We are "home"

We made it safely to the US and our body clocks are adjusting. Before we left we were able to get Austin a hair cut where he sits in a car and watches "Cars", the movie. I got a hair cut too but the car chair was too small for me.

Austin loves airplanes and was over-the-top fascinated with the jets at the airport. The kids did great on the plane and got more sleep than we did.

Austin loves feeding my mom's tortoise, the biggest 'turtle' he has seen.

We are especially grateful to have been able to celebrate Maren's birthday here with grandparents, on the actual day even.

We are living in a small three bedroom house in the wood-streets in Riverside. It's a nice little house built in 1933-34, with new air conditioning. Thank you for your prayers for our travels and settling in. Folks here have been very generous and provided a care package with food and grocery store gift certificates; what a blessing. We look forward to seeing you on our furlough.

GO!!!

We are on our way to the airport, leaving Manila 12:45 PM, from there to Taipei and then on to LAX. We have an estimated travel time of 18 hours.

We arrived Taipei safely after a short 2 hour flight. Now comes the marathon flight. I am having quite a time with the Internet service here in the airport since everything is in Mandarin.

Joy and I were not able to get seats together, but perhaps the kids will sleep better if they are apart and Maren can use the bassinet at the bulkhead.

It is nice to be back in the land of clean toilets, paper provided, soap for your hands even. We are not sure what the flip down device is for, but it seems when we left the States they were calling them toilet seats. Yes, that is it, my memory is coming back to me now:-)

The computer itself cannot be accessed so I cannot upload any pics of our trip so far...tomorrow I guess.

Get set...

We made it safely to Manila. Today we saw the dentist and pediatrician, tomorrow we finish packing and then Wednesday afternoon we fly to LAX.

On your mark...

By being good stewards of our money, we will save so much by not having to buy tickets for our kids!

Getting ready to leave

We leave Manila in two weeks and it seems too short a time with all that has to be done before we leave. We are cleaning/repairing our house (getting it ready for renters), working at my regular job, preparing the center for our biennial conference and squeezing in time to catch this monitor lizard.

We chased it around the shop wall for ten minutes before catching it. It is about 15 feet long. Oh wait, I forgot the decimal, 1.5 feet long, a baby. Last year the guards on center caught one over 4 feet long, now that is a big honkin' monitor. The guys tell me they are delicious, but it is endangered so we let it go.

Please pray that we will have wisdom on what we realistically can and cannot accomplish during this time. Although very tired with all that has gone on, we are very excited to come home in time for Maren's first birthday party, with grandparents this time!!!