Lots of photos, fewer words

Instead of blogging. Let's do photo review of life lately.

Trip to Los Angeles for the wedding of my friend Jess:

Babysitting...lots of babysitting:

My niece Molly who can now WALK!

Babysitter Nick wooing little Luke, our friends Krista + Jimmy's son.

I chased down this car... it's one of the Google Map cars that takes all those "Street View" images. I met the guy who was driving it... he showed me the computer and GPS in the trunk and told me he got the job when someone approached him in a cafe... he's a retired steel worker. Oh, and this is actually his house.

Nick's birthday! He'll get to use his new Wall-E sheets for only a short time (until June 19th to be exact)... but he still loved getting them for his bday!

Engagement Photos
(Thanks Krista, we love them! You made us look so lovely!)

Bought a WEDDING dress! This is all I can show for now :).

Just generally in love

Out of the desert

I'm back. I'm still processing, but wanted to give some photos of the trip so far. My time in Los Angeles was so awesome, the desert trip was intense. So here they are...more to come with my thoughts and experiences shared. A few previews below.

Fighting the white light

So yeah, I'm currently carless. Here's the fun story of my adventures this evening.

I was driving home from church tonight when my car started to overheat for the second time today. I blasted the heat, as I was taught, in hopes that the temperature would go down. No luck. In fact, the heat never got hot, it just blew out cold air. Hmmm...it must not just be coolant related. I pulled off of 75 to a not-so-friendly-looking gas station to add more coolant. I peeked under the car and noticed that something was dripping. Great. I got back on the highway and prayed that I wouldn't overheat and get stuck on the side of the road. As I gunned it moving northward, the temp stayed steady. But then began to rise again. Like a good helpless girl, I called my dad to ask what the heck I should do. After I explained everything, he said I should pull over and he'd come get me. I made it to a gas station at 11 Mile and 75, pulled into a parking spot backwards, preparing to be towed. :(

My dad came a short while later. We decided to get our yearly money's worth of our AAA membership by calling in for some road side service. The friendly operator asked the purpose of my tow, and kindly replied (surely according to their empathetic customer satisfaction scrip) "I'm sorry to hear that." The wait was estimated to be 45 minutes. Ugh. We scampered across the street for some Canadian culture and a place to wait- Tim Hortons. We both got a donut and sat down. I love donuts. We sat for a while talking about folk music, Iowa, and hypothesized about what I should do if my car is really expensive to fix. Buy a new-used one? Lease a new one? American? As we talked we watched the moon rise over the gas station, keeping our eye out for the tow truck.

One sour cream glazed and one Boston cream donut later we re-scampered across 11 Mile to meet my tow truck. As my car was being loaded on the truck bed, I started to snap some pictures on my phone. The tow truck driver, Daniel, said "Are you taking pictures?!", I replied with a big proud grin, slightly shivering from the cold, "Yes, they're for my blog!" My dad and the driver burst out laughing. They're kind of hard to make out, but here they are just for you. :)




I had a moment of sadness as I watched my good old Saturn slowly being raised on her 'gurney', in what looks like in these photos, towards a white light. I focused on her tires which have carried me so far for so long, and I gazed at my City of Los Angeles parking permit on my bumper, that is fading more and more every day. Oh the memories. I will find out the prognosis tomorrow. I hope she makes it. I hope it's not too expensive.

Hang in there my good and faithful companion.

They want me to move back to LA

The past two nights I was blessed to be able to spend them with my old boss from my last job in Los Angeles who was in town for a meeting and conference in Dearborn. An equally delightful blessing was to meet someone from the village that I practically knew already, but never met in person. He is actually the first person from the village that I've gotten to meet in person. I can't tell you how excited I was to finally meet him. When I was picking them up at their hotel I ran from the parking lot to the lobby because I was so excited and walking was not getting me there fast enough!

On Thursday we went down to Greektown for dinner and I gave the world's worst tour of Detroit. How am I ever suppose to fulfill my dream of being a tour guide if I can't even give some attractive details about Detroit? Where was my Detroit Almanac or DEGC employee when I needed them? Oh well. I think it was still fun.

Last night I got to spend the evening out again with both my boss Deanna and Ahmad from the village. I accompanied them to dinner in Dearborn at a very famous and extremely delicious restaurant. Also at dinner was the board of directors from my old job. It was pretty neat to get to hang out with them all. The president of the board semi-seriously offered me my job back a few times. They apparently liked having me around! I actually loved working there, especially because of the cause and because I worked for a pretty amazing boss who is now my good friend.

Ahmad, Deanna, and me

I absolutely positively adored hanging out with the two of them. My insatiable curiosity about Ahmad, the village, and the region he's from caused a never ending amount of questions to pour out of my little self. After the board members left, the three of us hopped over to a cozy little booth for some delicious Arabic coffee and sweets. Being a coffee lover, I was wide-eyed and inquisitive about the Middle Eastern way of coffee making. He's some visuals for you:


They grind the coffee beans to a fine powder and boil the grinds in water over an open flame. No filters or anything. They you sip on it from little tiny cups. It seems to really emphasize the socialization of coffee drinking, which of course I completely revel in.

Ahmad asked me when I was going to make my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I said, when someone hands me a wad of cash for my plane ticket. I ache to go there to see those sites, but also to visit the village. My plan was always to stay in the village at their little hotel, but now I've got free housing :).

Ahhhh....it was so great to spend time with Deanna and make a new friend from a place that is near and dear to my heart. My 'quality time' tank is feeling full and it feels so good!

Repeat after me, "bumblebee"

Yesterday I started a new little side job for some extra saving money. I am now officially an English Language Trainer (basically an ESL tutor). I'm getting paid the big bucks to teach English to a woman and her 17 year old daughter. They are from Venezuela and the mom is an engineer at Ford. She designs car bumpers- both front and rear.

Today I met with the mother for the second time. Both sessions so far have been really incredible for me. I'm learning about her as a person and about her strengths and weaknesses as an ESL student. In our lesson this evening we started with some writing and ended with some vocab/pronunciation practice. She's really concerned about writing emails at work and at home, so we wrote out two emails together. The first one was a simple reply to an invitation to a Sunday lunch and the second was an email inviting her friends and family to look at some photos from her trip to NYC on Ofoto. Then finally we read through a list of simple words with consonant sounds- to check on what sounds in particular give her trouble and to check her level of vocab. She seems to have a lot of trouble with 'th', 'v', and 'f'- they all end up being something else. We had the most trouble with emphasizing the difference between 'cup' and 'cop'. She learned a few new words in this process: cop was one of them, bunt, mitt, and bumblebee (which turns out is sort of a tongue twister for her).

I must say two things about this experience so far.

1. I dread planning for each hour long session. I get all worked up that it won't be good enough or it will be too easy for her. If you saw me at the Genesis office today you would have felt my irrational, insecure stress- in fact 2 different people asked me with a compassionate tilted head "How are you doing today?"- it must have shown in my face and my lack of interaction with everyone! For some reason today I was on edge and had I gone into any detail would have burst out into a flood of silly stress tears.

2. After each of these lessons I leave feeling excited and fulfilled. I love helping people in this way (and it's not too shabby that I get paid well to do it). I love when she asks me regular "How do I do this in your country" type questions. I absolutely, positively love it.

Why must I get so stressed? Hopefully I'll start to realize that I can teach well and do teach well.

While living in Taiwan in 2003-2004, I first felt the desire to help immigrants in the United States. I understood first hand the daily, moment-to-moment struggles of living in a strange country with very little understanding of the language and only a small amount of people who knew mine that I could rely on. I had to have someone with me in the beginning almost all the time. It was so frustrating, I felt like a child. It was then that I first felt the urge to help the helpless in the US.

Fast forward a few years to the early summer of 2005 in Los Angeles, California. I'm sitting in a workshop put on by my church that helps you discover your unique design and strengths. They were having us do this one exercise... they asked us to describe what we felt the purpose of our life was. As I sat there with a blank mind and a blank face, my frustration level quickly rose as I watched all the people around me writing furiously for minutes. My page was empty. Then the leader, Chip Anderson, chimed in when he noticed a few of us struggling. He encouraged us to center our thoughts around a time when we feel or felt most alive. I prayed a little as I did that and BAM! Rushing in came thoughts of helping people find their way, helping people who don't speak English find the subway station or the library, helping a mother enroll her son in school, and so on and so on.......that's it! Again, I was reminded of my passion for helping immigrants find their way. Now, I'm not sure if this is the purpose of my life, but it is clearly one of the few things that consistently fills my love tank, gives me complete joy and satisfaction, and really makes me feel alive. I'm thrilled to be able to do this again in my life and probably for the next year with Janeth and her daughter Maria Virginia. I'll start with her daughter in October.

So, after a very silly stress-filled day, I must say this:
when you are actively involved in doing something that God has wired you to do, it can wipe away all the problems of the world in just one hour. I feel renewed.

A blast from the past...

A familiar Taiwanese sight...talk about over-simulation...the market...my big green eyes and curly light brown hair never blended in too well here...I was always noticed...

A trip to the mountains...I knew one character out of them all...

My source of freedom and exploration...my love...my scooter!!
This is a rice patty near the school where I was an ESL teacher.

I Left it in LA

Parts of my heart still attached to LA...check out videos from Mosaic that give a glimpse into my earlier ramblings about missing that good old smoggy city...

A video recap of my last year at Mosaic

Not your average church service

I promise not to whine about Mosaic much longer :)

It's been a while.

The past few weeks have been really busy full of moving, lots going on at Genesis, and really just juggling it all. I can't believe it's almost August. My first summer back in Michigan in about 4 years is nearly over. Over all though, I must say summers here are not nearly as hot as they are in Los Angeles, where the heat goes on day after day after day.

I've been seriously missing LA these past few weeks as I unpack all of my possessions and memories that were stored away since last November. Tons of memories and emotions flooded my mind and made me realize how very different my life is here. It's funny how while living in LA I was so frustrated at things like my crappy apartment, the traffic, high prices for everything, etc. etc.- but as I think about those things now, oh how I would love to relive some of those days filled with the dearest of friends. Strangely I miss my old apartment- the one that had cock roaches, broken windows, a freezer that wouldn't freeze, a noisy intersection out the window with what seemed like constant honking, the fun activity of finding a parking spot, and the great So Cal sun blazing in my big windows, among many other things- I miss every bit of those things. I miss those days. I miss my old church Mosaic desperately. Recently I found myself peeking at some of their videos on YouTube and basically a heavy heart and a big tears welling up in my eyes. I miss so many things!!

As I feel so sad in my missings, I'm trying to be grateful and really appreciate what God has blessed me with here in Michigan. He has answered too many prayers to keep track of...I'll try to list a few:

• a job that allows me to use my strengths, yet pushes me to grow, a job complete with amazing co-workers, in a great location, with a community of followers of Jesus that has such growth on the horizons
• many new friendships, especially with some great woman of all ages
• a fantastic new apartment in Royal Oak- meeting all my prayer requests- even some I made in LA in the midst of frustration with my old place- a nice quiet neighborhood, not located on a busy street, not a studio, a place to spend time outside, affordable, not falling apart, a landlord that takes care of the place, no cockroaches, an air conditioner (never prayed for that, but got one for free!!), a place where I can have people over (had small group here a few days ago and it was lovely), and so much more...

Ok, here's a photo overview of some highlights from this summer so far-

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4th of July weekend at my parents' place in Traverse City...a much needed vacation!

My dad enjoying the Bass Lake breeze and his suduku

Jiggly hands using the night setting on my camera- Mom and Dad waiting for the fireworks to start on Grand Traverse Bay

The Boone farm (Daniel Boone)- my parents' TC house is on the property of Daniel Boone! Their farm is just at the end of my parents' long 2 rut driveway

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Next...a few shots from the pilot 'Shape' workshop at Genesis- where participants take the StrengthsFinder assessment and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and were led by myself (the MBTI lady) and my co-worker Beau (StrengthsFinder guy) to discover their unique God-given design. We had 20 people attend- and it went really really well!


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Next...my new apartment! A tour! It's all still coming together as I find places for things and have time/ money to fill wall space. It's a nice place to call home- only a few miles from work, my parents, 30-40 minutes from my siblings, many parks nearby, 45 minutes from Ikea (too many trips there already), 1 block from the school that Genesis has it's fall morning services in, everything at my finger tips!

My door.
(I need some flower pots or something, no?
I have the coolest little mail box slot that leads into my living room. I love it!)
Fabulous view out my door.
Ari's favorite window.
A place to dine.
A place to visit with guests and veg with the tele.
(Kind of a mess at the moment with sad, naked walls!)

A kitchen with actual cupboards and a freezer that freezes!!

I need a dresser, bad.

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Lastly, my nephew Fritz is growing like a weed! I got to hang with him last night at my brother's softball game. Any day now I will be an aunt again- Stacey, my sister-in-law, is due any moment. Fritz was a bit of a crankster-saurus-rex last night, but I wooed him with my fancy car remote- that's our 'thing' now- he looks for my blue car so he can make it go 'beep! beep!' (I'm a bad aunt, I taught him how to push the panic button on my remote! Now whenever he sees my keys he tries to push the button and says 'beep! beep!', oops.)

Getting attacked with some SPF 50

Longest post ever has now ended!