Long time no blog...

It was inevitable...my dislike for computers took over the novelty of the blog. But I'm back now and hopefully my blog will continue with a little more regularity.

In my defense, there is a main reason why I have not been blogging: sickness. I usually feel sick in the evenings (prime computer time) and felt really tired for several months also. Ok, you guessed it, we're expecting!

If you don't live nearby, here is a picture of my growing body at 16 weeks. The cute shirt is thanks to my awesome mother- and sister-in law!

Do you love the dumpsters in the background? The upside is that we can toss our garbage over the railing if they're open!

Here's a picture of our little peanut at 13 weeks:

I am now at 17 1/2 weeks. Don't you love how new moms speak in weeks and days? We had a doctor's appointment last week and got to hear the heartbeat. I told Brent it was like making contact with an alien in there. It doesn't seem real until you see it or hear it. I'm not sure if I feel the baby moving or not since I don't know what it is supposed to feel like. But I think I do...

We will find out if it is a boy or girl on November 19! Woohoo!

In other news, I started a new job a few weeks ago. I am teaching at the Intensive English Program at Tech now, and I love it! My students are great, and being back in the classroom has been a ton of fun. It is a really diverse program -- we have students from 20 countries this session. It does keep me busy though since I am still taking 2 classes as well.

The last picture is our very cute pumpkin we carved last night -- this is the first pumpkin I can remember carving (but my memory is pretty horrible). It was fun to carve but it is usually too darn windy in Lubbock to keep a candle going!

Chinese Food and Music

Last night we made some Chinese food for friends and watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing. It has been so fun to watch all the Chinese news coverage lately, and we thought that Zhang Yi Mo's artistry in the ceremony was awesome. The NBC cultural analyst was really good because we would have missed a lot of the symbolism without him. If you missed it, shame on you. Hopefully you can see the highlights on YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube, I was looking for Olympics videos and came across the first one about street food culture in Beijing. If you've got 10 minutes, it's worth a look. It made me hungry for some yummy street food (not the weird ones they mentioned...there are lots that aren't weird!)

While I'm at it, I wanted to share with you some videos of Jay Chou, the best Chinese pop star in my opinion. I have to admit I was disappointed that Jay did not make a appearance in the opening ceremony. It would have been a lot more fun with some Chinese rap, for sure! Below are two cool songs. The first is a love song, and I am proud to say that I can sing quite a bit of this song. The karaoke-style video helps. The second is a rap about domestic violence.

I hope you enjoyed the videos -- there are way more on YouTube. Enjoy!

Piles of Popcorn at Summer Mummers

Thanks to our awesome friend Stephenie and her parents, Brent and I had a great time in Midland last Saturday. It all started with yummy barbecue....

Then we moved on to Summer Mummers, a melodrama with a damsel in distress, hero that we cheer on, villain that we boo, and variety show at the end. The crazy part was the popcorn throwing. Every time the villain was booed (and really anytime) we were showered with popcorn. During intermission, it was pretty much popcorn war! Check out the pictures:

Amy throwing popcorn at JR, Erin, Alicia, Ashley, and Sarah.

Scott, Than, and Rachel

Rachel looking like a chipmunk eating popcorn

JR and Amy grabbing a quick intermission dance

Than had an amazing amount of popcorn in his hair

The crazy part for me about the show was that the heroes were from A&M. Every time a character mentioned that, the crowd booed -- can you believe it? I whooped as loud as I could every time and people threw popcorn at me. Aaaiiiyyyaaa...living in West Texas among all these Red Raiders can be trying for sure.

Gig 'em!

Wells

Last Saturday Brent and I went out to a friend's house to see his invention to use wind power to pump shallow water wells. He dug this 28 foot well by himself using a hand auger and put together the wind mill using supplies bought at Home Depot (and the local Mediterranean food store) for about $250.00. We are all excited now about the possibility of traveling to Latin America or Africa to dig shallow wells so that people can have clean water. 

   If you're interested in digging wells and installing some kind of pumps, come on with us! I'll keep everyone updated on whether these dreams turn into an actual trip. I think this is a life-saving project with a relatively small financial and time investment. Check out this link for an organization called Water for All out of San Angelo. They are already doing this with a slightly different method, but they offer classes on how to dig wells and install pumps. Yahoo for clean water!

Fiesta Domingo

This past Sunday I helped cook 200 servings for a Lubbock project called "Fiesta Domingo." If you've never cooked for that many people, you are in for a treat!


Walt (left), Lindsay, Brian (right) and my husband Brent all pitched in to separate bags and bags of frozen chicken (our fingers were getting numb) and cook that. Lindsay pretty much single-handedly made the gravy and veggies, and Brent stirred the mashed potatoes.

After that most of went to serve the food at a church downtown. And believe it or not, we ran out of food! At least everyone got firsts :) What I really want to do in the future is go eat and hang out with the folks who are there. When you cook and serve, you don't get to spend time with anyone face to face. Plus kitchen duty is a bit chaotic (which is probably necessary to get everything done.) It is good to know that some people went home full that day!

Nothing But Nets

Until recently I had no idea how much of a problem malaria was. It infects 500 million people a year (that's more than the population of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico) and kills over a million. My boss from India said it was like getting the cold there -- people get malaria every year.


The good news is that it doesn't have to be like that. It can largely be prevented with insecticide-treated mosquito nets. Check out this website:




For only $10.00 you can purchase a net for a child or family in Africa. I did a fundraiser in my office last week where I made lunch for everyone (a big batch of chicken salad) and people donated what they would have spent on their lunch for the nets. My husband is doing the same thing in the English department next Monday (except he's bringing gumbo!) If you're in Lubbock, I'm sure he would love for you to join them!

Brent has an awesome poem about this project -- I'll try to post it soon!

Europe Pictures

Some people have asked about our Europe pictures. Click the picture to check out the highlights:

I thought I would explain this one. A town called Kutna Hora in Czech Republic has an Ossuary, a chapel decorated with the bones from 40,000 people. It sounds creepy, but it was very cool.

First Blog!

So, apparently I'm a blogger now. Honestly, I don't know how long this will last. Most of my friends who have blogs show pictures of their kids, or at least their pets. I have neither, so I might have to post pictures of my plants :)

I do feel like some exciting things have been happening in my life recently, so I wanted to share them. This would have been useful on our vacation, but I'll just have to blog a few weeks after the fact.

Last week my church hosted the Jesus for President tour with Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. It was really an interesting presentation about the history of Jesus's relationship with the government and the way that we as citizens of Heaven should give our allegiance to Jesus. I like the statement Shane said that expresses what I've felt for a while, "I'm not anti-American. I'm pro-world and pro-Jesus." It was a great time and very inspiring. What is even more inspiring to me is a chapter on his website about living in community. Check out the Jesus for President and The Simple Way websites for more info.

I am definitely challenged to think about how the way I live leads to problems in the world such as poverty or isolation and work to change those in my own circle of influence.