For the past month and a half we haven’t been teaching English (We started teaching again on Monday). We decided to take a break at the same time that they have summer vacation since the attendance last year over this time really dropped. Then at the beginning of November when the school started up again, we were busy. So we had a long vacation…Maybe too long?

Most of October, we as English teachers didn’t have much going. Micheal and Jody worked on getting lessons together so that they have something to go off of when we started teaching again. I didn’t because I didn’t know what level of students I would be teaching. Instead I worked on getting it cleaned up around the house and school. Each of us English teachers also had some missionary kids to teach…Micheal is/was teaching two of his children, Jody had Forrest, and I had Heather and Carissa.

There was some other things that happened over this time. Ryan went SC for a month long visit. While he was there, he did some things like renewing his driving license, working with Johnathon, and hanging out with cousins. While he was gone, I started some plants to put in a garden. I planted a lot of pepper seeds and some tomato seeds, but only the tomatoes came up (of course it had to be something that I don’t really like). Maybe when the board comes, they’ll bring some more pepper seeds so I can try again.

At the end of October we started to get some company, Jody had two friends from home that came for a week. While they were still here, a friend of a friend stayed at our place for three days. He generously payed for my pass to Angkor Watt so I could go with him one day, that was fun, even though we got up an hour before sunrise.

Angkor Watt at sunrise.

I found some butterflys in and around the temples.

Lotus flowers and incense sticks. This lady was going into one of the temples to do her “worship.”

Jody’s freinds left the night of Nov. 4th. The same night they left there was a new family that came to the mission. Elton Yoders from Ohio. We have been enjoying getting to know them and the family. Two days later Lori came!!! She had traveled down to South Carolina for a week. Then flew from there to here with Ryan.

It was really good having Lori around and Ryan back making the family complete for a while. Most of the first week we didn’t do much that was unusual. The boys kept drilling as usual and we’d hang out in the evenings. On Friday, the boys took off work and our family went out to the lake with our friends that live there. We had a lot of fun trying to find rats and swimming. Ryan had built a boat out of PVC that we took out. We pulled it behind one of the boats as a type of floating ski. On the way back to the truck that evening there was a beautiful sunset.

Checking other peoples nets to see how many fish they caught.

The children there love any attention, and especially Dad’s.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday was the water festival here in Seim Reap. All three days town was full of people. On Monday, Michael and I worked on changing out the desk tops at the school. Dad and Elton helped out too after they were finished assessing wells. That evening our family went to watch the races. We got there in time to see the crowds and the last race. Then there was a parade with all the boats in the races.

The last race of the day.

There was a lot of water fighting going on in the parade.

Tuesday evening our family headed down to Sihanoukville (a town on the beach) for two days. We had a lot of fun there even though it was really short. Then Friday we spent all day sitting in a van heading back.

My AMAZING Parents.

We took family pics for Christmas Cards that some of you might get some time…This was just an informal shot though.

Saturday we wrapped up some things that Lori wanted to get done while she was here. Then Sunday afternoon she left for Canada again:(…

This Monday we started school so maybe you will hear about that in the next blog…

Luke for the Helmuths

P.S. Even if I only write about the highlights and good times, that is not all that we do…Each of us still has work that we do, but I have a hard time trying to get that to sound interesting. 🙂