New Jersey

I have some down time right now, so I'll write about the trip so far. I haven't mentioned it in here yet--so FYI, Stephen and I and his family are in New Jersey for a family reunion on his mother's side. They picked New Jersey (even though none of them live there anymore) because that's where Steve's grandpa (who has passed away) and his siblings grew up. His great-grandparents are buried here, across from America's Keswick Retreat Center, which is where we are staying.

After spending Monday night at Steve's parents' house, we flew out Tuesday at 11:30 AM for the East Coast. Our first flight was 4.5 hours long, from Sea-Tac to Nashville, TN. We had a 1-hour layover in Nashville, which was just enough time for the seven of us to snatch lunch/dinner and get to our gate. The second flight was about 2.5 hours, from Nashville to Philadelphia, PA. Both flights were without problems, although there was slight turbulence as we came into Philly and a rather hard landing that shook everybody awake.

We arrived in Philadelphia at 9:00 local time (6:00 our time!) and took a shuttle to Avis, where an 8-passenger SUV with decent trunk space was supposed to be waiting for us. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they did not have our SUV waiting for us. What they did have would not fit all seven of us and our luggage, so we instead rented a tight, but sufficient, mini-van. Using Steve's dad's GPS phone, we drove it from Philadelphia for about an hour and a half to America's Keswick. We got in about 12:30 AM. Stephen's great-uncle Dave was there to meet us and give us our keys, and two of his Georgia cousins, Victoria and Lauren, came running down the stairs to greet us. It was kind of entertaining, because they know Steve and his family very well--I'm kind of on the "outside"--but they hugged me anyway. :)

The humidity of New Jersey surprised me. It felt like Portland on a muggy day. I keep expecting the weather to turn around and be not-muggy anymore, but I don't suppose it does? Anyway, it's tolerable. It feels a lot like Hawaii to me, and like Korea to Stephen. Tomorrow is supposed to be 87 degrees though--we'll see how tolerable it is then! :)

Tuesday at 12:00 we all went to see the great-grandparents' gravestones. I thought that was a good thing to do; it gave meaning for the trip to me, reminding me why I'm here with all these people with names I'm not familiar with, LOL. One of the people--I can't remember his name, EEK!--gave a short message there about the legacy the great-grandparents left by passing down their faith in Christ. It was kind of neat to look at the people there and know they are all connected to those two people, Ida Marie and Bob.

After lunch, most of us headed down toward the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk. We got to experience a lot of East Coast driving firsthand, and Stephen's dad was doing a lot of it. :D Kind of terrifying!! On the way, we stopped at the house Ida Marie and Bob had lived in, and one of the houses Stephen's grandma lived in as a child. It took us a long while to get to the places because Steve's grandma couldn't quite remember the addresses. We made lots and lots of turnarounds! But we did eventually find the houses. Steve's mom said that they had a picture of Stephen when he was a little, little boy sitting on his great-grandma's lap at the house they lived in. That was kind of cool too--a tie-in to my own life.

When we got to Grandma's old house, e-ver-y-body got out to take pictures and stare and wonder and everything, in this small East-Coast neighborhood... The neighbors were really giving us odd looks!! A few of them finally came up to us and asked who we were and what we were doing. We must've looked like the news come to town or something, pulling up in two vans and pulling out cameras all over! LOL!

After seeing Grandma's old house, we tried to head down to the boardwalk, got a little lost, and wound back up on Grandma's old street. And just as we were pulling through, a woman about 65 years old with tight white curls frantically yelled and flagged us down. She knew Grandma and her sister when they were young--Grandma's sister taught her how to swim. That was all I caught... Grandma was in the van behind us, so the woman went back there to talk to her through the passenger seat window. I watched through the back window of our van, and Grandma's expression when the woman introduced herself was totally enough for me. :) It was worth it. They held hands, enraptured by the joy of finding each other after so many years... It was really, really sweet. I think both women will remember this meeting for a long, long time.

After that, we finally made it down to the Boardwalk. Nobody rode any rides, but we did stick our feet in the Atlantic. Now seeing the Atlantic was sure different!! I'd never seen it before, and the first thing that struck me was how insanely close the waves crash to shore. It scared me to death for a minute until I realized that the waves come very regularly, slowly and only one at a time--which was also bizarre! And it was really strange knowing that to my left was the North and to my right was the South. It was a little disorienting, in all truth. LOL.

I had to avoid the waves, sadly, because I scraped up my ankle pretty bad on a bike (or rather, falling off a bike) yesterday, and I had bandaids on it. But I let the seawater wet me up to the bottom part of my ankles. It felt like California water--very nice!

The sand was really different. Somebody said they probably trucked a lot in. What I noticed was that it was dark yellow, not white like the West Coast. It looked for all the world like yellow cake mix to me! It also felt different, though I could never pinpoint quite why.

We went in a couple souvenir shops and I realized something else different. They wrap their saltwater taffy in rolls instead of blobs. I should have bought some, but looking at the way they were wrapped, my brain kept saying, No, I don't feel like caramel... LOL. I did buy some souvenirs for my mom and sister, and a beautiful little sand-sculpture castle covered in glitter for me. It looked so perfect! I wish I could have bought a couple others too.... They're just so cute and pretty!

Wow, that's all yesterday--I haven't even gotten to today yet. Today has not been terribly eventful, really. We took group pictures galore mid-morning. We had lunch on our own. Stephen went canoeing with one of his cousins and I took pictures. There's stuff to do but none of it jumps out at me, I guess. Dinner is in about a half an hour, so I think I'll wake Steve up. He's been sleeping for the last hour and a half. We're a tired bunch! I took a long nap earlier. Jet lag catches up to us on the second day, I guess. :)
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Tomorrow we go to Lancaster County, PA, where Stephen's dad grew up.

Oh, and I have a possible job interview coming?! Crazy?! I got a call today from CampusPoint saying that there was a temporary (3-week) proofreading job available for a software company. It starts Monday. Yeah. Insanity. We're getting back Sunday, so I could do that--but how insane, right?! I kinda hope I get it. It's a possible foot-in-the-door for that company too, in whatever positions they might have for me. So pray for me! Wisdom and guidance and strength too.

Also pray for Stephen's brother Jon. He's been sick for about a month, and nobody's quite sure what's going on. Stephen thinks it's mono. Please pray that we'll sort that out. Thanks everyone!

Beach Day!

Stephen and I spent yesterday at the beach with our young marrieds group. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun!

Here are some highlights, and later a story:

• At 2 p.m., Six of us drove an hour and a half to Neskowin Beach in a truck and a car. Two others met us there in their own vehicle. It was overcast but not too cold, and didn't rain on us a bit!
• Jason and Sara brought wood, which Jason and Ethan carried in a tarp about a half mile through the sand to a spot within the high tide line but at least 50 feet from the water. A passerby told us that the low tide was at 6:00, so high tide wouldn't be until midnight. "We'll be long gone before then," Jason said. Famous last words.
• My husband jumped at the chance to dig out the fire pit. The rest of us stood around watching him go (I took a video) and making remarks. We decided he must've been a mole in a past life. :)

• We learned that dryer lint is a very good fire starter!! Steve and I brought a Trader Joe's bag full of it. We used about a third of the bag--that was a pretty decent depletion.
• We made LOTS of trips back to the cars through the sand, continually forgetting things in the cars. Sara beat us all with 4 trips total to and from the car--8 treks through the sand altogether. Go Sara!
• We got our fire going and realized that the combination of really dry wood and a strong ocean wind was going to make for a very short-lived campfire! So we built a berm on the windward side to protect it. Several of us walked around the beach later, picking up driftwood for the fire. Ethan tried to bring an entire log, longer than he was tall. He managed to stand it up on its end, but got no further. :)
• Ethan, who had brought hiking boots for just such an occasion, decided immediately that he wanted to climb up Proposal Rock nearby. Jason opted to go with him and my husband jumped in as well. Unfortunately there was a small river flowing to the ocean water that they had to find a way to cross over get to the rock. They doubled the length of their journey to the rock by going backwards along the river to the smallest part to cross. By the time they reached the rock, my husband had decided not to climb up it but just to take pictures at the bottom while Jason and Ethan hiked up. I don't blame him.
• When Stephen had finished taking photographs, he attempted to cross the river at the widest part, which "didn't look too deep," and learned about halfway across that it was much deeper than it looked. He turned back (good for him!) to look for a more optimal spot to cross, but soaked his jeans through! My poor love... Thankfully Rachel had extra towels for him to cover his legs with as he sat by the fire. His jeans had dried by the time we left.
• At about 6:00 we realized that the water seemed to be getting awfully close! We were obviously misinformed about the time of the tides... Sara stuck a stick about 20 feet from us and declared, "When the water reaches that stick, we're moving camp!" Robert adamantly claimed that we were fine; that we could probably stay there for another three hours. So the rest of the day there was a friendly battle between Sara and Robert for who was right about how long we could stay at that campsite and stay dry.
• Jason and Ethan came down the rock not too long after. The peanut gallery watched in great amusement as they looked at the water surrounding most of the rock, not sure if they should attempt to go through it or not. Jason threw a pebble in to try and test the depth of the water. Eventually they decided to just travel around the side of the rock as they had done before and jump off where there was little water. They still had to cross the river, however... Ethan, in his hiking boots, went straight through the shallower, rocky part without hesitation, soaking the bottom of his shorts and part of his shirt. Jason took his shoes off and waded carefully. Ethan, of course, had brought an extra change of clothes. Boy scout of the year.
• At 7:30, the tide was only about 10 feet from the stick, and we decided that that was enough, and moved camp another 50 feet in from the edge of the water, right at the edge of the visible tideline from the previous high tide. Most of the boys were dismayed at the idea of "wasted energy" since the fire was still going well. So Ethan came up with a solution: "It's still got ember. As long as there's still ember, we can start a fire with the wood we have going already." So the boys carried glowing pieces of wood between two cold pieces of wood from one campsite to the other. Ethan cheerfully called out, "I've got ember!" and it became a catchphrase for the rest of the day, repeated many...many times. :)
• Even though the sky was overcast, the sun broke through as it was setting, at about 9:00. It was beautiful.

• I got to play Frisbee with Sara, which was a blast--it's been WAY too long since I threw a Frisbee around!

Okay, now here's the best story.

The tide continued to rise as we sat by our second campfire. We talked and chatted, occasionally glancing out at the water. We watched the water splash up against our berm, to the sound of Robert's insisting, "We'd still be dry!" Then a BIG wave came up and washed entirely over our first campsite...and kept coming.

I remember seeing the water's edge bubbling up to us, WAY too deep and fast, and knowing more than thinking it was going to cover our campsite. I snatched my purse, and all of a sudden our little sitting, chatting group was a running, screaming group being chased by the water. The wave coursed over our campfire and soaked everything sitting on the ground! I feel like I screamed bloody murder--but I figured out later that I did it, not for my sake, but as an alarm to anyone who hadn't seen it the same time I did.

Nothing was destroyed and nothing was lost. Jason's jacket got a little wet on the bottom (it was hanging on a chair), and some stuff got wet. Our paper bag of campfire food got soaked on the bottom. I was SO glad I had thought to grab my purse!!

That had to be the best part of the whole trip, in the sheer hilarity of it.

One last bit. The campfire, wind, smoke and salt killed me. :( My eyes and face hurt so bad when we got home, my hair felt awful, and my body was worn out from running and walking and carrying things in the sand. It was late, late, late--about 12:30--but I couldn't go to bed in that state. Even after washing my face to alleviate allergies, I was miserable. I had to take a shower. I tell you, that long, hot, luxurious shower was the best decision I've ever made. It felt soooooooo good... Lovely!

Tomorrow Stephen and I take off for his parents' house and we are leaving from there for New Jersey for a family reunion on his mom's side. We'll be gone until next Sunday. Pray for safe travels and a good trip for us.

My grandma's surgery went well last week, but please continue to pray for healing and a quick recovery for her, and energy and strength for my grandpa to support her. Thank you!!

Grandparents House Visit

Stephen and I went to my grandparents' house this weekend to celebrate my grandma's 71st birthday. My mom and sister also went, and my aunt and her boyfriend surprised us all by showing up as well. :)

Saturday was a crazy, fun day of Apples to Apples, birthday cakes, ice cream and presents. I gave my grandma 21 homemade cards that I've been working on since February. That was what prompted the whole trip--both me and my mom wanted to see Grandma's face when she saw them. She loved them!

Sunday, we went to my home church and I was delighted to see old family friends again. I took a walk down memory lane with Stephen at my old elementary school, walking around and telling him all the memories I had connected with the school. What a fun trip through the past!

The rest of my family left on Sunday afternoon, but Stephen and I stayed another night and were blessed to spend time alone with my grandparents. We played a hilariously frustrating game of Sorry! and talked with them about family, marriage and spiritual things. Peaceful chatting nights with my grandparents is what I most look forward to whenever I visit back home.

My grandma is having hip replacement surgery on Wednesday morning, so please pray for her. My grandpa injured his knee a while ago, so also pray that he will be able to do things for her while she is recovering.

Refugees in June

Stephen and I have been working with a refugee family in the area for almost a year now. We go once a week and teach them English or math, whatever they need help with. Usually half the family is there, sometimes only a couple of them. Yesterday it was only Soher, the 21-year-old girl. The rest of her family was at a soccer game. Soher doesn't speak much English, so communication was pretty much nil the whole time.

At one point Soher did try and talk to us, and she explained through her broken English and hand gestures that she and her siblings that are older than 18 have no medical or dental insurance here. She talked about how one of her teeth is broken and how it would cost $1300 to fix it. :S "Big--big money!" she said. "Thirteen one hundreds. In Syria, $100, $200...Here, no. Big money." That really bothered me. Having had thousands of dollars of dental work done on my own teeth, I understand how important it is to have insurance. I told her in the best way I could that I would see if there was some way we could get her dental insurance.

At 9:00 the rest of her family came home along with a few of their friends. Stephen and I usually leave at 9:00, but I really didn't want to go now that everybody was home. We hung around for another hour. Their friends that they had brought home were fun to talk to. They have been in America for about 4 years and speak and understand English just fine.

Soher explained in Arabic to one of them what I had said about trying to find her some dental insurance. He turned to me and translated in English. "She says you're going to find her dental insurance?"

Oh great.

I explained very slowly and thoughtfully that I would sure try. I didn't know if I'd be able to find it or not, but I would sure see what I could do.

Never promise refugees anything you can't follow up on. LOL.

So as if June isn't crazy enough--with one weekend trip back to my hometown (this weekend), a day trip to the beach with our small group and one week-long trip to New Jersey for a family reunion--now I'm the personal assistant for the refugees! But I feel like this is really important. It IS really important. Got to get that girl some health care!

The best part of the night was at the end, when Samira, the 17-year-old girl, stopped us in the door with a troubled look. "Next week? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - no more school." She looked really bothered, which I thought was sweet. Then she suddenly resolved it in her own mind. "You come visit," she said with a big smile. Yay! They want us to keep coming! We just grinned back at her and said, "We'll come visit."

I am kind of glad that Soher was the only one there tonight for that whole first hour. It forced her to try and communicate with us, and she met with a lot of frustration at not being able to communicate properly. I think it will push her to learn English, which will do her a world of good.

Well, here I go to do research for the refugees!

Mystery Dessert Theater

A month or so ago Stephen and I saw on our church's website (www.countrysidechurch.com) for a Mystery Dinner Theater event happening May 30th. We'd both heard about them before and wanted to go to one, but neither of us had been to one. We signed up right away.

The week after we signed up we were given pamphlets for our characters - Stephen was "Mark" and I was "Maria." The pamphlets had directions for how to play the game, descriptions of the other character couples, and our own personal character backgrounds. We were strictly ordered to not look at each other's pamphlets because there might be secret information in there. :D

My story was fairly simple. "Mark" and I started dating after his twin sister Marilyn was killed by a "fall down some stairs" at our graduation party. (Hmm, suspicious.....) Before, I had been part of a very popular group of people, dating a very popular boy, "Michael." But Michael had never felt right for me; I just dated him because he was an acceptable boy to the group I was a part of. Mark was NOT an acceptable boy, and the leader of my group, "Jenny" (not my friend Jenny!! :D ), had kicked me out of the group when I started dating Mark.

"Mark" was a CIA agent. He won't tell me anymore than that.

Our two characters were happily married with two kids and a dog; "Mark's" cover was that he was a very successful mystery novel writer and traveled a lot to write his books. That's what everybody else knew about us.

Other information everybody had was that one of our classmates, "David," had been killed two nights earlier, and the murderer was suspected to be at the party. So we all had to figure out who the murderer was. We were given confidential information at the start of the party, plus a few goals to accomplish in the course of the evening.

The rest we had to make up! What an adventure! I was glad I only knew a few people in real life at the event--that made it much easier to excuse my acting horrendously toward the people my character was supposed to hate (i.e. "Jenny"). But it was still so awkward at first, with trying to keep everybody's stories straight, checking my notes, having to think really hard to ask the right questions of the right characters.

It got worse as the night wore on--learning so much information! Toward the end of the party, our pastor, Paul, was pelting Steve and I with questions (he was the best question-asker!) and he asked me, "Were you ever in a relationship with 'Michael'?" I had completely forgotten about that part of my character's story, and I said straightforwardly, "Yes. I was." And Paul's reaction was SO dramatic. He gasped at me with big eyes and said, "You never told me that!" and ran off to tell other people!

Somehow Stephen kept all the information straight and wound together a very nice little theory that tied together all the deaths that had happened in our class's history. His theory was off, but he did get the killer right!

The theme was '57 class reunion, so we were supposed to dress in 50s style. I was dressed in a black-and-white shirtdress, white heels and a black chunky necklace. Stephen wore, like 99% of the other guys, a white T-shirt and blue jeans. Guys have it easy, LOL. The music was great! We swing danced to it at the beginning--what fun!

There are a lot of other stories I could tell, but I don't have room for them all here. I really enjoyed it, though. I want to do more so I can get good at it. :)

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In other news...

Stephen's toes haven't healed as quickly as we hoped. He went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago because they had suddenly turned bright pink and swelled up. The doctor said it was because he wasn't cleaning them out well enough and did a pretty brutal cleaning-out on him that day. He also gave us a prescription for cortisporin.

Stephen was in horrible pain all week--worse than it had hurt before the surgery, which really concerned him. So we went back again. The doctor said they were looking better, despite our protests, and cleaned them out again, slightly less brutally this time. He asked us if we'd been using the cortisporin. We hadn't--after an hour and a half wait at Walgreen's, we were told that they didn't have any and couldn't make any, but we could just use cortizone and neosporin and get the same effect. The doctor was annoyed at us or them and emphasized the cortisporin again. So we finally got the cortisporin and Stephen's toes finally started showing signs of healing.

He's still soaking and bandaging them every night. But the good news is, they're finally down to itching instead of hurting. And they are definitely looking better. He has yet another follow-up appointment tomorrow, but I have a feeling the doctor will just say, "They're doing fine. Don't come back." :P

Other updates: I still don't have a job, but worked for Stephen's grandma for a couple weeks and my mom a couple times to earn some spending money. I volunteer at Medical Teams International now, with the REAL. LIFE. Exhibit, a couple hours a week. I'll save that story for another blog, I think.

Stephen and I are still teaching our Iraqi refugee family. School will be ending soon and the kids will no longer have homework for us to help them with, so we aren't sure what God wants us to do with them next. I've gotten to know their personalities and love them to pieces. If my experience with them ends, I will look for other opportunities to teach refugees English, because I honestly do love it.

I love it so much that I've been thinking of going to graduate school to get a master's for teaching English as a second language. I have so much information left to gather about that, though, before I do it. I still don't think I have the constitution for a career in public schools, so I need to find out where else I would go with it.

That's all for now!

The Latest on Medical Drama

Hello everyone, this is an update on Stephen's toe and other issues. The doctor did some research on Stephen and diagnosed him with "neurocardiogenic syncope," which means that he will faint and possibly shake a little if under high stress in anticipation of pain. If you're interested in more medical details of this, they can be found here.

The doctor advised us that Stephen get his surgery done at a hospital under anesthesia, and so Stephen scheduled his surgery for today at 11:30. I was unable to go with him to the hospital because of a prior engagement, but his aunt Carolyn, who we're very grateful to, offered to bring him there and back. I was able to talk to him on the phone and ask Carolyn for details via Facebook chat (got to love the Internet!). He said he's currently in no pain as he's coming off the anesthesia, only suffering a little because of not being able to eat or drink anything today prior to the surgery. The doctor said that he should only need ibuprofen and ice packs to stop the pain from the surgery, which is a relief. Overall, he's recovering really well according to his aunt.

They'll be able to leave the hospital about 3:30. I may update some more when he comes home.

Continue to pray for a quick recovery and the finances to pay for the hospital surgery, which is significantly more expensive than a surgery out of a doctor's clinic, which he was originally supposed to receive. Thank you, everyone, for your support!

Spring Days

Spring has finally arrived! This weekend we had 70-75 degree days, bright and sunny. On Saturday Stephen and I went to the Woodburn Tulip Festival. There aren't a whole lot of tulips blooming yet, so we plan on going again the weekend after next, when there will be seas of color.

Yesterday we had a picnic lunch and went on a bike ride. I haven't been biking in probably 10 years! And the last bike I had ridden on probably didn't have speeds... The bike I have now is 18-speed. I still haven't quite figured it out! But, wobbly as I was, I managed not to fall over or run into anybody.

Unfortunately Stephen's bike is 12 or 13 years old and kind of falling apart. At the end of our ride, his right pedal fell off. He tried to screw it back in, but the piece to screw it into was stripped. So we're looking for a new bike for him so we won't have to give up bike rides.

I'm kind of bruised up from the ride, but I still had a great time. It feels great to exercise--and outdoor biking is a lot of fun.

Stephen and I dyed Easter eggs on Sunday, a tradition from my family. We always had tons of eggs to dye because we kept a bunch of chickens for a while. Easter weekend we will be up with his family.