their children. It was a 7 1/2 hour event, and we had a great time! About every hour and a half a new course of food was introduced on the table, and in between the eating the kids played jumprope, soccer, basketball, tag, and other games. In all we had 4 courses of food, and it was all capped off with some hot tea. As I looked around the table, there were 15 women, and only two of us did not have our heads covered. Though I'm very much a foreigner, I felt at home with these ladies. Our main commonality is parenting and marriage. We like to cook. We buy tupperware (one of the ladies is a Tupperware consultant). We talk about clothes. We talk about cleaning. Of course, I'm saying "we" when there were only 1 or 2 ladies at the picnic who spoke English. My dearest friend here lives 2 floors beneath our apartment, and her English is very good. She would clue me in on much of the conversation. Without words, though, hospitality speaks volumes, and these ladies have it. Here are a few pictures from the picnic and the sweet children who are becoming my children's friends.

Diarrhea Worm

Emma's favorite book right now is Diarrhea Worm. Several times a day she asks Mike or me to read Diarrhea Worm. She knows it so well that she reads it by herself, and as she reads it she says Diarrhea Worm throughout the read. I'm curious what her 4-year old mind thinks the plot is about.

ABC gumball

It all started at a slumber party. Abby was at Sarah's house, and her big brother Elijah had a gumball machine. You had to pay a penny to get a gumball. Abby, being the clever girl she is, told Sarah how to break into the gumball machine. They unscrewed the top of the gumball machine and each put 4-5 gumballs in their mouth. After they chewed it a while, they decided it would be cool to make one giant gumball out of ABC (already been chewed) gum. Then they kept chewing more and more gum and added it to the slimy, gooey gumball. They got tired of chewing gum so they took a break and continued the gum art in the morning. Since we've moved from KY, Abby continues to call Sarah and ask about the gumball.

Last week we got the gumball in the mail. You should've seen the excitement on Abby's face. She squealed and jumped and couldn't wait to tear open the package. It was one of the nastiest things I've ever seen, but to Abby it was nothing less than beautiful. Have you ever seen ABC gum that is 6 months old and has travelled over 6000 miles? It gets hot in the mail, and all the saliva juices and sugar juices mix together for a foamy, gooey, incredibly disgusting mess.

Abby will be adding her chewed gum to the gumball, and we will eventually mail it back to Sarah after it has increased in size. For now we are enjoying the gumball as it is proudly displayed on her dresser.

I think every girl has a good slumber party story. When I was in the 7th grade I was at Linda D's slumber party. As I was in a sleeping bag, I began to play with my belly button. It was that night that I discovered that I can turn my belly button from an innie to an outie. It amazed everyone there. I could acutally completely pull out the innie so that I could see the very end of the belly button. It was the hit of the party, and this rare talent has served me well over the years. In college I sent a letter with pictures to David Letterman, and I tried to get on "Stupid People Tricks". I never heard back from him. The letter must've gotten lost in the mail.

post its

To help with language learning I am going to label everything in my house. As I was explaining this learning method to my language tutor, she told me of two methods to get paper to stick to walls without leaving a mark. First, use a dab of toothpaste. If you don't like that method, then you can stick some egg white on the back of the paper. Personally, I was thinking post-its, but the toothpaste is much more economical. Plus, since we have our windows open all the time it may have better cling to it when we get a gust of wind through the house. I'm going to try all three methods: post-its, toothpaste, and egg whites. I'll post the results of the experiment in a few weeks. I never did win a science fair as a kid, but I think this would at least get honorable mention. On the comments, feel free to give your hypothesis on which variable will have the clingiest results.

Mike the Chaperone

Last week I had my first opportunity to go on a field trip with school. The first grade went to a HUGE local park. Why so huge, you ask? Because, as Annie's principal told me, it used to be the local GOLF course. When they saw how few people were playing golf, they turned it into a more profitable use of space for the whole city. (I will refrain from any personal comments at this point for the sake of my daughters who were wih me when I heard this horrifying tidbit of information.)

Anyway, we had a beautiful day as 5 adults tried to keep up with 16 kids. Emma was #16 as she enjoyed being a 7-year-old 1st grader for a day. We rode the train, went horseback riding, walked through a flower garden (hundreds of rose bushes of all colors), and finished at the playground in the picture. Though personally crushed by the horrific news, I was reminded again of how blessed I am to be called "Dad" by the four greatest kids on the planet!

My Missing Tooth!

Last Saturday after my final soccer game, I was sitting on the sofa watching "The Sound of Music". I was wiggling my tooth with my tongue and then...my tooth was still in my mouth but I pushed it out with my tongue!! (By the way, it is the bottom tooth on the right of the picture) That night, I put a note under my pillow telling the tooth fairy that I had lost my tooth in the kitchen. When I woke up the next morning, there was $1 under my pillow from the International Tooth Fairy!

Normal transportation

I looked up "normal" in the dictionary. Some of the definitions include 1) "The usual or expected state" 2) "A city in Illinois" 3) "Free from mental illness". Seeing that #2 does not apply and #3 is debatable, I'll go with #1 to tell you about my experience with "normal" public transportation.

From my apartment I can walk to a mall in about 20 minutes. Since today I was in a hurry and Emma was determined to wear flip flops, I opted for a taxi ride. I went to the base of my apartment and lifted Emma to push the taxi button. Within minutes a taxi was at my side. We hopped on for what should have been a 5-minute drive. In my limited language I mentioned the name of the location. As we approached the mall, the road was under construction and we took a very long way around it, only to come to another construction area where the mall was inaccessible by car. As the taxi driver proceeded to tell me a bunch of stuff in a language I do not understand, I realized I needed to get out and walk. So I paid my taxi fare and walked about 15 minutes to get to the mall.

As I was walking, I thought to myself, "It would be nice to have a normal public transportation experience." Then, I realized that having a routine, mundane, boring transportation experience would NOT be normal. Thus, having excursions and delayed arrivals has become the norm.

Take yesterday for example. I hopped on the mini-bus that I always take to get to the kids' school. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the mini-bus stopped half-way there and the driver said a bunch of foreign words, and all the people on the mini-bus proceeded to get off. Why I do not know. I stayed on the bus. The driver looked at me. I said my key phrase "I do not know good language". So the driver just looked at me and pointed to the door. I got off and walked at least a mile uphill to get to the school.

I had another experience about a week ago on a different mini-bus. I must have gotten on the wrong one because I ended up in a part of town very far away from my neighborhood. We reached the end of the route, and everyone got off. I was able to get back to my neighborhood with the help of a nice 20-yr old guy who spoke limited English. In all it was a 1 1/2 hour delay.

So what is normal for public transportation? As of late it has been unexpected stops before I get to my destination. Fortunately everyone in the country has been kind to this gal who doesn't have a clue.

It's just part of the big adventure.

Annie's friend

Annie's class took a field trip, and Mike snapped this picture of Annie and one of her best friends from school. I thought you might enjoy seeing the kids' friends. Plus, this girl is such a cutie!!!