Happy Mis'sippi Birthday, Emily!!

My friend Emily will be celebrating her 28th birthday this week and since life is a bit crazy around here right now, we had her party the weekend before her actual birthday. It was a birthday bash like none I have ever seen. I guess it is because I haven't been to Mississippi before, or anywhere in the south. Emily was born and raised in Mississippi. However these southern friends of hers in PNG are a bit interesting.






Emily seemed to have a great time talking about home and fittin' right in. There were some great costumes, wonderful food (like fried pickles?) and fun fellowship. As I have said before - we make our own fun!

Happy Birthday, Emily!!

Easter

Easter preparations began the day before. Kristen, Becky and I peeled, sliced and fried potato chips. We had decided to do kebobs for Easter along with potato, pasta and Jello salads. We also wanted potato chips. We were going to do kaukau (sweet potato) chips, but there were no orange kaukau in Goroka. (That is just unheard of since it is the staple food for PNG).

Emily was also around to make rolls for her Easter celebration. You will have to ask her what she was doing with the bread machine paddle and why it wasn’t under the ingredients she had loaded into the bread machine? All this made for a much longer process.

Easter Sunday came and Burlesons, Hoskins, Part of the Greenlaws and I gathered at the Nielsens for our meal. We were 20 people and we had enough food for many more. We had a great time of fellowshipping.

Of course we had a traditional Easter egg hunt. The Burleson boys and Noah Greenlaw hid the eggs and all the little ones hunted.

Trying to Be Like My Brother!

So my brother has been doing "product reviews" and I just couldn't pass this one up. Being in a third world country you find many knock-offs. This was a new one for me. Some friends brought these back from town tonight for me. We all got a good laugh out of it.

As for the taste? Be happy you all have Doritos!

Looking Back - Thanksgiving and Christmas

Thanksgiving was celebrated on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, since we don't get Thanksgiving off. Mary and I worked at making rolls and mashed potatoes. I got together with my friends: Carmen, Emily, Dave and Mary Hedeen, the Burleson family, the Nielsen family, and the Bowers family. We had quite a spread.
Here are the kids all looking annoyed, but trying to be respectful. They are good sports.
Here we move to Christmas. Again we were at the Bowers: Emily, both Hedeen families, Phil and Fiona Emery, the Bowers and the Nielsens for a little while.

Fellowship over our Christmas meal...

More fellowship and leftovers...

Skittles waiting for her share...

Christmas Pics

So I thought I would post a couple random pictures from Christmas. I will have to get pictures from others of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So until then here are a couple pictures of the season. Below is a nativity scene that my dear friend Emily put in my fish tank. For a couple years she has wanted to put one of my many nativity scenes in the tank and this year I said okay, but the ones I could think about putting in the tank all floated. So she made her own...

One fun activity of Christmas is making sugar cookie Christmas trees. The girls made a tree to take home and one to give to someone else. It was fun to see them decorate them and then to watch them give them to someone else. (Around the table...Rachel in red, Emily, Cara, and Katie)

The Last Couple Weeks

Well, this is an exciting evening at my house. Emily and Carmen come over with their laptops and the three of us sit watching a movie or TV show while catching up on emails, Facebook, or other computer tasks. We all love the wireless!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving I had a decorating party. Dave and Mary, friends from Dallas, OR, were here as well as Emily and Carmen. Emily has decorated with me for 3 years now. Here she is next to one of my favorite nativity sets. She thinks they look cold since they are blue, so she has placed them on a white "snow" cloth and the packing pieces are snowballs. I have to admit that the packing pieces somehow disappeared.
Here are Carmen and Mary decorating the tree. Having Carmen help this year was a great addition. Her height comes in handy when stringing lights, hanging pictures, wrapping garland, and so much more.

Dave accomplished a task that has not happened at my house before. I brought outside lights over with me in 2002 or 2004 and they have never been up. The lights hadn't even been used since Christmas of 1999 back at Camp Tapawingo. Anyway, Dave strung them up outside and they worked!

Then this past weekend was our Christmas Festival. It is our day to shop. Basically it is a bazaar held in our gym, but we like to think of it as the mall. Emily, Carmen and I were decked out with our Christmas bilas (decoration) and shopped all evening, but took a break to get dinner from the junior class. Very similar to a food court.

Rachel's Birthday

The very loud, silly kindergartners. Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Pin the tail on the pony.
Kristen organized a scavenger hunt.

Rachel and me with her pony pillow.

Kristen had planned a craft for the girls and they all had a good time decorating with foam shapes.