Akha

Tim had a big adventure last weekend, taking the overnight bus (12 hours, with a midnight stop for noodles) to Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. Our friend Pat (who is also training to be the future pastor of our church) is from an Akha tribe there, and he invited Tim along to the engagement ceremony of his sister. Tim and the groom-to-be (above, with his bride) are buddies, so it was really a treat for him to get to be a part of things. Here are some scenes from the weekend of colorful celebration...

(coffee beans...Pat's family owns a coffee farm)

making rice

ouch! But there was pork for all...

Beautiful. Meanwhile, back at home, we had two fevers (E&A), a broken tooth (me), and a kitchen faucet that completely broke off, resulting in my rinsing the abundant piles of dishes with one hand while I attempted to hold the spewing faucet together with the other. Good times!

Classic Ju

Golden

I'm living with a heightened awareness just now that this time in our lives is golden, sweet, brief. We really seek to live in the reality of the beauty of each day, although sometimes in the trenches it's hard, but for a number of reasons it's even more stark to me in recent days.

After a summer of traversing the globe and many long days for Tim working with interns and teams and college students, we were able to get away to the beach for a few days. Hua Hin is Thailand's oldest seaside resort town, the place where kings have historically spent time by the sea. We're very blessed to have friends with a condo there, who are generous enough to allow us to rent it, and we have some special memories there. But this time was the best. We did a lot of relaxing...

...had some great time on the beach...



...and did some exploration that led to new adventures.

We decided to visit Khao Takiab (Chopstick Mountain), having read about its lovely view of the ocean and the temple that sits atop the mountain, but we were not aware beforehand of its massive monkey population! As we drove up the mountain and got to the temple area, we felt a little uncertain in the presence of so many monkeys, but, rationalizing that many people live and work there in constant community with these guys, we decided that we'd forge ahead with our exploration.



The monkeys own this mountain. They paid us scant attention, although the guy above did bare his teeth and advance at one point when he'd had enough of Tim's paparazzi-ing. At which point we were glad to give him the space he needed!

This prohibition is there for good reason...A friend told me about a time her family visited this mountain with her husband's parents, planning to picnic there, and her mother in law found herself engaged in a tug of war with a monkey over a Whopper! (Drop the Whopper and back away slowly...)

Our wackiest moment came when we were ready to leave. There were several monkeys on our car, cavorting about with a carton of milk they had stolen. Tim had to start the car and drive away in order for them to dismount, and then he drove back around to get us. We had the doors open buckling the children in the back, when we suddenly realized that there were two monkeys hopping around in the front seat! They stole a package of tissues (thankfully not the camera that was sitting on the seat..) and bounded away. Cheeky.

This is a view of the base of the mountain, facing the sea.

Our other great find was an artist's village. Several studios with working artists- such a treasure!

The time together, enjoying one another's company with no agenda, was such a gift. We have a colleague who is right now in the States saying goodbye to his father, who was recently diagnosed with cancer and it has progressed rapidly. There's no time to miss opportunities to tell others we love them.




And here's the other thing. This young lady started second grade last week. She's so precious to me it hurts, and I have to admit that I went home and cried myself silly. These days are sweet, even when they're hard, and we want to experience them with our eyes wide open. Thanks be to God.

18 months

We made it! Our sweet little Ju is 18 months old...I remember during some of the harder seasons of his short life thus far, especially that first year, thinking it would be glorious to get to this stage and imagining what he might be like when we got through some of those rough patches...and here we are!

He is a beautiful boy, and he's all his own. Now that he's so mobile and talking a great deal ("Daddy!", "bubble", "thank you", many more discernible words and many we can't understand...) he's such a little life force, barreling through the days with alternating wide, dimpled smiles and a quick, sharp cry of displeasure (which gets no shortage of use, let me tell you). He alternates between inhaling good food and signing "all finished" after only a few bites. He loves to carry a baby doll, kiss it and put it in a stroller for a walk. He greets us with a huge grin and a "Hiiiiii!" when one of us has been absent from his sight for a while. He's passionate about bananas and watermelon, but won't have anything to do with milk (except the mommy version). He's much more attached to a pacifier than I would like, and he has the sweetest affinity for the blanket that his great aunt Bernice made- those two items are sleep essentials, and he'd have them every waking minute, too, if we encouraged him.

I still stick to the assessment that, for now, he's a sensitive little fellow. Physically (dratted eczema!) and emotionally, he turns on a dime. It took him the longest, by far, to recover from our international travel this summer, and between transition and teething it was a long time before we saw much sunshine from this little guy.

At his 18 month appointment he had gained 10 percentile points in his weight, which was such a relief to me. And he was at the 50th percentile in height, giving him the shortest stature among our little ones, who have all been high on the height scale thus far.

All of that being said, he's a bundle of joy and he's ours. I still look at him sometimes and think, "how did you get here, you unique little guy?" What a gift.

A Big Birthday, and More Remembrances

I so vividly remember walking into the delivery room with a gardenia plucked from the bush outside our door on the way to the hospital, the long night of labor, the welcoming...it's a girl!...the excitement of waking up those first mornings, how we would both marvel at the baby sleeping (sometimes) at the foot of our bed, the clarity of joy and beauty that is in many ways unique with a first precious child.

Our Emmy is almost a month into seven years old. Her big day was just a few days after our arrival back in Bangkok, so in some respects it was a blur of jet lag, not to mention a little brother who was sick with a stomach virus. But we celebrated and cherished our little girl anyway, and her wish was for a watch and a Bible, so it was a joy to fulfill those.

We celebrated a week later, after some of the initial chaos of transition had lessened, with a pool party. Some dear friends have a son who was turning five, so we combined the parties and had a really great time. Here are a few photos from her birthday and party...





Seven- it feels like crossing a threshold. I am literally watching her change before my eyes. She's maturing in every way, and it blows me away that I have the privilege of coming alongside this sweet girl in her journey. I can ask her to set the table or hang the diapers out to dry, we can laugh hard together over a silly game of Go Fish or a line in Anne of Green Gables, we struggle through math concepts, enjoy breakfasts out together on grocery shopping mornings, and just generally have fun being together. She is incredibly silly, loves to read, can be a doting or bossy or torturous big sister (depending upon the brother and the moment!), is sensitive and has a faith in Christ that is real and growing. I pray frequently for the grace to grow in relationship with my girl as she does the work of growing up. She is a priceless treasure.
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And back to Georgia...this pretty much epitomizes our trip, and every trip we make to the States. So many dear people to see, so many miles to drive! We really did visit with so many wonderful family members and friends, and we always left homes and events marveling at how rich we are in relationships- thanks be to God. There are so many more people and events than we even captured on film (we take far too many pictures as it is, but there are a number of loved ones and special events that I think, "we didn't get a picture of that?") , but these are a smattering of some of the good times we shared with people, including time with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, a girls' trip to Charlottesville with Brea to see Nells and her sweet babies, reunions for Em with her dearest cousin and her old Bangkok friend Gracyn (whose whole family we loved being with)...

(always a sword, even on the tractor!)

We even got to see "Aunt Melanie" for a day in Locust Grove! We'll be seeing you back here, soon, Melanie!

postscript- When I look back at these GA photos, do you know what I think? I think, "We weren't sweating."- ah, the joys of springtime! It's crazy hot here in Bangkok, and we do have a lovely glow almost all the time.