We made it through the week!
News for us....Savannah decided to play the trombone instead of the Oboe. We purchased her trombone and it arrived yesterday. Everyone was excited to see it and find out about how it works. Kelly is thrilled about having a brass instrument in the house. BTW, we found out that our friend, Brooke plays the oboe!
I purchased a couple of new shirts yesterday. Spent more money on them than I should. I hope to take one and have it copied. Didn't feel like I had any stylish...clothes. The new fad is kind of the "hippy tops" or that is what I call them. I love to wear leggings and don't have any but I will have one of these tops copied,lengthened and then have leggings to go along with it. Hopefully, I can get this made beforeI go to V. Wish I could be there to get some sale items!

Not much else new. Long day today... I start seeing students today. Three of the kidsstay forswim team. There are so many students swimming the younger ones have to alternate days (Noah, Sage). Sage and I will stay for Michael's volleyball game and then the girls willshower andwe'lltake Michael outforhis birthday.
I'm havingsome problems with my spacekey.

Busy week this week!

Tuesday night: dorm sitting
Wed. night: House church grown ups meet for dinner
Thursday (house guest arrives) and we go to surprise bday party for a friend
Friday: going away party for friends here
Sat: meeting at school for parents of middle schoolers involved in sports/ house church
Sun: house guest leaves, dessert party at dorm for students to meet dorm committee
Mon: bday party for Brooke
Tues:
Wed: Michael Het's bday on Thursday so we will probably take him out this night

And this is just the extra stuff. I also start my Daniel bible study on Friday. STart our Home church ladies time Wed. morning. Have our first special needs staff meeting on Wed. at noon. Work at school on Tues/Thursday. I think that is all the regular stuff. You know as well as I do, that other things always come up!

Oh, and the kids start swim team this week!

First day of school was a success. Sage is already asking about 4th grade. Sometimes, I have difficulty understanding what is going on in his brain. :>

Yesterday morning we were talking about the importance of using words...instead of fists and he said, "I respond better to fists than words." What is he thinking? There are sometimes huge gaps in his ability to explain his thoughts. He is the sweetest, kindest, pleaser child... He wants to do right--does it most of the time...is popular at school...is funny... but he still cannot articulate his thoughts in a systematic manner. AND, he has a poor short term memory. Now is that true or does he just have so many things to remember? It is hard to know. I cannot give him multi step instructions and expect him to follow through. We have some new materials at Grace about how to distinguish Learning needs issues and ESL issues. I'm thinking we will have a better understanding of what his needs actually are at the end of this year.

Noah...has a complete melt down because he has to write 3 sentences to go with his math homework. He is obviously tired from the day. I observed him in action today. I watched as he chose to be by himself on the playground. I saw him choose to reach out and talk to another younger child who is in our house church and sometimes lonely. I saw Noah separate himself again. And then I saw him in action. In PE, he was a leader...directing and telling everyone what to do. I guess it helps that he is shoulder and head above all the rest of them, doesn't it?

Pr for Malia...there is a girl in her core class. Please continue to pr for a good friend for her. She seemed encouraged after today. I saw her by herself in a group of people. I thought, "oh, dear, God, I can't do this again...." I realize it's not all about me....

Sav was greatly in tune to the interactions between friends---friends separated from the summer...interactions between teachers and students---new teachers---she observed some insecurity (from the teacher) and she was concerned. She has such a gentle sensitive heart. PR that heart can be channeled for good and not for melancholy meanderings that spiral downhill. She had a good day.

I am feeling insecure and out of balance. I have dealt with insecurity the last few months. Not sure what that is all about. Need to spend more time in the word and on my knees!

The other night we were driving home from a movie and saw and elephant coming towards us down the street. I told Kelly, "just in case we begin to forget we live in Thailand." Can't say I've ever been in America and coming home from the movie saw an elephant on it's way home. We saw the new Bourne movie. We liked it. We rented the other two to watch first so we could remember. I think it helped us enjoy this one.

I have agreed to take on the responsibility of dorm committee chairman. I was pretty much doing the job anyway. So, now, at least I officially have the teeth. Not that I really wanted it. Please pray for me. I feel underqualified for this. I also feel like I don't have alot of time to give to it. The main thing we are doing right now is lining up dorm sitters for the two dorms for the nights off this semester.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I think we are all ready--physically--but mentally? I'm not sure any of us are ready.

Kelly and Malia had a good trip to Singapore. They enjoyed the musical and had good dr. appt's. M was also able to spend time with her friend.

Please pr with me about the dorms. We have career dorm parents who have been stateside who moved from the dorm in Dalat. And then we have a Masters Couple dorm parents who are finished up their term and 2nd yr in the dorm. The career couple have invested alot in the dorm and have lots of fun decor. The Masters couple has nothing. They inherited nothing and are only here temporarily. The career couple has collected over years many of these things. Pr esp. that the two couples will not compare themselves. Pr that the children will have good relationships with both couples and respect them. Pr for wise decisions from the dorm parents and the dorm committee.

I need to start an exercise program. I guess you can pr that I will have the motivation and will to do so!

Immigration went surprisingly fast the other day. We were in and out of there in less than thirty min. Then we headed out of town for the retreat. It was a good time to reconnect with Grace staff and be reminded of how blessed we are to be able to live here and have our children attend the school.

One of the main reasons I wanted to attend was because I was hoping it would give Malia a good opportunity to connect with girls her age. I have prayed off and on all summer that this will be a new year at school for her and she will thrive instead of agonizingly strive as she did last year. Well, I was immediately disappointed as I saw her rush ahead to catch up with the 4 girls her age that didn't wait for her. Then, after our session I found her up in our room by herself--not feeling included. I did'nt say much...just watched and kept silently praying. She immediately said she didn't want to go to play putt putt with the group and that when her dad returned from playing golf she was ready to head on home. Thankfully during free time, she ended up going bike riding with her sister and some of Savannah's friends. Then, they asked her to join them for dinner. Then, she wanted to go play putt-putt. I don't know what is ahead for her this year. In some ways she seems more mature than the others her age. And then in other ways she seems less mature. In the ways that really matter--she seems more mature. I am grateful for that. I pray that she will have the stamina to continue to reach out to folks and that God will bring her some friends this semester at school. She is seeing one of her friends she was with alot this summer tomorrow night when she and her dad are in Singapore. I think Kelly is going to take them out to dinner and let them sit at a table by themselves.

Pray for Noah. He is not looking forward to school starting. He tried very hard to smile at his new teacher and not act horribly disappointed about it starting back but he is not thrilled with it. I love his teacher. I think he will, too. She is a retired teacher from Arkansas who has the sweetest southern, grandmotherly disposition. I pray he will have a good year.

You can also pray that his dad has the birds and bees talk with him. I've been telling K Noah is ready but K hasn't really seen the signs until lately. It seems in almost every famiy devo, lately, Noah is asking..."how could they do that?" "how did that happen?" And it usually has to do with birds and bees type issues. And he is not satisfied with just a blow off answer. Inquiring minds want to know! :> Pray that the right time in the next few days will present itself. I dread him going to school and asking those same questions!

The best laid plans...

We are on our way to immigration today...hoping to be there at 8:30 but Kel has something he must take care of be4 we go. So, we are waiting on him. Malia, Noah and I need new re-entry permits put into our passport because we are leaving the country before the end of the yr and we might as well do it all at one time. So, we must go and wait.... Sometimes we wait for hours. We are taking good books! :>

We hope to leave today for the Grace Staff retreat around 11. It's just an overnight event. Kel and Malia will not spend the night since they are heading to Singapore early in the morning so they will sleep at home tonight. (the retreat is about an hour away)They return on Sunday morning.

My school schedule has not all been worked out yet but it's looking like I will have mainly boys this year. That will be different from last yr when I only had ONE boy student. I'm looking forward to the new year and getting back into a more structured day. I feel torn at this time of year as I see all the needs and feel like I can only meet some of them with my part time schedule. But, the reality is that we have another job to do, also and my time is limited. Our special needs staff has grown this year to 12 or 13 people so we have doubled since last year! I am amazed how that happens.

Well, since we really need to be out the door, I will close.

I said almost finished....

You will notice the dark window above the couch. We have a wall hanging we would like to put there but we need to have something made to hang it over the window. It doesn't fill up the whole window but I think it will be sufficient to draw your eye to the wall hanging and not the window. I will also eventually want to get new curtains for the "Gold room" but it may be next year before I do that, since the peach curtains are just fine. You will notice some fabric hanging on one of the pictures and I would like to recover the chairs in that fabric but it won't be until I'm ready to change the curtains.

Did you see the Chinese panels in the dining area? Can you see the detail on them? That is the wall that I wanted to stencil but I couldn't get it to look exactly like I wanted it to on the poster board so I haven't done it yet. The stencil would go behind the plant and we would remove the plant. It would like to get a corner waterfall type thing for the corner in the dining area but I have no idea if I could find anything like that here. I haven't been able to, yet.

I may end up putting rod iron candle holders on each side of the mirror OR I've thought about doing black and white family photo's. I'm not sure yet.

The Almost Finished Homemakeover 2

The Almost Finished Home Makeover

Sunday morning

It's Sunday morning here.... I think I am finally able to download some of the pictures of the house. It is my goal to be better about showing pictures on this blog!

I'm sorry it's been a few weeks since I've updated. Shortly, after returning home from the meeting, I was sick. That cut my week--my one week before I had to be at school for meetings--very short with lots to do in those few remaining days. Then, this past week, I spent at school learning the phonics program in a five day seminar. This coming week, we will have some meetings at school and then school starts next week.

We are in the midst of getting ready for school...updating uniforms, buying underwear, getting haircuts, and shoes....all those last minute things you do before school starts. We now need to order new pants and skirts for Malia and get the boys shorts altered....they are being passed down and we will be ready to go. We will need to do this on Monday to make sure that Malia has something to wear on the first day of school :>! She has truly grown in the last few months and can wear none of the old clothes. Hopefully, this will be her last growing year! :> Around this time, is when I stopped growing. She still is not taller than me, but it is getting very close. I keep telling her she's not going to surpass me. She keeps telling me she is!

This week, Kel and Malia are headed back to Singapore on Friday for a medical trip. Some of her test results from the previous trip showed that she had some positive titers for Lyme disease (which if I understand correctly shows that she has had Lyme disease in the past) and they are going to do some follow up blood tests on that as well as see another Dr. from follow up from our trip. For a special treat, he is taking her to see The King and I musical! We bought her a new dress to wear. At first she said she was only wearing jeans--the age, I guess--but it didn't take her long to get into the shopping mood and we found a dress in record time!

The others and I are going on a staff retreat with the school start on Thursday and Friday. Pray that we can have a productive fun filled week before the kids start their first week, next week!

They received their class lists and teacher names yesterday and they are all very excited about this new year.

I will try to download some of the pics on my camera now!