Ohio

A day in Huntington Beach started our cross country trip. We visited with Brian and he graciously woke up at 4:30 to take us to LAX! We had a great day on the sand.

Now we are in Ohio. We have had a wonderful time with the Millers. They took us to the Creation Museum yesterday. It is a biblical based science museum. It was excellent. The exhibits were well done and thought provoking. We actually drove through parts of Kentucky to get to the museum. Weston is thankful for those little portable DVD players! He loves watching his movie while we drive and fly around the world!

We leave tomorrow and head to PA. This part of our trip is a vacation portion. Julie, our sister, lives there. We'll be staying in Lancaster county. The hotel we booked there has an indoor water park!? There are many things to do in this area. We are looking forward to hanging out with Julie on her home turf! She is going to babysit for us and Peter and I will go away to New York, New York. We are staying one night downtown and we just got tickets to see aBroadway show! We are so excited.

Off and Running

It begins--- our cross country trip. We leave today. It was quite a challenge to gets packed up for the month. We travel from CA-OH-PA-MN-MT-WA-CA. We packed for temperatures from 90-30, anywhere from hot to humid and dry to snow! The children have air mats so that they'll be in the same bed for each location. Hopefully that will help. We won't be back home until October 29th.

The pictures are from and apple farm . We picked peaches and raspberries and had a great day together with family!

Reverse Culture Shock

We are settling in well here in California. Things are going well. We are experiencing some reverse culture shock. Each of us has experienced it in a different way.
Becca
I felt completely out of place at Walmart. I couldn't figure out how to move through the store... I was just kind of walking in circles! It is about 1000 times bigger than any store I've been to for a long time!
I thought my car was going to launch off the freeway as I reached 75 mph in the slow lane behind a semi truck. I watched a 70 year old woman speed past me and I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
I couldn't figure out how to pay for gas. I was trying to be cool and not have to ask questions but it took a long time for me to figure out I had to input the pump number before I could insert the cash. I hope no body was watching me!
Peter
Went the grocery store with his brother the day after we arrived. As they approached the soda isle, he was so overwhelmed by choices that he had to just tell his brother to take over!
Sierra
When she throws a fit in Mongolia. She gives me a dirty look and walks backwards a few steps. Then she yells at me and puts her hands into the dirt and rubs them around because she knows that I don't like her hands getting dirty. We arrived here and she tried to throw her little tantrum. When she put her hands on the concrete and rub them around, she stopped and looked confused. She looked at her hands and noticed right away that they were clean! That stopped her fit!!
Weston
He can't figure out where we are or where we are going. Every time we get in the car he asks me what country we're going to visit. He always talks about his neighborhood friend Toogie and he keeps saying, "Remember when we lived in Mongolia and this happened?"

Overall we are doing better than expected though! It is great to be home.

Glasses

We made it across the ocean and into our new rental. It is a great place to be. I really like Yucaipa. It is peaceful here and we are really settled in already. We are all sleeping through the night again, so that is great! People come by everyday to give us more stuff...the back yard has chairs, a little pool, a tug boat sandbox already and a slide on the way!

The kids are doing good. We are working through our doctor's appointment schedule. So far so good. It is good to see a doctor who speaks our language and who knows what it going on in the modern world of medicine.

The most educational visit has been to Weston's eye doctor. We went to see Dr. Rimmer and we were amazed to find out that Weston is EXTREMELY far sighted. Peter and I both have 20x20 vision, so it was an education for us. The ophthalmologist first asked him to respond to questions about what pictures he could see on the eye chart. We said, "Now Weston, don't be stubborn. Answer the doctor." The doctor said, "He's not being stubborn... and then lipped to us, "He can't see." The doctor then asked Weston to turn around and and look at the pictures up close.... He answered all the questions flawlessly. I started to cry.

Then they dilated his eyes and the doctor put different lenses over Weston's eyes to determine his prescription. Did you know the doctor can make a perfect prescription without saying a word to the patient? The retina responds in a specific way when the patient's vision is perfect! His prescription is +6.50 on the right and +7.5 on the left-- very very farsighted.

The doctor then said this is what your son sees and he placed lenses over my eyes.... I cried some more. It was worse than crossing my eyes. I always thought a child had to be verbally capable to tell the doctor if he was seeing clearly during an examination, which was very wrong. The doctor can tell based on the retina. So I think Sierra will be going soon, just in case.

We ordered glasses for Weston yesterday. The doctor said, "You will see a new boy within the month." I can't wait to see him grow and change! Looking back over Weston's life I see many areas that I have labeled him, "stubborn." SOME, not all, of those areas are visual. He is a very smart boy who likes to get everything perfect. This has been an area of frustration for me since I am not a perfectionist. I have been asking him to do things that he WILL NOT do. I know now that sometimes he really couldn't because of his eyesight. There are many areas that I was perplexed because if we did verbal learning he LOVES it. But when I would direct him to draw, or to write he would just act very frustrated... now I know why.

I am so glad that he went to the doctor... You should see how cute he looks in glasses!

17 hours til we fly

We are here in the capital city, Ulanbaatar, waiting for our flight. We are ready to go. We've handed off our responsibilities here, packed up our home for storage, drove down here and now we are just waiting to go. I am so happy! I can't wait to be on American soil.

We have cable here and we were able to see part of the Republican convention... what an interesting race it has become with the addition of Palin. It was good to see the speeches and hear them speak. We don't get TV up north, just the headlines and stories from the media. America sure is an amazing place!
I am so thankful to be returning to my homeland. There is comfort in the land of my birth. Culture is security... an invisible bond to the world. I have heard culture described as a spider web to a spider. All the threads that hold the spider's world in perfect balance. Each thread of the web is a different part of life and when one part of the web breaks down the spider hangs in danger, unable to care for itself until its web is reformed. Respinning the web of my culture has been an fascinating time of discovery, but I am ready for the rest that will come while resting in my native country.... I am so so so so so so so excited to come home! See you soon!

What do you get when you put an old pail and and an old vacuum hose together?

TEE-BALL!!! Weston got his first ball and bat set today. He was so excited. We've been playing with a stick. We went right home and then Peter made this tee for him. He had so much fun. He's a good hitter. Enjoy... (8 days until we are home!)

Our house is a very very very fine house...

God has provided a wonderful little rental house for our time in America. It is wonderfully priced (cheaper than most apartments) and the inside is completely brand new! It has two bedrooms and one bath. It has a big fenced in back yard and is on a four acre horse ranch. The owner boards horses there and gives riding lessons during the week. It is a perfect fit for us. Our kids will really be able to ease into American life because they are used to having a lot of space and livestock roaming around. All of this less than a mile from the 10 freeway!

We are spoiled because our families are going to move all the stuff in before we arrive. My parents found some bunks for the kids at a yard sale and moved them in right away. My mom in law bought the kids all new bedding too!! We have washer hookups and my dad also found a washer for $20 at a yard sale. It will be the first time I've ever had a washer in America! Our friends wrote and they have a pay as you go cell phone they have for missionaries on furlough. They are mailing it to my mom so that we can have it right away. My sister got us car seats for the kids so we are completely and totally blessed. Faith Community is having a welcome home shower for us too!!

God is providing abundantly for us through family and friends! It's great to be in the position of having nothing and no way to get anything and being completely out of control (and knowing it) and then watch God provide so wonderfully. It is such a faith builder.

OK gotta go cook. I have to pull up some potatoes and lettuce and snap the green beans. I LOVE dinners like that. Get it out of the garden and throw it in the pot.