Summer Travels

Well, we have been home for a week now, and we have been crazy busy trying to get caught up from all the stuff we missed while we were gone for our meetings and some vacation time. I wanted to take a sec today though and post some pics from our travels.

Our meetings were in Thailand this year, and we enjoyed a few days of vacation there after the they were over. Jennifer, the speech therapist volunteer from the States who came to help Ben, joined us the 1st day at an amazing park. Here we are feeding the elephants.

They also had a small petting zoo, and the kids had a blast getting up close to the animals.

Ben and Jennifer enjoying a moment together. We sure miss her!

I love their expressions in this one - they all look just a little nervous. :) Steve looked so with good reason - the parrot kept chewing on his ear!

The boys wanted no part in this picture!

In addition to animals, they had some amazing landscaping there.

We also went to an elephant show - the elephants rode tricycles, played soccer & basketball, bowled, and painted. It was a lot of fun. The highlight though was when Steve was chosen as a volunteer to lie down and have an elephant step over him. Unfortunately for him, the trainer decided to make a bit of a spectacle out of the white guy ~ the elephant stopped above Steve and hit him repeatedly in the groin with his trunk! Steve was powerless to do anything about it - you don't want to make any sudden moves when you are under an elephant! The announcer had a lot of fun with the moment and talked incessantly in a very animated tone - all in Thai so we couldn't understand (which was probably just as well!).

Steve and the kids also took an elephant ride through a river. Quite the experience!

For our last few days of vacation in Thailand, some close friends joined us there. Adam and Julie serve in Papua New Guinea, and we hadn't seen them in several years. It was wonderful to get to catch up with them, and we spent a lot of time laughing together. Medicine for the soul. We also took in some sights - including this crocodile farm.

We quickly discovered that there was a lot more than just crocodiles at the park - here the kids each took a turn on an elephant.

Kayla posing with a sunbear

Ben was so proud of his solo pic with a baby tiger. Aren't they adorable?

Zach feeding the resident camel.Then we found the crocodiles. Um...Steve??? Are you sure this is a good idea?

The highlight of the day for Steve and the kids was getting to feed the crocodiles. You could buy a chicken carcass (yummy!) and dangle it from a bamboo fishing pole until the crocs lunged and ripped it off. Doesn't get much better than that in Steve's book. :)

This one was really funny - the knot attaching the chicken to the string got stuck in the croc's mouth! So Steve "caught" himself a croc. :) It was quite the tug of war with the bamboo pole bending like crazy there for a while until the croc managed to get free.

We were so thankful for those family days in Thailand - a huge perk to living in SE Asia is traveling to some amazing places and seeing some spectacular sights.

We left Thailand and traveled to another country in SE Asia to visit my (Jen's) siblings. We spent the first couple days at a beach resort, and we had a blast reconnecting. It was especially fun to watch the cousins playing together again.

We also got to go to the "Seven Wells" - a bunch of natural pools and rock slides at the top of a mountain. So cool.

The little ones took a nap on the rocks. Don't worry, the pic makes it look more dangerous than it was!

Enjoying the beauty of God's creation...

The cable cars ranked very high on our list of unforgettable experiences. Those things went straight up into the clouds! Absolutely amazing (and not for the faint of heart!).

There was a cool suspension bridge up by the top. You could feel it sway as you walked on it, and you could see down through the planks to the ground waaaay below. Yikes.

Here is a family shot at the top - check out Ben's face. Crazy kid. :)

We also had fun just hanging out with the fam. Here are the boys on Eli's birthday.

We also spent a couple afternoons at the park at the foot of the Petronas Towers. It had some amazing playground equipment as well as a wading pool and waterfall. Fun times.

Precious moments...

The kids posing in front of the Petronas Towers. There are definitely some difficult things about this life we live, but we are incredibly blessed with how many amazing places that we get to experience!
Thank You, God!

Headed out

Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for our meetings followed by some vacation time. Thanks for praying for safe travel, good health and a refreshing time. We will be gone for about 3 1/2 weeks altogether. Please pray as well for Ben as we are still having problems with his ear. He has been on antibiotics now for 10 days but is still having pain. We will bring him back to the ENT in Naga today. Please pray that we can figure out a plan that will make it not too painful for him to fly tomorrow and also that will clear up this persistent problem.

Before we left, I wanted to post these pictures of the wind chimes we had made down here in Bicol. A tribal man who needed work made them for us. Aren't they beautiful? They also make a very gentle, soothing sound in the breeze.

Well, we are off! Our email access will be more sporadic, so it may take us a few days to get back to you, but please don't let that keep you from writing - we love to hear from you!

And one more

Ok, so once the tribal guys arrived and saw the picture of the baby snake, they said it IS a python after all, not poisonous. YEAH!!! Amazing how innocuous a python in your ceiling can seem after you have thought it was a poisonous snake for a few days. :) They made a thorough search of the attic and never did find it, but they sealed up the holes to the attic so it can't get back in. They figure the babies have all found other ways out of the attic to the outside - those 2 unlucky ones just happened to find ways into the house instead of outside. Anyway, so it seems like the snake issue is resolved for the meantime - thanks for praying!

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Ben's stomach problems had thankfully cleared up by the next am, but his ear has continued to bother him (he has been on antibiotics for an infection for a week now). Then this am, he had some blood coming out of his ear. We took him to an ENT in Naga (about an hour away) and found out that his eardrum had ruptured in the night! Poor little guy. It should heal on its own, we just need to continue the antibiotics for another 10 days and make sure no water gets in his ear for a while.

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Despite his ear pain, Ben has been a little trooper this week and put in a LOT of intensive therapy hours with Jennifer. He has been making progress, and we are encouraged in a lot of ways but realize too that we have a LONG road ahead. We appreciate your prayers as we continue to work this week and figure out how we can best help him ourselves once Jennifer leaves.

A few updates

Um, so we found out today that the snakes we have are not pythons after all. Sound like good news? It's not. They are actually a rare kind of poisonous snake. And you thought we were creeped out before... Steve arranged for 4 guys to come here 1st thing tomoro am to help him track down the mommy and all the babies. Please pray they can find all of them!!!

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In other news, Ben has had a rough day. First, we were crossing the lake in a boat to the village today, and the kids were out on the front with Steve. Well, he got talking, and they got scooting, and then suddenly Ben got bumped right over the edge!!! He managed to grab on to the edge until Kayla was able to grab ahold of him, then Steve was there within another few seconds. Poor little guy was shaking like a leaf for an hour afterwards - so was I though!

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Zach's cut was looking great this morning, but then he managed to get hit by a basketball in the village today and split part of it open again. Actually, the original cut stayed closed (that glue is good stuff!), but it split open another little part. The thing that concerns me the most with this one is infection since it was several hours before we could clean it properly. We cleaned it thoroughly once we got home, and put some more glue over it. Looks good again now, and he will not be going near any flying balls for a while! Please pray for no infection!!!

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As we arrived home, Ben suddenly started crying -- excruciating pain in his lower abdomen. Took him to the dr (for a check up for his ear infection), and he is on some meds to help what we think is gas pain. If he is still hurting tomoro, then we will be trying to do stool/urine samples in the midst of the snake hunt. The adventure never ends around here!

Not Again!

We visited a pool today for our day off, and Zach had a little mishap on the slide. Fortunately, a doctor friend in the States had JUST sent some medical strength stitch-replacing glue for situations just like this. Unfortunately, we hadn't put any of it in the car yet, so we had to wait til we got home to use it. We were able though to pinch it together with a home-made butterfly bandage so the blood wouldn't clot and prevent us from closing it by the time we got home. Then we were able to remove the butterfly bandage (OUCH!) and use the glue to "stitch" him up once we were home. As always, Zach was a real trooper, and he has been assured that "chicks dig scars" by the volunteers that are with us right now. If that is true, chicks are really gonna dig our boys! I love this pic of the finished product. Can you see the 2 smaller scars just under the new cut from previous accidents? Then the remains of a boil on his forehead, one starting on his cheek, and a long scratch to top it all off. Never a dull moment! :)

Speaking of which, be sure to check out the next post to see what is living in our attic. If only it would stay up there and quit coming down to the ground floor!

They didn't cover this in orientation...

So Jennifer and I were doing a speech session with Ben when Zach came and told us that there is

something that looks like a snake in the bathroom. We went to go check it out, and sure enough, it is a snake. Just an itty bitty one, but a snake nonetheless. Steve arrived home JUST then so we called him in, and he proceeded to check it out. He and our helper agreed that it was a baby reticulated python. So Steve decided to pick it up. He squeezed it just behind the head so it couldn't bite him and picked him up. At first that went ok, but then he was so tiny that he managed to swivel his head and chomp into Steve's finger! Steve threw him down really fast and stomped on him. The bite drew blood so we went to the www to see if we could confirm that it was a python and not something venomous. Thankfully, Steve never reacted, and the markings really look like a python. So, big relief, right? Except we now have to figure out 2 things - 1) how did a baby python get in the bathroom? and 2) WHERE IS THE MOMMY??? We came up with a couple of possibilities of where it came from, and chose to believe the one where it caught a ride inside on the trashcan -- though we were highly suspicious that it had come down through the tiny holes around the drop door into the attic.

Well, that night we were all hanging out in the living room & office area and heard a loud THUMP followed by a series of loud flopping noises coming from the attic. It was immediately obvious that whatever it was that had made that thump is larger than a rat - or even a cat. Possibly another large monitor lizard like we had up there before (should be some pics under "Our Home" posts listed on the left panel). Then we all realized that whatever it was, it managed to move from there without any of us hearing any footsteps... probably cuz whatever it doesn't have any feet to step with.... O FUN. So it seems as though the mommy python has had some babies in our attic - and apparently just caught a rat for their supper.

Ok, so Steve decides that he is going up there to take care of it so we don't have to worry about it anymore. I wanted to know what the contingency plan was if the snake grabbed him and he couldn't come back down. Now remember, they didn't cover this in orientation so he had to think on his feet here - he said he would just kick his way down through the ceiling, then we could help him. I got a mental image of me and the 2 volunteer ladies who are with us right now trying to pry a python off of Steve after he has crashed down through the ceiling... or better yet, the 3 of us heading up into the attic to do that when he CAN'T manage to "kick his way down through the ceiling".... But I asked for a contingency plan, and I guess I got one. I really wish they had covered this in orientation. Anyway, so he got decked out and started up the ladder into the attic - but then asked for a mirror so that he could check around the edges of the hole to make sure he didn't come up right on top of the thing if it was hanging out by the opening. :)

He looked around up there very thoroughly but determined that either she had already left or was hiding under the eaves where we can't get to her without tearing out some paneling. So we chose to believe (there we go again) that she was gone.

The next morning, Jennifer (the speech therapist) came and knocked on our door at 6:15 - "Um, there is a snake in the office." Not something you wake up to everyday. Sure enough, it was definitely a sibling of the one we found in the bathroom the day before. At that point we looked up Reticulated Python Eggs on Google Images and discovered much to our delight that there are MANY eggs in a clutch.

So we seem to have a large python living in our attic AND a recently-hatched batch of pythons loose up there. And somehow these itty bitty things are able to find a way down here... Needless to say, we are all wearing shoes inside now and putting our glasses/contacts in before using the bathroom in the night!

We are still trying to figure out the best way to deal with our python infestation problem. We have a few ideas, but we are open to suggestions! It would be REALLY nice to take care of the problem, before they all get bigger, if you know what I mean. If only they had covered this in orientation...

They're Here!

Thanks so much for praying for both our volunteers, Megan and Jennifer, to arrive safely. Megan arrived a couple weeks ago, and she is settling in well and spending some time studying Tagalog and learning how to get around town on her own. The kids love having her here, and she spends quite a bit of time playing games and reading books with them. Hopefully she will be able to help me with some of the homeschooling responsibilities once school starts up again in the fall. Megan is planning to stay with us 4 months - 1 year, and she will help out with various projects we have going on with the Agta. Here is a picture of Megan and Mikayla in front of Mt. Mayon.
Jennifer is a speech therapist, and she arrived yesterday. She is feeling the effects of jet lag, but her trip went well and she is doing well. She will stay with us for 2 weeks and work with Ben. Her coming is such an answer to prayer. Here is a pic of her and Ben in front of Mt. Mayon. Even though she is still feeling the effects of the trip, she wanted to jump right in today with doing some testing and therapy with Ben. It is so encouraging to watch her work with him and to talk with her because I can tell she really knows what she is doing and wants so badly to help us help Ben.
They took several breaks in the testing and therapy to "get the wiggles out". Ben is doing great, but it is a lot of concentration time for a 4 year old. Pray that he would stay focused, and we would be able to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Please also pray as he just got an ear infection yesterday and is in a lot of pain. We are keeping him on meds to help with this the first couple days, and hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon. Pray for wisdom for Jennifer as she seeks to find the techniques that will be most effective in helping Ben overcome this difficulty.

Thank God with us for these 2 volunteers that have obeyed God's call in their lives and made many sacrifices to come partner with us. We are so excited to have them here and can't wait to see what God will do in and through them during the upcoming weeks and months.

A 360!!!

Steve has had a lot of fun improving his wakeboarding skills whenever we get a chance to go to the place near us on our day off. He has recently starting landing some 360s off the kicker. I got a video of a good one today, and I thought some of you may enjoy seeing it.

Zach turned 6!

We can't believe how fast these kids are growing!!! Zach had his birthday this week, and we had a great time celebrating as a family. He was pretty excited about the presents part of the party. :)

He got Marble Race 2 from us, some big bouncy balls and little cars from Papa and Grandma Jackson, and a cool build your own robot kit from Grandpa and Gram Hagen. Fun times!

He also got a hand-made journal from Mikayla. I love this picture of her explaining to him how to use it.
We got each of the kids one of these bouncy balls from my parents so they could have fun on them together (and they were cheap :) ). As you can see, they were a hit.
I love their expressions here. :)
A few days after our family celebration, we went up to the wakeboarding place to celebrate with our new friends, Reuben and Sheril and their 2 kids, Takiah and Zeph (ages 4 and 5 months). We all went to some hot springs and enjoyed some cake and swimming together.The Birthday BoyZach is pretty excited about the present from Takiah - a kit where you can make and paint your own plaster trucks! He is very excited.

We had a great time hanging out with Reuben and Sheril and their kids, and we were so glad that they were able to help us celebrate Zach's birthday.

FYI

Just wanted to let you know that I added something new on our blog - "What posts do you want to see?" I added labels to most of the posts since we moved down here to Bicol in February 2007 and a few of the posts prior to that as well. So if you have something in particular you are looking for, you can just click on the right label, and it will pull up those posts. So if all you want to see is pics of our kids (who could blame you? :) ), then you can just see those, but if you are looking for pics of what we do here, you can click on "Our Work" to see those posts.

Happy surfing! :)

Fun Times

Ok, after all that depressing stuff in the last couple of posts, it is high time to have some fun! The kids about went stir crazy in the hospital and guest units while we were all recovering from that virus so they were incredibly excited about going to stay up in Aritao for the 11 days that Steve and I were in Singapore for my wrist surgery. They stayed with family friends Markus and Sarah Rosvik and their 2 little ones, Levi and Emma. As you can see from the pics below, the kids had a BLAST. (And surprisingly enough, Sarah said that it went really well and she would even consider doing it again!) They definitely had their hands full with 5 little ones ("bathtime seemed never ending...then there were SO MANY teeth to brush!"). Sarah emailed us daily with updates and even pics of the kids and how they were doing; those were wonderful to get. It made it so much easier being apart from them knowing they were having so much fun.

Here is a pic of a picnic. :)

There is a lot of grass and wide-open spaces to run, dozens of trees to climb and even a trampoline! Artiao is one of our kids' favorite places in the world.

I can only imagine how exciting meal times were. I love the expression on Levi's face in this one - and you do kind of wonder if there will be an "after" picture for after Ben finishes trying to pour his water. :)

Now, you have to keep in mind that Markus and Sarah live in the province as well so there are no McDonalds to run to for supper or any instant meal options available. So not only was she taking care of 5 kids, she had to cook from scratch for them as well - I think she deserves some kind of award for sure!!!

Here is a pic of the pizza that Mikayla made "all by herself". I am just guessing here that she did require at least some help. Looks good though!

When the kids 1st arrived up there, they were still recovering from the virus and the upper respiratory infection the boys both got. So the boys had to do nebulizer treatments 3x a day right off the bat. Here they are enjoying some TV time during the boys' treatments.

Uncle Markus celebrated his birthday while our kids were up there. Nothing like a few extra kids around to help you celebrate!
Ben and Emma had a bit of a love/hate relationship. Sarah said that sometimes they wanted to do everything together, other times they were at each other. I love the expression on Emma's face in this one. :)
Play Doh time!!! Check out Ben's very impressive purple snake.
This picture of Mikayla looks so peaceful...hope they had a few moments of peace in the midst of all the chaos! Ok, I am going to leave you with a few pics of Ben. Markus is an excellent photographer, and it looks like Ben enjoyed hamming it up for the camera. Loved these pics - thanks for taking them, Markus!
"Thank you" just doesn't seem to be enough to express our heart-felt gratitude to Markus and Sarah and their family for the sacrifices they made to watch our kids during that time. The kids had so much fun, and Steve and I weren't worried about them so we were able to focus on the task at hand (no pun intended :) ), recovering from my wrist surgery. We are so thankful for all they did to love on our kids and make them feel secure during that time. THANK YOU!!!