Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Good pictures!

'Loved your Hawaii pics, Beth and Matt! and the beached sea turtle was cute! (the one with blonde hair of course!) Thanks for posting them. I look forward to seeing the rest of your pictures sometime.

Love you!!
Mama

Monday, August 29, 2005

Hawaii

Some photos to bore you to death...


Hanauma Bay, a great snorkeling place


It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a... beached sea turtle?


Sea Turtle- notice any resemblance?



Apple Bananas


The Pali Lookout


The two Matts enjoying a Pineapple Sundae


Caleb Jorgens


Plumeria


Three Haolies (what the Locals call us white folk)

Monday, August 15, 2005

Opinion Poll

We get to find out on Thursday afternoon what "kind" of baby we are having! We are then leaving bright and early the next morning for a week long vacation to visit friends in *sigh* Hawaii. So we may not get around to telling everyone for a week what we are having, but we will try!

If anyone cares to make their gender opinion public, feel free to post a comment here. There will be no grand prizes. Only the potential satisfaction of being right and having everyone know that you were right. :)

Monday, August 08, 2005

Home Again!

We made it home OK, though an hour delay to our Seoul - Seattle departure due to maintenance needs caused us to miss our connecting flight to Portland, so we got a later flight (which was also delayed!), so we finally reached Portland about 5:30 instead of 2:50. But Kim was there with Megan and Caleb, took us to Matt and Beth's (I slept much of the trip), then spent the night there with Grandma K. and the two kids, then we took Grandma and kids to visit Holly. We were there for several hours, then home about 7:15. We checked mail, etc. then to bed about 11 - slept in 'til about 9! Lots of little 'catch ups' to do today.

It was tough seeing Holly - she is very pale and weak and emotional. Wonders why a loving God doesn't answer her prayers for healing, help her to just be a 'normal kid'. She was up in a wheelchair part of the time we were there, but didn't talk much. Mostly she just likes to be a part of hearing the interactions of family (except any arguing between younger siblings!). She had a quick (15 minute) dressing change yesterday just before we left - they put her to sleep to do it because it is quite traumatizing otherwise. Both Kris and Bruce are weary - Kris lacks sleep since Holly is only comfortable with mom helping her for some things, so she never gets extended sleep time. Bruce is trying to keep up with home, his sick elderly dad, plus work. It's good having grandma there to help with kids during the day and that's been going well. Marie will probably help some there, may go to try help Kris later this week. I'm busy catching up on mail, bills, house, etc. - hope to stop by school today to see how it's going there. Looks like no more tractoring with my brother Jeff this summer - there's less to do than he'd hoped. So I'll find things to do here, start getting ready for school, etc. Marie and I have a trip with friends to Yellowstone planned for Aug. 23 - 27 - should be interesting!

Time to go for now - hope all is well. Pray for Holly and family.

God bless

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

MINI - VIEW OF LIFE IN SINGAPORE, PT 2

It's Danny's birthday here - he's 28. Got up about 7 AM to check internet, especially to see if any updates on Holly. She still has not had the surgery dressing fix as she's not critical and the doctors are busy on other traumas at present. After Danny got up, we finished watching, via internet, a Mariner victory, then walked the 3/4 mile up then downhill to the local mall for money exchange and groceries. When we got back, I was rather sweaty, so took a cold shower (Marie said I needed one! :) - a cold shower means not turning on the heater, so you get normal tap temperature. Here that is about the same as the water in the swimming pool, probably about 80 degrees. Feels cool when first in, but good as soon as adjusted! Problem is that after the shower, I towelled off, then by the time I was ready to put my shirt on, I was already perspiring - Marie thought I'd not dried off well, but it was the humidity. The shower did feel good and the memory is delightful, but the effect is short!

Today we do some things to celebrate Danny's bday and try to avoid the noise in the apartment - workers are jackhammering tile off floor and wall of an empty apartment nearby . . . they have a permit to use the 'hacker' from 9 AM to 5 PM (5 days a week until the 18th) - the first day there were about three of them going at once - felt like being on the inside of a tooth being worked on by a dentist! Yesterday and today there is just one, but still very hard to even carry on a conversation. We may relocate to the snooker table room - still a bit noisy there, but not as bad.

Enough for now. On to Malayasia tomorrow for a tour bus tour of fishing village and orchid farms, etc. We've heard it is much different there - not clean and 'western' like Singapore.

Danny's Birthday!!!!!

If you see this in time, remember to send a birthday greeting to Danny either here or via email - it's Aug. 3, 8:15 AM as I write this - still Aug. 2nd in Oregon! We've been doing things around here - some exploring the city, shopping, swimming, etc. - mama and I have a trip to Malayasia planned for tomorrow, then to the airport Friday evening for the long trip home, getting to Portland on Saturday around 3 PM if there are no postponements. It's been quite an experience seeing such a different part of the world, though not really all that different in many ways. Probably much like a major city in the US except the mix of races is mainly Asian (Singaporian, Korean, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, etc. with a few whites - very few blacks here). It will be good to get back to where the sweat evaporates from the skin!