Entering the Digital World

Well, Kevin and I just got our first digital camera today!! We've waited quite a while and are so excited that we were snapping pictures left and right (just to get the feel of the camera). I think we even ended up with some of Kevin's feet! We knew we wanted to get one before the baby is born and Kevin managed to work out a sweet deal with a camera shop he's been doing business for. Blessings are everywhere!!

Anyway, I wanted to post a couple pictures, and these are some we took tonight. Kev's been working on the ceiling in our guest bedroom. I'm heading to Chicago for a couple days to work on cleaning out my old room. My mom's birthday was earlier this week, so that will be good to celebrate with her a little bit!

Kevin and I haven't spent too many nights apart, so it's still pretty weird. I'm going to miss him a lot! I feel sort of silly, thinking of how "inseperable" we are...but I'm more glad. That we can love each other enough to hate the thought of spending a night apart is a blessing.

This is me at 30 weeks pregnant. 

Kevin 

Weekly News

I feel like it's time to post our news again. We've had bad internet this week in spite of our new phone, so I haven't been able to do much posting or e-mail till today. The highlight of our month has been getting a phone line. Praise the Lord! We are so happy that we'll finally be able to keep in better contact with you all and do e-mail at home. We were so excited that we couldn't restrain ourselves from calling you all.

Eric finished his ESL teaching this week. They had a party and got to see Gabe, which they were very excited for, especially one student who shares a name with Gabe(she is a girl). We also spent time out at the Baan Burt Faa orphanage that we've gotten involved in. A team was here from Canada to help out at the orphanage. This group came last year and we weren't sure whether they'd be able to help the orphanage on a continuing basis, but they've committed to providing food, water, petrol and electricity for the orphanage, so this is a big relief to us. We were wondering how we'd find more support for them, but God had it taken care of all along. The kids seem so happy with the team here to spend time with them. It was great to see how much they enjoyed it. Gabe also loves going out there. The whole place is a mud pit and to him, it's great.

We haven't had too much rain lately, so flood worries are subsiding as yours in the States increase.

Eric's school responsibilities are increasing as mine are finally decreasing after quite a busy summer. This gives me the extra time I need to work on Gabey's new playgroup which me and a few other moms are starting next week. I'm really looking forward to it. Gabe continues to talk about Jesus all the time, but gets very angry when I challenge any concept he has of Jesus. I have had to really talk to him a lot about accepting Jesus for who he is, not for who he wants him to be. I tried to show him The Miracle Maker to give him a better idea of what Jesus did. He got mad because Jesus was wearing a pink tunic. He thought it should be white. How does that happen? If anyone has any good ideas for this perplexing problem, let me know:)-Ang

Getting older

Lately, as pregnancy progresses, the changes in my body have been more pronounced. I rode my bike to my friend Becky’s house last week. She only lives about 4 blocks away, but it was quite a challenge. I had trouble reaching the handlebars due to the little one under my ribs. About 1 block into the ride, I could feel myself beginning to huff and puff. “Maybe I can’t ride my bike anymore,” I thought. “But I’ve always been able to ride my bike.” Even little things like bending over to tie my shoes leave me out of breath. It is so strange finding difficulty in doing things that I’ve always been able to do. More and more I find myself longing for my old body back. I don’t think I appreciated it enough. I realized that this must be what it’s like as you grow older. Your body starts not being able to do the things you’ve always been able to do. You long for the vitality and strength that you had when you were young. I can imagine how frustrating that must be.

Anyway, I just had that thought/connection. I have quite a while to take advantage of youth, and I intend to do just that.

What's wrong

Does anyone know why this blogsite is not loading correctly for us? Sorry we haven't been posting so much. Now that we finally have a phone, we have other internet problems we cannot do anything about. I took some nice pics of the orphanage to send for the growth group, but can't send them till the problems are solved.-Angela

Sunday Afternoon

I figured somebody should write something so that we'll continue to check this site...and I also want to move down the picture of Gabe's head on top of Eric's body. Thank you, Kevin! It did take me a while, but the black-hole mouth was a bit of a clue.

The weather this afternoon is as good as it gets here in Michigan, absolutely beautiful. I just watched some news about Hurricane Katrina, which is now a Category 5 storm. The mayor of New Orleans has ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. Kevin, can you imagine what will happen to Dulac? About 11 years ago, Kevin and I went to Dulac, LA on a mission trip to do hurricane repair work. Dulac is even lower and more "swampy" than New Orleans. People in those areas certainly need our prayers.

Dad starts classes on Tuesday so summer is definitely winding down. Hope you all can manage to get some time outdoors in the next few weeks. Love, Mom

Family Resemblance

I noticed in Eric and Ang's last post that there is some pretty amazing father son resemblance. Amazing!!

Checking Comments

As with anything in this age of technology, change is the only constant. I hope I can keep up with you enough to keep this going. You are all getting rather advanced :) Anyway, I'm just wondering whether you all go back and check Comments to your post--even if it was several days later. Would it be better to just publish a new post about something, even if it was specifically regarding a previous post? Just wondering.... Mom W.

Escaping the evils of weblog

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday messing around with how all this works. I did figure out how to create your own profile/username without creating a whole separate blog. If you want to know how we can comment here about it or I can send you an email. Once that gets set up, its actually quite easy.

I've also posted a link (off to the right) for Eric and Ang's picture site. Just click on where it says "Pictures from Asia"

New weblog

As I was creating my own username I got sucked deeper and deeper into the evil plot of blogger.com until I had created my own weblog. However, I have seen that it could be for the greater good. I have wanted a place to publish photos we've taken here without adding too much in the way of text as I don't want to compromise the security of our group. I'll continue posting to this weblog as I did before but post photos only to the other weblog. That way, I can give out that address to anyone and everyone who asks. So if you know anyone who wants to see more photos of us, give them my new weblog address angelataylorwolthuis.blogspot.com.

Monday Reflections

As Jen has said, the camping weekend was very enjoyable and over much too soon. It seemed to be a slice of the simple life wedged into our usually much too busy schedules. Watching Sam and Lydia experience the "new outdoors" was such fun. Collecting acorns in a Pringle's can kept Sam busy for hours, and Lydia was her usual sweet natured self. Lake Michigan put on its usual awesome display of power and beauty. For Dad and me, it was a chance to relive camping with our family, something we had not done for many years. We had a little bit of everything, weather-wise, but even the rain was useful so that we could find out whether tents, etc. leaked :) I agree that campfire time, along with broomstick pies (Are they called "pies"?) was the highlight.

And now it's Monday. I have already spent two hours in the dentist's chair since they called and had a cancellation. I now have a temporary crown for the tooth that broke when we were in Thailand. It will be finished on Sept. 8. Ang, my dentist said they had done a good short-term job on my tooth in Chiang Mai (and for $12).
The dentist here found that hard to believe. I won't even tell you what this new crown will cost.

Eric and Ang, your experience with water recently hasn't been as pleasant as ours. Thanks for the pictures. That flooded street scene looks very much like the picture I bought in Karon Beach showing the main street on the day of the tsunami. It's unimaginable to think about the damage, especially at places like the orphanage and the slums where you teach English. Who are the women in the other picture?

Well, most of the camping stuff is cleaned and put away, but not the memories. Getting my pictures developed will help us remember the beauty of Hoffmaster long after the trees lose their leaves and the campsites are buried by snow. "Thanks for the memories." Mom

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Summer continues full of the wonderful things I associate with it. Driving to the orchard to pick peaches, holding the fuzzy fruits in my hands, eating them right off the tree, and baking fresh peach pie. An evening at the beach, Kevin plunging through the waves. Walking through the farmers' market, amazed at how beautiful their produce looks (even the onions look like jewels). Evenings on the porch (now that it's getting cooler) hearing kids playing basketball at the park mixed with our yard's infestation of chirping crickets.

Our camping weekend was lots of fun as I am sure some others will post. The weater was generally very enjoyable, the food was great, and evenings around the campfire eating some delectable dessert and talking together was what I looked forward to most.

What I feel most compelled to write about happened after we came home. It was Sunday about 2:30pm. We only had about 2 hours before we needed to leave for church and lots of things we wanted to get done before then. As Kev and I were unloading the back of the truck our neighbor Jake, who is about 10 years old, was heading across the street to the park with his kite. Every good windy day he takes it over. Sometimes he goes with his dad, sometimes his sisters, today a friend. I've never noticed that he's gotten it up in the air.
"If you have trouble, I'll come over and help you," Kev told him as he headed across the street. Within five minutes we both knew he was not going to get that kite in the air. Kev started over and called back to me to bring over our kite as well. Our kite went right up, so I stood there flying it and talking with Jake's sister (12), but Jake's kite was having problems. There was not enough string and the kite was too heavy. Kev was there with him for a good hour helping him. Everytime Jake started to get discouraged Kevin thought of a new thing to try.

Both of us sort of forgot about the things we had wanted to get done. It just felt so free, kite-flying and hanging out with the neighbor kids. That's why we wanted to buy this house. We wanted to love kids, be a good influence, and build relationships. Since we bought the house last summer, we've been so busy working on it (feeling desperately guilty about any time we take off) that we haven't given time to what we feel is our purpose here. I know we still need to finish our house, but flying that kite today gave me a vision that our purpose is still here. It isn't going anywhere. It is rich and beautiful. I feel so excited and encouraged.
jen

Mourning

I think it is all sinking in this week: I cannot do everything I used to do (before kids, and even with just one) now that there are two little ones. One friend said, "You're just NOW realizing this??!!" To which I modestly thought, "I like to think I can do most anything AND on time." This confession is especially difficult because I love doing "extra" things: blueberry picking, scrapbooking, crafts, house projects, gardening...yet when I try to fit those things in to an already full schedule of important stuff like diapers, feeding little and big mouths, laundry, child training and necessary snuggle time, I end up getting angry quickly, tired sooner and do a lousy job loving my family.

I am mourning the death of my pre-child life. Ironic, isn't it? Seeing as we longed so deeply to be a family. I keep reminding myself that I still haven't come to the point of being WITH children as long as we were withOUT...but that time is fast approaching.

I have had a couple people lately, being surprised that I don't work out of the home, ask, "Are you fulfilled?" To which I later realized that 1) they probably aren't so fulfilled doing their own jobs from 9-5 and 2) it isn't about being fulfilled...at least immediately, is it? Does folding a basket of laundry "fulfill" me? Well, maybe in some twisted must-have-order!! sort of way, but no, it is not deeply fulfilling. But teaching Sam how to sort colors, load the drier and match socks (and a million other things) will hopefully some day culminate in a beautiful family with whom I am "fulfilled."

So, with deep sorrow, but hope that it will produce a better me and better family, I am letting go of some of those extra things for a season...probably a long one, but a season nonetheless. Amy

CM Need

I forgot to add this to my last e-mail: Our group has a need for a team to come in April 2006 to do child care for our group conference. Essentially, what the team would do is comparable for a VBS. We have a lot of kids and the team would need to be probably 15 or more people willing to plan a week of activities for kids 0-18. If you know of any church group that's looking for a mission trip possibility, please let us know.

Flood

We've survived our first natural disaster in Chiangmai. It rained most of the week-end, but it didn't seem like it was a huge amount. Apparently, there was a lot more up north. We were on our way to church on Sunday morning and were surprised by the amount of traffic on the Superhighway. We kept seeing people parking their cars on the side of the highway and hailing taxis. We soon realized that people were bringing their cars up from their neighborhoods on either side of the superhighway and parking them. Most of the neighborhoods were under water. Apparently, some time on Sunday, they had to release the dam up north. Within a short time the river rose about 2 meters, putting lots of neighborhoods close to the river under 2 meters of water. My friend Yam lives close to the river and she said that the water came in very quickly. Her next door neighbor's grandma was caught in the water and was swept several miles away. People had to get out of their cars and climb on top to avoid being carried away by the very fast moving water. There was little people could do that night. Lots of people tried to get out in anything that would float. Lots of people spent the night on top of their cars waiting for helicopters. Yam and her family were trapped upstairs for a day without food. The water was so high that no one could go anywhere on Monday. Some students had to wade/swim to friends houses on higher ground so they could go to school. Police were doing the best they could with distributing food and water via helicopter. On Tuesday morning we could finally drive anywhere in the city. There was still standing water, but it wasn't so high that we couldn't drive most places. Gabe and I spent the morning helping our friends clean their houses. It's a huge job because the scum left by the river is really sticky and stains the walls of the house. Some people managed to get furniture upstairs, but some stuff got ruined. Lots of cars were completely under water. Anyway, the cleanup continues today. We've been helping friends do laundry since clean water is scare in some places. We were too far from the river to be affected and fortunately, our office is upstairs so the office is fine. Unfortunately, the whole parking lot is covered in 6 inches of sticky silt. We could probably grow something there. Anyway, hope you are well. I'll put up some pics later.

Week in Review

Well, I hope that we can use this website to hear about each other's day to day lives, so I'll start. We had a busy week because of school starting this coming week. On Wednesday we went up the mountain for a teacher's retreat. Last year, Gabe came down with pneumonia after this particular retreat. This time, he already had a cold, so I didn't let him swim as it's only been in the 80's this week. Unfortunately, he still got sick. On Wednesday night he was vomiting and the next day he had a fever. He still isn't back to himself and we can't seem to get him interested in eating anything, so pray for him that he'll get well. I stayed home from work on Friday as it was the Queen's birthday. In Thailand, the Queen's birthday is also mother's day (since the Queen is the mother of all Thai people). Gabe & I had a great day together, but I knew he wasn't quite well when he didn't eat the doughnut I bought for him to celebrate the occasion. Today I went to a baby shower for one of our members. She is from a tribal group up north. Everyone bought wooly blankets and warm clothes for the baby since it's so cold up there (temps in the 80's). That's our week.

More photos

Okay, I've been playing around with some of the photo options and I'm trying something new. On the right hand side of this page is a little links section. Click on "More DC photos" to see some more pictures from our trip. The only thing is that you have to have an account with snapfish to view them. Otherwise you can create an account right then. You can comment on this post to let me know how that works for you!! Thanks for letting me experiment!!
By the way, I didn't put captions on them before I uploaded them. Sorry!
jen

D.C.

Well all you people with crazy kids! I just thought I'd write a bit about the trip Kev and I took to DC about 3 weeks ago. We started our trip off spending 3 nights with Chad and Mardy. They took us to some of the museums on the Mall the first day. The second day they had to work, so Kevin and I drove to Mt. Vernon (George Washington's house). There were lots of grounds to explore so it was a good change from museums. We met up in the evening with Chad and Mardy for a Nationals baseball game, which they lost...sadly. We kept forgetting that Chad and Mardy are our cousins and just thought of them as friends. Day 3 we headed over to stay with my best friend Nen who happens to live about 7 miles from them. We spent part of the day at the Holocaust museum which was wonderfully designed as far as museums go, but exhausting (physically and emotionally). We spent the evening meeting all of her friends and having a delightful dinner of shish-ka-bobs grilled to perfection. The next day we went to the Washington National Cathedral (which happens to look a lot like Hope's Chapel) and had a lunch picnic at Shenandoah National Park. That night we managed to get a VIP tour of the Capitol building (given by our own representative Pete Hoekstra) thanks to Kevin's friend RJ who works in his office.
Overall, we felt that our trip was a great variety of travel, touristy stuff, and spending time with the people we love. It was so good for us to get away from our house briefly. Kevin's waiting for the weather to cool off a bit tomorrow so that he can get up in the attic to do some electrical work, so we went to the beach this evening and swam as the sun was setting. The water actually felt warmer than the air!!
For those of you who don't get to see me often, here is a pregnant picture of me from our trip (I was about 24 weeks). Sorry the picture layout is weird. I'm still figuring this out.
jen

Prayer Request

Just want you all to know how much we are enjoying this site. Being able to "see" our grandchildren is a real bonus (although we do hope to see some "normal" pix as well:)
As some of you know, Bette will be leaving Grandpa for a few days to attend her great-granddaughter's first birthday party in Florida. I think this is the first time he has been alone since they've been married. We're very happy that she can go, especially after the family difficulties of the past few years. We are, however, concerned about Grandpa's ability to be by himself and ask for your prayers for his health and safety during this time. When we get back from the conference at Willow Creek Saturday afternoon, we will pick him up and have him here until Bette gets back.

Not much else new here--we're still struggling a bit with our "inner clocks." I won'd even tell you how late I slept this AM (compensating for awake time in the night). Yes, Jen, I am remembering how to do this. Thanks for your personal tutoring. Mom W.

Mysterious Diseases

I wish I could help you with Lydia's problems but I'm fully occupied with trying to solve the problem of Gabe's mouth. I'm worried he may be picking up a blue beetlenut habit from some hilltribe ladies. On the plus side, at least the hair isn't coming out of her nose. I've always thought nose hair was even less appealing than Groucho brows.

Diagnosis?

Nurse Angela, We are wondering if you can help us. Lydia has started to grow hair in unusual places for an infant, and her nose is quite swollen. Do you think this is anything to be concerned about?

Just Checking In

Jen is here, helping us know how to use this wonderful communication tool. So good to hear from the other side of the world already. This is just a test message--more to follow. So glad Jen was able to set this up. Mom

Great idea Jen!

Thanks for running with the blogspot Jen. I wasn't able to get on the internet till today, so that's why I didn't respond to you suggestion earlier, but you made it all easy:)

We are back in Chiangmai after our wonderful vacation and have hit the ground running. Eric has orientation next week and I have been taking care of our new SIL teachers. The day we came back from Bangkok I went to the airport a couple of time to pick the up and oriented them to our group the next morning. They are busy going to Lotus, getting cell phones, buying motorbikes and getting into the general swing of things.

I could say a lot about our vacation in general. It was lovely and wonderful. I could also say a lot about our time in Bangkok. We stayed with our Thai friends, Ped & Tik. God seems to be working in their lives in ways I never imagined he would. Praise God, I can also now talk to Tik about what's going on in her life since I can speak Thai pretty well now. After numerous week-ends spent in awkward silence with her this is a very freeing thing.

We just passed the fifth anniversary mark of our arrival in Thailand so I'm glad I can finally speak the language. Gabe also is progressing in his language though in a different way. Every time we passed bargirls in Phuket he'd say "Sao Sao" which means "chicks". Where does he learn these things?

Anyway, I just want to relate a story about our trip down to Phuket. On our way down to Bangkok, we took the sleeper train. While I was taking Gabe to the bathroom, the porter came to make up our bed. Eric cleared away our bags for him but didn't see the video camera I'd stowed under the seat. I myself forgot about it too. When we arrived at Bangkok at 5:30 in the morning, we had a only a minute or two to unload our mountain of luggage and the video camera didn't make it off the train. We went into the airport and were sitting down to breakfast at BK when we realized that the video camera was gone. Within a minute I was running back toward the airport train station to catch a train to the central train station which was our train's final destination. This was the beginning of a day full of God's grace. On the comuter train to downtown Bangkok, each person I met was interested in why I was on the train to the city and wanted to help me. The train took about a hour and a quarter to get to the city. When I got there, I was picked up by tourist police who took me all around the station while they looked for the video camera. Unbelievably, it was in the lost and found. Not a thing had been stolen from the camera bag. The policeman stayed with me to help me fill out the paperwork (I'm still semi-illiterate in Thai) and then wanted to help me find the best way back to the airport. To him, the best meant the cheapest, so they put me on a 3 baht train. This train was the oldest I'd ever seen in my life. It was also very slow. However, the people were again very kind and friendly. The tourist police watched over me till the train left to make sure I made the right train and didn't get robbed of my video camera. Finally the train left. However, halfway to the airport, they stopped to have a karaoke party and some food. Again, everyone was really friendly, but the party put us an hour behind schedule. I already knew my flight was gone, so it didn't stress me out much and gave me a glimpse of Thai society I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. I finally made it to the airport and got another flight to Phuket for the evening where I again had a very cheap and interesting ride to our hotel. It could have been frustrating, but I felt like God was taking care of the me the entire day and was blessed by the love he showed me through other people. Here's a pic from our vacation.

Late Last Night While You Were All in Bed... JDubbs

I awoke around 4:30 in the morning last night to a sound in the bedroom. I opened my eyes and saw a small black shadow darting around the room. "Kevin, there's something flying around our bedroom. I think its a bat!" I said, waking him from sleep. Without thinking, he instantly turned on the overhead light, blinding us both. Sure enough, perched on our curtain rod was a furry little bat. We spent the next several minutes just looking at it, trying to figure out exactly what to do. Finally, Kevin rolled off the bed, attempting to stay close to the floor. He managed to get the window open and was kneeling there making chirping noises to attract it outside. I, meanwhile, had the sheet pulled up to my eyeballs. As adorable as the little bat was, I did not think he would be very adorable up close, and really did not want him landing on my body. Without warning, our little pet flew into the hallway. Kevin chased after it with the laudry basket held in front of his face. The next hope was to get it out the hall window, when the bat suddenly vanished into a tiny (less than an inch) crevace in our bathroom wall (along the top of our cabinet). We could here him scurry/climb back up and around to the attic. "Well," Kevin said "I guess I'll have to caulk up there." Yes please.

We are the Wolthai JDubbs