Chinese New Year

Sunday evening, January 31, Alan and I joined the Taiwanese students to celebrate Chinese New Year. We had a dinner together at Westminster Church. One of the ladies made a plate of Sushi, and some of the students prepared oranges to resemble rabbits. Their food presentation is so beautiful:

We ate with our students, Jason and Milton. They each brought us gifts. Jason gave us a Chinese calligraphy scroll with the meaning "Erudite and Wise" and Milton gave us a calendar with photographs of artifacts from Afghanistan. Unfortunately I couldn't get the calendar photos to post in the correct format!

Here is a photo of the four of us. This red sheet tells about the animals that represent the

12-year cycle of the Chinese Lunar calendar. This is the year of the tiger, and Alan and I were both born in the Year of the Tiger! Also, they believe that each animal has a special characteristic, so even if you are born in the year of the RAT, Milton said that a rat is very quick and smart!! Now about that rooster...?

Video in Marion

Here are a couple of videos that I couldn't find when I did the last blog. I hope you can see them with your internet connections. The one of Violet apparently couldn't be turned because it was a "multiple page" photo. Sorry, now I know not to do vertical videos! The one of Ezra and Alan was actually a mistake. I meant to take the still photo, but was accidently taking a video. I thought it was cute, anyway :)

A Few Hours in Marion

This Tuesday we went down to see Sara and the children for a few hours.   We also got to see Jonathan   during his lunch break.    The children were very happily playing.

 Little Violet enjoyed the rocking horse, and could move back and forth to get it rocking!  But, she was so serious about it!

  Jude seemed to enjoy whatever everyone else was playing!  

  Ezra is the Lego boy in this household:  I think he would work on them for hours, especially with Papa to help!

  All liked making play dough pies and cookies, and here is Sadie with a sample for you:

 

I am still trying to figure out how this new blogging format works.   I'm having a really hard time moving any photos around, and PUT THEM WHERE I WANT!!!!    Any suggestions?   They don't seem to drag like they used to.  But, they also go in the order you put them in, (not backwards!) which is nice. If anyone has any secrets to this, let me know!

Thanksgiving

It was wonderful to have the whole family together around the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks, dear family, for all the beautiful memories!

Andrew's Ordination

We had a great time this fall in South Dakota attending Andrew's ordination. We met up with Alissa's parents, Dave & Jan, and even had some spare time for a few fix-up projects in Andrew & Alissa's new home.

Sadie's Birthday

A very photogenic little girl. Five years old already. We love you, Sadie!

Fall at the Pumpkin Barn

We had lots of fun with the Marion Crandalls visiting the Pumpkin Barn in East Dubuque. We even took a few pumpkins home with us to make into pie!