Oh Christmas Tree!

How to get a Christmas tree in the tropics.

1. Drive on a motorbike to a city 25 minutes away and search for the least hideous and outrageously priced tree you can find and purchase.

2. Struggle in 95 degree heat in the parking lot to get the box with the Christmas tree and a 6 year old onto the bike .

3. Ignore suggestions from 'helpful' bystanders that the child can just sit on the box like a bench in the back.  

4. Leave parking lot with box precariously perched horizontally on your lap making any kind of sharp turn impossible.

5. Head towards home but see a sign saying that the only road you know to take to get home is closed.

6. Keep driving and ask a man walking down the road for directions.

7. Realize he's drunk and move right along.

8.  See a long line of cars going down the road and follow them thinking they must know the way

9. Realize they are taxis going up the mountain to a school to pick up kids just getting released.

10. Decide to turn around with much difficulty due to Christmas tree still on lap.

11. Stop at a small store and buy 50 cents worth of rope/string to tie Christmas tree to the back of the bike and move daughter to the front.  Much easier for turning!

12.  Finally find the alternate route home.

13.  Stop to take a drink of water (did I mention it's around 95 degrees?) and see you're low on gas.

14.  Decide to try to make it home because stopping for gas means untying the Christmas tree!

15.  15 min later and 10 min away from your house- run out of gas:(

16. Push your bike in the hot HOT sun for 1/2 a mile.

17. Threaten your daughter when she says that she's tired and can't keep going by telling her she will get run over by a truck if she doesn't stay right next to you and then gently inform her that "No, I can not stop halfway up this hill!"

18.  Arrive at a little stand that sells gasoline.

19. Reluctantly untie Christmas tree and guzzle a bottle of water as sweat drips off your face.

20. After your bike is full, retie Christmas tree to the back and continue on your merry way home!

This is one method.  I can't say it's my preferred way, but the end result is that we have a tree... and a funny story:)

Thanksgiving

Update on the post about the LPG- It came!  Just two days before we celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with our good friends and partners the Tealls and Stokes.

The adult table.

 and the kid's table:)

 Dylan carving the turkey- scary

 watching Charlie Brown thanksgiving

 all the yummy food!

 Roman thoroughly enjoyed his first Thanksgiving:)

 the rest of the kids had fun too! (do you have flip flops and motorcycle helmets in the background of your Thanksgiving pictures?:)

 Raquel took this picture of the adults.  You can see at least part of all our faces:)

 Cute kids!  The Tealls are going on Home Assignment in a couple weeks, so we'll miss Laken while he's gone.

It was a very sweaty but fun day.  

We have much to be thankful for!  

Praising the Lord for his amazing grace that He so richly pours out on us.

random...

 Gideon playing on the play place Dylan made for the kids.

 Dylan taking advantage of a day where we had very little water to clean our tanks.  The water from the city is not what you would call "pure":)

 Roman begging for food:)

Habis

This is a gas tank for our stove.  It's not supposed to be used as a door stopper, but that's all it's been good for since the 5th.  Last Monday our gas ran out and we called the man who usually comes to our house with a new tank and takes the empty one away.  However, he informed us that the LPG was 'habis' (all gone) and  he wouldn't get any until Friday.  Well, that was last Monday and we've searched high and low, but learned that the ship coming to our island with the gas broke down and it's unclear as to when it will be here. We're hoping for this weekend so we can get a tank by next Monday and be able to bake a turkey on Thanksgiving! Our rice cooker and a little grill on our porch are what we used for a while and now we have an electric burner that works so well that I burned the bottom of the oatmeal the other morning. I gave it to the kids anyway and Raquel said it tasted like coffee oatmeal and requested I make it again:)