Happy Thanksgiving!

Our family is gearing up for our last Thanksgiving in the States (for quite awhile) and we are enjoying our long weekend.  Thanksgiving hasn't been quite the same for our family ever since my mom passed away a couple of years ago, and we are still coming up with a new routine for the holidays.  One constant however, has been the annual "Run to Feed the Hungry 5K" at our church Thanksgiving morning.  The past seven Thanksgivings I have found myself shivering on the starting line in the morning waiting to burn off some calories in hopes of combating some of the damage I will be doing later in the day.  It is also a great way for our church to stock our food cupboard and combat hunger.  This is a tradition that I am going to have a hard time giving up.  Perhaps next year I will have to organize my own 5K on Thanksgiving morning in Indonesia.  I'm sure it won't be that hard to convince my fellow classmates in language school to run 3 miles in the heat with me.  :)

Macie is two and eating bugs for breakfast!?

October was a very busy month for us!  We were home a total of ONE day and spent the others traveling on deputation.  After our first two weeks of the month spent crammed in the Jetta driving all over the Seattle area we came home, packed frantically and grabbed a red-eye flight to Anchorage, AK.  Although all of the locals in Alaska assured us that it wasn't yet winter and it was still fall, we were COLD.  The kids and I went to the zoo one morning and it was 12 degrees, yes 12!  Colton kept telling everybody he came across, "It is cold up here in Alaska!"  Although it was cold, the sky was blue and the sun was shining (which is a rarity in WA).  By the end of the trip we were starting to acclimate to the cold, 30 degrees felt a bit cozy.

It was 7 degrees when we took this picture!  

Macie turned two on our trip and we were able to have a little party for her at our friend's house.  I started to make the cake for the party, but when I got ready to decorate it Mike took over.  I think he was afraid that I would just serve it on a dinner plate and slap some frosting on it without bothering to smooth it out (which I would have).  Our friends have 4 boys and including brother that made the guest list for Macie's party 5 boys.  Macie had a blast and from a parent's perspective there wasn't as much high-pitched squealing as there would have been if the guest list included 5 girls!

We attended a church in Wasilla one Sunday and had the opportunity to share about our ministry with the Sunday School class.  I don't know if this is a normal thing to do, but even though it was 12 degrees outside that morning all of the windows were open in the sanctuary and the fans were on!  I didn't want to look like an "out of towner" so I didn't put on my jacket and I toughed it out.  At the end of the service the pastor was excited to introduce us to a person who...wait for it.  Grew up in Indonesia as an MK and flew on MAF as a child!  Out of all the places to meet a person from Indonesia, Wasilla wasn't what I was expecting.

The next day we spent lunch at his house with his family and he told us LOTS of stories about growing up in Papua, Indonesia.  He served us some coffee that was grown outside of Wamena and it was wonderful, I am looking forward to drinking more of it in my future.  They also taught us how to make sticky rice for dessert. He taught Colton a few tips on how to be a good MK, one of those tips was how to properly roast a Cicada.  In the mornings he said it was fun to run to the screen door, grab a Cicada by the wings, flick it on the head, set it on top of mom's stove, roast it, and then pop it into his mouth for breakfast!  Colton replied by yelling, "I don't want to eat BUGS!"  He was assured that they taste like Snickers without the chocolate.  When in Rome...  Or in this case when in Papau...  

Cicada it's what's for breakfast.