As a good friend reminded me on FB yesterday, it has been a long time since I posted anything on this blog, over SIX MONTHS!!! Now that we have more consistent electricity and internet I'll give it another try, although most of you probably keep up with us on FB. This post is a little rundown, for me as much as anyone, of a few highlights from the last several months.
September:
Found a house we could rent in the remote area we’ve been hoping to move to for years!
Some dear friends from NC visited us!
October:
We moved house for the 4th time in 2011 J Our kids say that this is the best place we’ve lived in India because of all the great outside places to hide and play.
November:
We began settling into village life, enjoyed attending weddings and getting to know our neighbors. Why yes, Sara and I ARE wearing matching dresses....her dream come true that we have matching Indian suits made AND that we wear said matchie matchies to a 'function' like a friend's wedding. Sigh. I love my daughter, what can I say?
December:
We continued to settle into village life and had a great first Advent and Christmas here, with guests coming and going all Christmas day and evening to share in the celebration, a first for most of them. For our Advent wreath we use local clay oil lamps on a steel plate. It Our kids make gifts for each other and my favorite this year was a secret hiding box Sara made for Caleb.
January:
To comply with our Visas that give us permission to be here, we have to leave the country every 180 days, so we spent 3 weeks in Thailand, attending some meetings, and enjoying WARM vacation with precious FAMILY--Mark's parents and his aunt met us there, allowing us to have a year's worth of dates in 2 weeks. It was a wonderful break to be effortlessly warm and eat lots of yummy fruit, salad, and meat, the things we miss here.
While we were in Thailand, our village got pounded with snow.When we returned the last week of January we were welcomed by icy roads, plenty of the white stuff and frigid temperatures.
February:
Two weeks after we came back, Mark and Sara headed back down the mountains to pick up our friends who have moved here. While they were gone we got a foot of fresh snow, our pipes froze and broke, and our electricity was out for days. This winter has been a great time to live like Little House on the Prairie times! Below is a picture of me organizing the woodpile on our back balcony. I always dreamt of living like they did back then and have had many days like that since we’ve moved here.
