On Blaming Foreign Nations for Blogging Negligence...

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! And all the things in-between that have happened within the last month of my blogging non-existence!

Is it fair to blame an entire country on your blogging negligence? Probably not. But I'm doing it anyways. Yes, it's Taiwan's fault I've been a complete slacker. Because that's where we've been for the past month. And would you believe that after arriving back here only four days ago, there's STILL snow covering the ground ever since our White Christmas blog post? Certainly a rough welcome back after 70 degree temps down south! Well that coupled with the tonsillitis that I flew home with has been a bit of re-entry shock...but more on that later.

So in case you like continuity, I'm backing up a bit to our time in Taiwan and skimming over some of the best parts of our month there. (In case you don't, ignore my neurosis for needing to make things right and just skip over this catch-me-up post)

Taiwan's got some GREAT parks. With this awesome gargantuan concrete slides. And our kids choose to pose like morons, when mommy wants to take nice park pictures...

I'll admit that I was pretty bummed about having to spend Christmas day away from our home that's away from home. But eating it up at TGIFriday's is always the way to go if you're spending it in Taiwan. 

Christmas morning we woke up with a surprise ring at the doorbell of our guest house and were delivered mystery Christmas presents. He wasn't wearing a red suit and didn't have a white beard, but he blessed our day beyond measure that morning.

Christmas day we grabbed Subway for lunch (don't judge us, we get sliced deli meats about every 4 months) and headed to a university across the street to picnic in the shade. The below picture was captured during the .4 seconds we spent on the blanket before we scurried off to a less-mosquito-infested area.

Then we fed the crusts of our Subway sandwiches to some ducks for their Christmas meal as we strolled around on a It's-way-too-warm-and-sunny-to-be-Christmas walk.

Once Christmas passed, we spent the next couple weeks enjoying lots of Taiwan's specialty, bubble tea.

Roaming the beautiful streets of Taipei...

and building giant lego castles.

On New Year's Eve, we locked the kids in the apartment and ran up to the rooftop to see the fireworks being shot OFF of the Taipei 101 building.

We enjoyed meeting up with friends that Brandon met years ago when he spent the semester in Taiwan.

The second half of our stay in Taiwan was for Brandon to take some classes from SEBTS to help finish his degree. We met up with amazing old friends and made awesome new friends. It's amazing no matter how far you live from, travel from, or are disconnected from like-minded people, when you're brought back together it's as though there's been no time lapse at all. (besides the fact that our families have multiplied in size)

Overall, we had a great refreshing time there. Despite the pneumonia Eden dealt with, the constant snot and cough of Caleb, and my tonsillitis present that I brought home with me, we survived a month away from home and enjoyed adventuring in yet another Asian country.