It has been so much fun since the last blog post! To start, my cousin’s Shane and Tara were supposed to get here in the last week of November. However, on the way here they missed their flight due to short connections and bad weather. It took a while, but they finally got everything figured out and they were going to get the next flight out. Well they were getting their new tickets, and, both of their passports were within 6 months of expiring. Shane could get his renewed, but Tara was under 16, so she had to have her parent’s signature. they finally figured out that her parents could sign some papers and send them over with Tara’s birth certifcate. They spent a week in Hong Kong!
They FINALLY got here Tuesday, the 4th of Dec., a week after they were supposed to get here. We were so ready to have them here! We picked them up at the same time some of the ALO board got here.
The next two weeks, us kids spent some time going to the village, Angkor wat, the baray, and in general just enjoying them (ourselves). The board left after a week and 1/2 full of meetings and the like…
On the 16th the church put on their annual Christmas party. This year we had an actual planning committee, so it was a lot more organized than last year. The party was supposed to start at 3:00. By 5:00 a couple people had showed up and we finally started at 6:00. For supper we had Khmer noodles and curry. It was amazing how many random people helped out with serving food and cleanup.
Monday was really sad. Shane and Tara left. It was a real treat to have them here!
We couldn’t mope about them leaving for long though. Chandra, our old school teacher, came for a short little visit.
She left early the morning on the 24th. Since everyone had off work some of the Khmer guys thought it would be fun to go out to one of the ALO staff guy’s hometown. It wasn’t supposed to take long to get there. It ended up taking a couple hours. When we finally got there we set mats out in the shade, unpacked the food, and had a delicious lunch of rice, soup, and fried pork. There was “flower” that they had set out to eat with the food. Alaina, before she ate it, looked down at it pitifulingly and said “poor, poor, flower” then she popped in her mouth and went around telling everyone “guess what? I ate a flower!” There was a river close by, so after lunch was done, the guys got out their nets and poles and went fishing while the ladies sat in the shade and chatted. We were all worn out by the time we got home.
This year was probably the least ‘Christmassy’ Christmas that we’ve had so far. We really missed Lori and Luke! We ate a late breakfast, cleaned up, and then started fixing dinner. Of course the electric had to pick that day to be temperamental. We had mashed potatoes, grilled pork, salad and dinner rolls for dinner. It was delicious. Later in the evening we drank wassail and had a little family gift exchange.
On New Year’s Eve the church got together a service and we all brought a little something to snack on.
That week we started moving to Elton’s old house. It took a while, but it’s finally finished. However there is still plenty of stuff to unpack and find places for stuff. Our new house is a lot closer to the village, so that’s nice. Last week was pretty much just getting unpacked and fixing up stuff around here.
Our new house…
Heather for the Helmuths.
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