Big Move!

So this week has been crazy busy with packing and getting all of our affairs in order before we head out this weekend for our final BIG MOVE! We are super excited to be doing this move because we will finally be where we have been longing to be! Its hard to believe that we have been on this journey for the last several years and yet, everything has literally just all come together in a matter of weeks. It just goes to show us (once again) that it is All on His timing and Not our own.

Please be Lifting Us Up as we will be spending the next few weeks traveling and transitioning. 

Ask that everyone would remain healthy and in good spirits as we go through this transition :)

Pumpkin Party

We had our second annual Pumpkin Party the other night for the "little guys" :) We played some party games, including pin-the-face-on-the-pumpkin, hunt for candy & Bobbing for Apples :) To actually carve a pumpkin proved to be a challenge, so we got creative and did Sticker-face-the-pumpkin instead ;) The kids still had fun and it was WAY LESS messy ;)

 The kido's costumes: Seashawks football player & cheerleader :) Baby G stole a candy (her first one ;) but don't worry, it was still wrapped, she couldn't figure out how to get it opened.

the apple bucket

even the Daddy's took a turn to play

pumpkin sticker craft

Durga Puja

It' is "Festival Season" here in our city and the start of all the "festivities" begins with the holiday Durga Puja. The streets, apartment buildings, commercial malls and parks have all been decorated with twinkle lights and communities have erected giant bamboo structures covered in cloth called Pandals to house their gods and goddesses.  These are temporary temples designed for the purpose of the puja (which when  translated means worship). Durga Puja is one of the biggest Hindu holidays celebrated in our city. Children have almost the entire month off from school and many business give from 3 to  up to 6 days leave for all employees during this holiday. From what we have gathered, it is celebration to honor their goddness Durga's "coming home." Apparently, she has gone off (been married or something) and she is returning for these few days to visit her parents and so people are celebrating her return. 

Pandal in the local mall

Typical street pandal

Some pandals have been known to be extremely elaborate or even take on themes. Some popular themes that we have heard of taken place in the past are Harry Potter,  Titanic & Ramon noodles. People like to go around and look at the the lights and pandals, much like how we like to drive around and look at Christmas Lights.

Requests

Ask that the Truth would be Made Known during this time where so many are seeking after things that promise & yet can do nothing

Autumn in India

Its been made known that Fall has officially come, however it doesn't feel that way to us on this side of the world. While many are starting to break out the winter clothes, layering up and consuming pumpkin spiced foods/beverages, we are still spending most of our times in doors, lounging in front of the AC's ;) *hehe*
However, just because the weather here does not want to admit that it is Fall, that doesn't mean that we don't make the atmosphere feel "Autumn-esque" ;) We have set out the Fall Decor and we do our best to consume homemade pumpkin spiced foods. But that means we literally have to go to the market, purchase something that looks more like a green gourd than a pumpkin (but we have been assured that pumpkins here are just not orange) than we bake it & puree it, & use it in as many recipes as possible! :) 

We also enjoy caramel apples, but ask anyone around here for a caramel apple and most people will ask "what is this caramel?" So, we have learned to make homemade caramel from ingredients found on this part of the world as well.
And lets not forget that Autumn also means Football! However, the word "football" means something different over here. The locals think we are referring to Soccer when we talk about it, so we have started saying "American Football" and that pretty much clarifies our conversations :)

Traveling through the market dressed in his favorite Autumn Attire ;)

Purchasing some pumpkins 

6 months old and already throwing a football ;)

Team huddles ;)

Hudson Goes to the Village

Recently, Hudson was able to tag-a-long with Daddy on one of his trips to the village to do some medical clinics. Daddy was hard at work, but Hudson....well....it would be better to just show you in pictures....

They were first greeted with flower garlands

But, he wasn't quite sure what the he was doing wearing a flower garland 

Then He found some goats

And this boy told him to leave his goats alone...

 so He found a sand pit to play in as an alternative to the goats

 ...and another little boy thought it was good place to play as well, (....but mostly kids just laughed)

Than He found a stick and that was pretty entertaining as well...

 Just helping getting some water

He found other goats

But was asked to leave the goats alone again...so he went down a random path 

but that ended really quickly and so he returned...

Again with the goats

Overall , it was good day

What!? Its been a year already!?

Its hard to believe, but we have literally been living on this side of the world for over a year!

And what a year it has been! You already know about us learning a new language and culture, expanding our family from three to four, but below are some other "interesting" things we have learned during this past year.

1) "Bathing"can be done any time, any place. From the very public Street Bathing with water from the fire-hydrant, to a bucket in a friends living room (the only limits are your creativity)

2) When the weatherman calls for "Rains" during Monsoon Season, it is no joke!

What your looking at was once a very Busy and Crowded Paved Highway, that has now been taken over by the Monsoon.

3) Nobody ever has loose change. It is not uncommon to receive candy from store clerks as compensation for the replacement of the change they don't have when you make a purchase.

4) The word "crowded" takes on new meaning on this side of the world

A Typical street 

5) Time is really nothing but a number. No one really ever shows up to appointments on time, but rather 'on their own time.' Imagine life being like how it is when you go for an appointment at the doctors office ;)

Operation Documentation Aquireation

 A Quick Update on us....

We have finally acquired All of Baby Girls' necessary government papers! It was a long process (about 4 months) but the task is complete! We had to venture out of the country to receive the last piece of her papers. The nearest place we could go was Thailand, so we combined business with pleasure and took advantage of the situation by rewarding ourselves with some R&R :) 

Getting ready to board our airplane. It was Baby Girl's first time to leave our city and first time ever to ride an airplane-So we dressed her for the occasion in some sparkly pink kick's ;)

Happy campers on the airplane. Hudson played with color-forms & did other "plane friendly" activities.  Baby Girl mostly "people-watched" and slept :) 

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Part II 

....Just for Fun...

 It never ceases to amaze us how different the world is. The more we travel, the more our eyes are opened. And it is sometimes the little things that take us by surprise, like the way shopping malls are designed in other country's.

This is random, but during our travels in Thailand, we couldn't get over how "fancy-pants" the malls were. The above picture is not Disney World, but just a regular shopping mall {according to Thai standards} that had lots of other forms of entertainment to enjoy besides the obvious shopping experience. In this particular mall there were not only statues of movie characters strategically placed on the same floor as the movie theater, but there were also different themes for each floor. One floor was themed "Tokyo" and was designed to be like you were shopping in the back streets of Tokyo, where as it felt like you were shopping outside on the street instead of inside a nice air-conditioned building. There was also floor designed to be like Istanbul where the atmosphere was just like being in an open-air market in Turkey. 

One of our favorite floors was where the food court & other dinning options were and it was designed to be like San Francisco complete with a Replica of the Golden Gate Bridge!

"Papers"

We have been in the process of acquiring all the necessary documents for our new Baby Girl and it has been quite the adventure :) The adventure started the day she was born and now (over three months later) the process is still not completed...welcome to life overseas ;) *hehe*

Our most recent step in this "paper-acquiring-process" took our family to a local government office.  We had grown accustom to government facilities that were air conditioned and with well manicured offices, however this office was a tad different...

 We are also used to offices filled with filing cabinets and the staff abiding by a specific dress code, however at this particular building neither of the above mentioned were considered necessary, 

It was a long day, filled with lots of time in various waiting rooms...

However, we are Thankful because we were able to accomplish what we had set out to do and now we are just that much closer to possessing all the "papers" that are necessary for our new little one :)

Requests

Please continue to Lift Us Up as we continue to try and accumulate specific documents. Ask that we would have patience, as this process is long can be tiresome at times.

Language Blunders & Papers

We currently we have some language tutors that help us out in our language learning. They don't speak much English, so it makes communication all the more "interesting"-to say the least.

Below are some of the more recent Language Blunders that we have been found guilty of.

What was said:

Language Tutor: What did you have for breakfast

Steph: Nothing special, just yogurt and flowers.

What was meant to be said: 

I had some yogurt and fruit

What was said:

Language Tutor: Look, your baby is awake.

Steph: Yes, my daughter is awake and very cup.

What was meant to be said:

Yes, my daughter is awake, she is very cute.

The situation:

The Language Tutor used a word Steph was not familiar with and explaining it in Urdu was not helping the clarification process, (it was only making her more confused) so Steph says, "Just wait a minute, I will ask my city, my city knows that answer."

What was meant to be said:

Please wait a minute, my husband knows this word, I will ask him.

Needless to say, Stephs' tutor has been having quite a good time with her language learning.  The tutor tries to be nice, but there have been times, when the language tutor thinks that the blunders are so funny that she is on the floor laughing.  Which, in turn, makes Steph laugh as well :)

On another note,  Our Baby Girl finally has her government papers & passport! It took a while to collect all the necessarily forms, get them filled out and brought to the correct offices, but after two and a half months, she is finally documented! :)

Below are some passport photo blunders, (because getting a passport photo of a newborn is no easy task) and we thought you would get amusement out of some of the passport photo rejects ;)

The requirements for a newborn passport photo state that the subject has to be looking straight ahead, mouth closed and eyes open. We didn't have a problem with the last requirement, but it was about 50 different photos later that we finally got her to look straight ahead, with her mouth closed. 

The Birth Story...better late than never ;)

 Our due date for the little one has come and gone. So we go for another "Wellness Checkup," as they are commonly called in this part of the world.

The Doctor decides that since we are past due and the little one is getting big, that we should go ahead and induce that day. We call our friends, who we had prearrange would care for Hudson, and ask them to come pick him up from the hospital because we are about to get things rolling ;) 

Waiting around for "things" to happen.

We induced about 2 in the afternoon and things still weren't happening, so at about 8 in the evening, the  Doctor broke my water.

It was about 6 hours of contractions before it was time to push. 

After about an hour of pushing,

out comes our Baby....Girl! 

So Excited to finally meet our Beautiful Baby Girl!

Brand New Baby Gianna Mijalisa

First time meeting his Baby Sister!

We are soo thankful and feel truly Blessed that the whole experience was a positive one :) Towards the end of the pregnancy we were beginning to feel a little apprehensive about having a baby abroad, but everything went so smoothly that we can safely say that we would do it all again :)