Saying Goodbye in New York--QM

James love puzzles but he loves his Omi even more!

Dorie and her Uncle Samuel--and her Uncle Sam's shades

Trampoline fun! L to R: Omi (Esther), James, Rhoda, Phoebe

Fishing at the family pond

Dorie caught a little trout!

Occupy my Calendar -- QM

Occupy our Calendars
Our times are in your hands:
But we count our times for us;
we count our days and fill them with us;
we count our weeks and fill them with our busyness;
we count our years and we fill them with our fears.
And then caught up short with your claim,
Our times are in your hands!
Take our times, times of love and times of weariness,
Take them all, bless them, break them,
give them to us again,
slow paced and eager,
fixed in our readiness for neighbor.
Occupy our calendars,
Flood us with itsy-bitsy, daily kairoi,
In the name of your fleshed kairos. Amen.
Walter Bruggemann
From his book  Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

Last week we decided to write our to-do list on post-it notes and put them on our wall. We pull them off as they get done...and our children needed to get in on the action!

I feel the need to be both productive and restful during this busy last month before we move to Malaysia, and to model for my children Walter Bruggemann's prayer and the word kairoi--allowing my time to be the place and space where God can act.

Our Fair City -- E.

Malaysian Borneo, state of Sarawak, city of Kuching.  This is where our family will be flying in, oh, seven weeks or so.

It's a good-sized city, with a population close to that of Boston.  I don't know if that bit of information helps you -- for me it's limited, because I've never been to Boston.

Kuching also gets about four times as much rain as Boston.  Less snow, though.

Through the eyes of a child...

For Dorie's third birthday her Grandma Polly gave her a kid's camera, and I finally emptied the pictures onto our computer! I want to give you a few glimpses of life through her eyes and mine:

Here's Ethan and James playing a game on the camera after a picnic supper.

Trampoline Series #1

Trampoline Series #2

Trampoline Series #3

Trampoline Series #4

Mom with the Camera

Dorie with the Camera

Mom's point of view

Dorie's point of view

Dorie's dad's point of view
 (For our regular readers who might be curious about how the haircut looks)
(Ethan gave me those freshwater pearls for my birthday!)

Oh the places we'll go, oh the Engrish we'll see... --Q

Ethan and I have discovered a site dedicated to butchered English. The pictures we've looked through remind me so much of several signs and T-shirts I saw when I was in China in 2002. Some things are just lost in translation! Here are a few of our favorites from www.engrish.com:

This one was found in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

My very favorite!

We will be sure to post some of our own when we find them! And I suspect that our own attempts as we learn Malay will produce similar oddities for them to laugh at!