A Very Happy Thanksgiving To You

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We're so thankful for the opportunity we got to come here to Taiwan and teach. We're thankful for the timing of this blessing in our lives, and for everything it has taught us.

Being in Taiwan has made our relationship grow stronger and develop more than we could have expected or hoped. It has challenged us as individuals also, and given us perfect opportunities to tackle the things we have been too afraid to try before. We are so grateful for this all around development and recognize none of it could have been possible without faith in Heavenly Father. Mostly we are thankful to Him for guiding us together, bringing us here, and keeping us safe while still helping us progress. (Everyone knows progress always comes with some bumps and bruises along the way- we're thankful for those scrapes too, the scars make great stories!)

On top of all our blessings, we're thankful that some of my extended family was willing and able to come visit us and spend time with us here in Taiwan. My fabulous aunt and cousin came to spend a week in Taiwan; see the sights, eat the food, and help us have a marvelous Thanksgiving.

Even though we still had work everyday, it was so fun spending the evenings chatting with them and playing games. On Saturday we finally got to spend the whole day with them so we took them to Lukang where they bought some temple fans of their own, plus some other great gifts to take back to family. Here's some pictures of all the fun we got to share with them.

Cousin Carie, me, and Aunt Deb. My cousin is gorgeous. My Aunt is a rock star (literally, everyone wanted pictures with them.)

Armed with a hand drawn map and directions, my family trekked to Costco in Taichung for the *last* pumpkin pie, just to make our Thanksgiving that much better.

You can't eat pumpkin pie in Asia with a fork, come on! Are you crazy? You gotta eat it with chopsticks!

Here's our whole group with some of the waiters who wanted a picture with us at our favorite restaurant: TASTY. It was our official Thanksgiving meal on Friday night since we worked late on Thursday and we don't have an oven. Duck is pretty much the Taiwanese turkey, right?

While doing some shopping before Thanksgiving dinner, we came across these good lookin' mannequins. We couldn't say no to a photo op.  

Ray has been working hard designing a new game, so while Carie was here they played a couple tester rounds. It was super intense and lots of fun to watch them get into it!

While we were in Lukang there was a random huge parade full of temple shrines carried on structures like this one. There were also fire works and lots of drumming and crashing of symbols. They were obviously happy and having fun. We, a little shell shocked from the sudden crowding of the narrow street stepped aside and whipped out our cameras and then enjoyed the show!











Later that night we put my family on a train and sent them off to Taipei so they could catch their flight back to America this morning. It was so great having them here, we will forever be thankful for this particular Thanksgiving. With only 40 days left in our journey we're working hard to soak up every last experience and memory we can. Again, we're so thankful we came, and we're excited for our next adventure after Taiwan.

Professional Pea Holder

You heard me. And that is exactly what Ray is: a professional pea holder. Okay, maybe the real title is professional chopsticker, chopstick user, chopstickite? Who knows? But our roommate told us if you could hold three stacked peas in your chopsticks you were professional.

Ray promptly succeeded. I'm... still workin' on it.

We had a very busy week full of adventures where we finally began branching out of our routine. For starters, we tried a new restaurant: Mos Burgers. We were already dying for some American type food, and everyone had been raving about this place. So armed with some general area directions, we took off on our bikes after school one night and eventually found this beauty:

The burger that is. Thanks though ;)

Also this week, our new friends from church took us out to dinner and showed us around the University that is a couple blocks from our apartment complex. The next day they took us to the top of the mountain, Pakuashan, where the largest Buddha statue in Taiwan sits. It was nice and breezy up there, which felt fantastic, and also meant we had views all the way to Taichung. This according to my students is a rare day indeed.

"Praaaaaissse to Buddha!" (insert musical notes here) - Name that movie! And no, it is not Mulan.

The statue was way cool, and the temple behind it was gorgeous. But perhaps the most exciting part was discovering the gigantic koi pond behind the temple full of enormous koi fish. We spent a good 15-20 minutes just ogling at the size of these guys and the beauty of the pond.

We took this from the second floor of the temple looking down. My dad built a koi pond in every house I ever lived in growing up. They were always beautiful, but it wasn't until this moment that I realized what a koi pond could really become.

Seriously, look at the size of these things! We even saw one jump clean out of the water- no less than two feet in the air, I swear.

I lied, perhaps the most exciting part was Ray's new found toy in the temple:

Apparently the higher you lift this weapon, the more blessings you will receive. Neither of us could lift it off the ground even a quarter of an inch... "That's it! Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family!" Okay, yes, this time it is Mulan.

After a rest from walking around the grounds for a few hours, our friends then took us to Changhua's Night Market. Again, a menagerie of crowded stores and stalls, overflowing with foods, drinks and clothes. This time though there was also an assault on our noses by none other than... Stinky Tofu. We had heard so much about it, but nothing could have prepared us for the at first subtle, then slowly thickening grotesque smell. I'll be completely honest with you, we can't compare the smell to anything else other than sewage. Ray thought some child had messed his pants when we caught our first whiff. Maybe after a few months we'll be brave enough to try it. For now though, our eyes still water when we just think of the smell. That goal is going to take some mental stamina and gag reflex training. Instead, we settled for some delicious, fresh coconut milk, Taiwanese BBQ chicken (amazing!) and the best fried squid we have ever tasted.