the things we miss

i love living in east asia, and despite this place being super different than america it isn't really hard for me to live here. what is hard, however, is not being in america. mostly just for the really great things and the really bad things. but while we miss not getting to be there for the exciting events, we still celebrate along with our friends and family. and this past week there were 2 major events in some of our good friends' lives.

first, my best friend from college beth had her son judson. thankfully, our other best friend krista graciously sent me email update after email update as she got text messages from beth's husband tanner during the labor and birth. it was wonderful. the past few weeks of her pregnancy have been one answer to pra yer after another. i am especially excited that tanner was able to go home early from his deployment to be there for the birth. we are so excited for the 2 of them to be parents to this adorable little boy!

second, our sweet friend lyndsay got married. we just finished looking at pictures on facebook and it was so fun to see so many friends from the past few years here all together celebrating lyndsay and ryan joining their lives. we are excited for the 2 of them to embark on the wonderful journey of marriage. and also really excited for them to move back to asia. congratulations!

and i now realize how crazy it is that the things we miss are weddings and, now, babies, not graduations and such. we are super excited, though, that in the near future there is another special wedding that we won't have to miss. 12 days, jada!

weekend with friends

This past weekend, Shelley and I took a road trip to one of the more famous tourist towns in our province. It is nice that Josh can drive here, because rather than take the 8 hour train ride, or brave the bumpy 6 hour bus ride, we rented a van and made the trip in about 4 1/2 hours. Now a 4 1/2 trip sounds like we went a long way from home, but here in East Asia, the highways aren't quite as developed as in the states, and the place we went wasn't actually all that far distance wise. We probably could have made the trip in 3 hours in North Carolina. Either way, we had a great time. We stayed at a hostel with a good sized room for a very fair price (about 11 dollars a night), and got to spend time doing what Shelley and I do best, exploring. We rented bikes and took them to the lake nearby, we enjoyed tea and western food from great coffee shops and pizzerias, and we took walks through the quaint streets of the restored ancient town. All in all, it was a great weekend. Here are some pictures:

Sunrise over the old town

Breakfast at The Black Dragon, our favorite coffee shop. Waffles with homeade lemon curd and strawberry jam with fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, and tea. This kind of thing is rare in these parts of the world.

Busy streets of the old town

After a bike ride out to the lake, beautiful scenery and farmland

Life Vicarious

There is something inside of me that wants to be this guy:

That is Bear Grylls. This past Summer while in Colorado, I happened to catch half an episode of Man Vs. Wild on Discovery Channel. It just so happened that it was in the middle of a Man Vs. Wild marathon, and so I stayed tuned for a few more episodes. I was able to purchase the first 3 seasons of this while in East Asia, and whenever I have free time and Shelley is preoccupied with something else, I take full advantage of watching.

Bear is a beast, hands down. As an Eagle Scout, I spent my adolescent summers sleeping overnight in shelters made from wood to earn my wilderness survival merit badge, lashing rafts to earn my pioneering merit badge, fishing, swimming in a lake, and learning how to identify whatever grows, walks, or slithers to determine whether it can be eaten or not. Bear does this at a level unlike any I have experienced. He gets to live every boy's dream for a profession. He also happens to be the Chief Scout (read: King of all Boy Scouts all over the world).

Enough of the Boy Scout talk. Bear has also summited Everest, circumnavigated the UK on a jet ski, crossed the Northern Atlantic in an inflatable raft, paraglided over the Himalayas, and served in the British SAS. I am pretty sure if you cut him he would spew testosterone. His TV show is everything a man could ask for minus a female: wild terrain, fire, and meat, lots of meat. I have watched him eat a salmon live, eat a trout raw, cook a rabbit over a fire made by rubbing 2 sticks together, bite the head off a snake, and eat ants... and that is only over 3 episodes.

Here is East Asia, there are very few places where you can actually get outdoors without trash and people close by. Nature hasn't survived very well. This show is how I get my fill! Some men love MMA fighting, some love poker, some love tech-toys. As for me, Bear Grylls is where its at.

highway backup

this post is a bit late, but in my opinion so worth it. better late than never, huh? check out this picture. it's a little fuzzy bc it was taken on danielle's phone, so in case you can't see, ill explain:

We were on our way to the international fellowship last Sunday when traffic came to a complete stop on the freeway. This usually isn't the case on a Sunday morning, so we were intrigued as to what it could be. As we drew closer, we saw a lady in high heels carrying a watermelon off the freeway, and Josh said half-joking "Maybe a watermelon truck spilled all his watermelons." A few more minutes down the road, and low and behold, a watermelon truck had spilled all its watermelons out on the freeway. More watermelons than I have ever seen before. As we drove by, the smell was amazing. However, the sad part is that some poor farmer lost a lot of money, and in the midst of a severe drought, the farmers need all they can get. We hope it was a huge farming corporation who could shoulder the loss and not an individual heading to the farmers' market with his own crop. Who knows. All we know is, you never know what you're going to see in this part of the world.

happy easter!

happy easter, everyone! jarred and i have had a great week getting ready for easter sunday. sweet times alone reading, with each other, and with great friends here. one of my favorite things was a few articles i read about what would not have been if easter had not been 2,000 years ago. and needless to say, i am very thankful for the events of easter.

not nearly as important, but another thing i love about easter is easter baskets. easter baskets were really big in my house growing up. every easter morning we woke up to clues leading us around the house and finally ending at our basket. I mean, my sisters and i even got easter baskets in college, along with any friends that came home with us for easter weekend.

jarred and i were talking about this a few weeks ago. and then low and behold, he woke me up yesterday morning with a clue to start my hunt for my easter basket. always on top of details, jarred enlisted aaron and stacy to bring over a real easter basket, grass, and tons of easter candy which we then munched on all day. (check out the card if you can see it- this is what happens when stacy sends aaron to get the card for jarred to give me)

after our international fellowship, we had a fun lunch with some old and new friends, later followed by a big gathering with a few families we know for an egg hunt and dinner. jarred threatened to try to beat all the kids at the egg hunt, but we got there a little late. and i'm not sure that breakfast-for-dinner is an appropriate easter dinner, but it was good. and by kids, i mean a lot of little kids, all of them very happy at this point because their arms are full of plastic eggs with jelly beans inside.

guests!

These are our really good friends Aaron and Stacy:

This is our guest bedroom here in Asia:

These are our really good friends Aaron and Stacy in our guest bedroom here in Asia this morning:

Yay! Our friends Aaron and Stacy lived with us here in Asia when we first moved here a couple years ago. Their plan is to move back here in the near future, so they came over for a week to check some things out. And a bonus for us is that they built in a day at the beginning of their trip to come see us. They were literally here in our city for 33 hours, but we loved getting to hang out with them and stay up talking so late it was like we were all in college again. We love you guys and hope the rest of the trip goes well!

easter tea party

grace, danielle, amy and i get together every couple weeks to talk about a book that we are all reading together. i love these times of hanging out and processing our thoughts about our book and our lives. this past week i made our time a little bit more of an adventure by planning an easter tea party. it was complete with english breakfast tea, mint cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad, fruit salad, and homemade lemon bars. and what tea party would be complete with out easter hats kentucky derby-style. aren't we cute?