NEW APARTMENT

Yeah that's right. We got a crib in our new city across the gargantuan Pacific. It's just sitting there waiting our arrival. Well...not sitting there so much. It's been worked on actually. You know, the usual: installing a western toilet, putting up walls for a shower, and being wired for a new oven. Standard issue in east asia. Fortunately, it's furnished. We'll just have to get a few odds and ends. Not sure if there's A/C but it already has high speed internet.
We'll be there in 10 days New Home...hang in there.

Our kitchen...if you couldn't already tell.

Our entry way with handy dandy already-installed coatrack.

Our new bedroom...

Living Room area. pretty nice eh?

Guest bedroom with specialty imported Mickey Mouse curtains.

Here's our lovely bathroom. In the future there will be a wall separating the shower from the rest of the room (so as to not make the toilet paper soggy.)

So come visit us in a year or so and check the place out for yourself!

July 4th

All of us folks here at orientation got to load up and go to our nation's capitol for the Fourth of July! It was pretty cool. There were so many people!! Let me interject at this point that if you are wanting to come see DC and have a packed day of all the Smithsonian museums you can get, the Fourth of July is NOT the day to do that. While it was neat to be there on the anniversary of our nation's birth, it seems that all of our other nation's inhabitants think this as well. Luckily...Brandon and I have been to DC before and had seen most of the major sights. And, having been told by our supervisors that the day was not intended for sightseeing, we set out with a few goals in mind. We were instructed to group in 4s or 5s so lucky for us, we got to group with some of our friends who just happened to live in DC for the last 2 years. hehe

So we set out on our journey. Like I said, the goals of the day were not to sight see. Some goals to accomplish were to: visit China town, eat an ethnic food for lunch, ride the metro and get used to public transportation, try to recognize as many foreign languages as possible, bring a foreigner closer to Father, and to obviously share our story with as many people as possible.
The first item of the day was to make our way to the White House by way of the metro. Being led by a DC native, this was cake for us. It was so neat to see the White House. What's not so neat is all of the cooks that sit out in front of it. Nonetheless, Brandon was able to share with one! So after the White House we headed over to China town, which is basically one block of everything chinese. We looked around for awhile and then, haha, settled on Indian food just around the corner. It being the fourth of July and most sane people wanting hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch, there were absolutely no people in this restaurant. It was a wonderful buffet! I love Indian food! Quick story within a story...our friend asked our dark-skinned Indian-looking waiter if he was from India. He grinned and said, "No. Mexico." haha
After Indian food we hit a chinese restaurant to get a bubble tea (you'll have to come see us in china to discover what that is) and then headed back to the National Mall. (the area with all of the sights to see) We accomplished the rest of our goals in the Mall area and snapped a few pictures. It was a grrrrreat day!! We didn't get to stay for fireworks but they got rained out anyways. Here are some more of our pictures.

Gosh, Brandon...you sure have grown since I saw you last...

Hoards of people...

At Union Station. "Watch out for the Subway behind you Brandon!"

Ode to Jim

Brandon is currently on his way back home for his grandfather's funeral. His grandfather's name was Jim and he was an incredibly enjoyable person to be around. We got to see him the day before we left for Virginia. I felt like posting a few pictures of him.













It's been about 11 years since I've (April) had a grandfather alive, so gaining two more after marrying Brandon has been a blessing. Grandfather's are some amazing people.

EESH B GEESH

What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been! We've been at orientation for about three weeks now and we've really enjoyed every minute of it...well except for a few which we'll address here in a little bit. The time has been full of learning about our people group and how to engage them but all the while being full of fellowship and fun!
The schedule usually goes as follows...
Wake up around 6:30 am (or earlier if we go run) get ready in time to hop skippy jump to the caf real quick to grab a bite for breakfast. The first session is at 8 am and we'll hear various speakers from then until noon. At noon we break for lunch until 1 pm then we're back in sessions till around 3 pm. (sometimes 5 pm) However...yesterday was a bit different. 1-5 in the afternoon was reserved for immunization time. It was well... you can see.

Man those suckers burned!! But...we're immune now from all kinds of stuff you can imagine. Brandon was a bit more brave:

But so far, these have been the only not-so-fun moments!

We're here for another 4-5 weeks and it's crammed with all sorts of activities. And lucky for us we only have one more immunization time. Brandon will be getting a total of 5 shots and April is getting a total of 12!
Sorry we've been so slack in keeping this updated, we'll try to update the blog a little more often now!

The move!

We have finally moved out of Plainview! Though it was ok most of the time, we were very anxious those last few months to get outta town. We packed everything up and it's spread out fairly evenly between Amarillo and Perryton. We've moved in with April's parents in Perryton and have been busy getting everything situated and actually helping them unpack their stuff! They moved into this house two weeks ago! So things have been pretty crazy, but we're glad to be here getting to spend time with the parents. We'll be spending a lot of time in Amarillo with Brandon's parents as well.
Anyhow...last week we had the final Kid's Club in our apartment ministry. It was incredible. We've spent all year with these kids and it was so hard to say goodbye. Halfway through the year though we thought it would be a good idea to inforce some rules. (I know...a bit late eh?) But we started this sticker thing where the kids get a sticker for each rule that they completely obey each week at Kid's Club and the kid who accumlutes the most stickers gets a prize at the end of the year. So last week was prize week and we were blessed with about $300 to buy prizes with! So the winner, a beautiful girl named Cierra, we surprised with a bike! Woohoo! We got the kids all kinds of cool toys, games, etc... And each kid got to take home something pretty exciting. It was incredible to see their faces. (keep in mind these are low-income apartments so these kids are pretty thrilled to get anything for free.) Here's some pictures of our prize giving extravaganza!

Jaden and Brooklynn getting very cute barbie dolls:



Andrew and his new baseball and baseball glove...and Brandon's weird face:



Cierra after being surprised with her new bike!



The entire Kid's Club group:

First Post!

Welcome to our Blog! You'll be able to read all about our journeys in East Asia at this website. We'll try to update it as often as possible and keep you informed of all that is going on where we are. Thanks for visiting our site!