The Myers' Mainland Adventures

Top 10 of the Summer

2011-08-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Lots of drama and busy-ness in the Myer's household these last few weeks.

1) Grammy! She came to town for two weeks to help out with the baby. While she was here, I asked her to clean, and clean she did. I think she counted 42 blinds that needed to be dusted. We have A LOT of windows.

Grammy's homemade microwave birthday cake

2) Anniversary! Ryan and I celebrated our 13th. Marsha and Craig took us (and Deise) out for sushi, while Grammy watched the big kids at home.

3) Disease for Deise! She somehow got pink eye. Nobody else in the family got it, so we're not sure where she picked it up.

Deise with watery eye (flower picked by Daniel)

4) ER visit! After three days of tummy aches, Sophie ended up in the ER one night with suspected appendicitis. At the hospital, they ruled out appendicitis, diagnosed a urinary tract infection, lectured her about wiping front to back, and prescibed $50 worth of broad spectrum antibiotics that our insurance wouldn't cover. Two days later, her pediatrician tossed out the UTI diagnosis in favor of . . . gas and constipation. Sophie confirmed this was indeed the correct malady by practically living on the toilet for the next three days, and then fitting into some shorts that had gotten strangely tight over the last few weeks.

The cause? I'm guessing it has something to do with Sophie's mom being so tired and harried from having a new baby that she let her kids o.d. on frozen pizza and mac and cheese. (This in spite of the many lovely meals brought to us by church friends.)

5) Gunshots! Ryan has been playing with tennis with some neighborhood folks every Tuesday night and Saturday afternoon, at the same courts where the kids took lessons this spring. This past Tuesday, while the kids were with him (because they were driving mom nuts), they heard a spray of gunfire - about a dozen shots - from across the street. At least one bullet hit a court right next to them. Well, at least now they know how to duck.

And people think New York is dangerous.

6) Homeschool! (Not nearly as dramatic.) Although we liked our Living Books curriculum from last year (although we thought the Apologia Astronomy book was both too easy and too strictly young-earth creationist), this year we are opting for a more flexible, easy-going approach. The kids have more freedom to choose books and activities that appeal to them, and we avoid being locked into a schedule with every day packed full and scripted in advance. It's a way to survive with a newborn - and hopefully have more fun.

7) Growing baby! Deise is getting longer and fatter. She's somewhere shy of 8 lbs now, with the extra chins to prove it. She's awake longer, and continues to be very alert and content, with quizzical, knit eyebrows reminiscent of Sophie when she was a baby. We have baby pictures of the three kids that we can't tell apart. Sophie and Daniel fight over who gets to hold her. As sibling rivalries go, not a bad problem to have.

Who's who? (And what's up with this last one?)

8) Naked superhero! Daniel just jumped down the stairs in his birthday suit, using a bath towel for a cape. Not something he'd be doing in public school. Or private, for that matter.

9) Beach! We took two trips to Amelia Island, one with the Moltzes, and one with our neighbors the Joneses, who have boys the kids' age. The visit with the Moltzes was Deise's first trip to the beach, and she did proper honor to the occasion by wearing a hat from Aunty Cris and sleeping the whole time.

10) Trophy! Soph got a "Star Artist" award at her art camp (one of the BIG trophies). She and 29 other kids studied visual art techniques in the context of the Harlem Renaissance. Sophie came home with a many drawings and paintings, a beautiful pencil still life, a ginormous acrylic canvas . . . and a tutu. Not sure where that last one fits in, but she rocked the end of the year fashion show.

Sophie with Miss Tiffany

That's what we've been up to! Any news from you?

In which we discuss the new baby, various explosions and problematic living arrangements

2011-07-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Deise is more awake these days, growing longer hair and eyelashes and slightly less furry on the shoulders and back. She has the same blue-gray eyes Daniel had at birth; his turned brown so hers probably will, too.

She's had lots of visitors, bringing lots of food and making lots of cooing sounds. She got to go to church twice and to the library once, before our pediatrician told us to keep her home from now on until she's at least six weeks old. She's loved it all, especially the part where she gets to be held all the time, to the point where she's now finding it difficult to sleep otherwise. As Daniel put it, "It seems she's enjoying being a baby."

Matching Sisters (in pillow case dresses by Mom)

According to Grandpa Craig, the third child somehow figures out what the family is missing, and moves to fill the niche. And sure enough, Deise has distinguished herself by having the busiest digestive system ever. 10-12 diapers a day on average? That's obviously for amateurs. And we're talking projectile poop: all over Mom's lap, shirt and hair, and even down the inside of her shirt. That takes talent, folks.

Uncle John took a detour last week from a gig with the Fab Faux in Gainesville to visit his new niece. Aunty Tara, who hasn't made it down yet, is very, very jealous.

Fun with mentos, a liter of coke, and an empty lot on our block.

Daniel wants everyone to know that even though you can't see it in this picture, the spray went higher than the trees (his emphasis).

After nearly two weeks, Grandpa Craig finally got to see Deise awake.

Daniel reading 10 Little Ladybugs to Deise, on his own initiative.
(He wouldn't let me publish the picture of him reading on the potty. Very media savvy of him. You never know what might come back to haunt you on a job interview someday.)

On a totally unrelated note, this is a picture I've been meaning to post since I snapped it just outside of Charleston a few months ago. Possibly the worst subdivision name ever.

Isn't that just asking for trouble?

Sweet Sarah Deise

2011-07-13T18:22:00.001-07:00

She's here! Sweet Sarah Desise (pronounced "Daisy," after Darcy Caires' mom), was born on Friday, July 8, 2011 at 2:12 in the afternoon at Beaches Baptist Hospital. She's a cute little turkey, isn't she?

Here's how it went: I started having early contractions at around 5:30 am on Thursday. They were sporadic and light enough that I had a fairly normal day, managing a nap, and even going to a prayer meeting with Ryan in the evening. Not until around eleven pm did active labor start. At 3 am on Friday, I woke Ryan up and we bundled the kids off to grandma's. From there, things continued to poke along. Dr. Cam Greene, who has delivered half the babies on our church (and is having quite a busy summer - there's something in the water at Beaches Vineyard), broke my water around 9 am, and things STILL poked along. Finally, at 2:12 pm, after more good pushes than I would have preferred, Sarah Deise came screaming into the world. Dad cut the cord. I was lucid - or loopy - enough - to ask if I could see the placenta when it came out (I was curious). It's not an attractive organ.

Around 1 am Saturday morning, after her first bath.

Bath time for all the newborns in the hospital is around midnight.

In the end, Sarah Deise came at exactly the right time. (Our alternate name for her was "Kaya Rose" a play on "Kairos," for God's time; "Kaya" is Hawaiian and Japanese for "sea." We let the kids vote and they chose Sarah instead.) At 6 lbs, 3 oz -- bigger than Sophie, smaller than Daniel -- she was beautiful and bright-eyed right out of the chute. She's a good eater and sleeper, save for during that 4:30-5:30 am stretch when she likes to be wide awake, and remarkably good-natured. Even being poked and prodded at her first doctor's appointment scarcely bothered her at all. In fact, the only way we've been able to provoke her wrath so far is by bathing her. She takes after her big brother and sister that way. Neither of them have any use for that whole cleanliness next to godliness business at all.

L&D Nurse Jackie

The littlest Vineyard member with the biggest Vineyard Pastor (Byron)

Meeting Great Grandma Ardie

Sunday night, before her first at-home bath. Relaxed and serendipitously posed.

After her bath. Not nearly as happy, or as artfully arranged.
(And yes, for those of you who haven't seen our house: our toilet is up on a dais and the bathroom is large enough to hold court in. Why? We don't know.)

With Grandma Marsha

All bundled up, with her siblings. Sophie especially has been beside herself with excitement.

Sunbathing with Dad on the front porch, to clear up jaundice.

Proving that it's never too early in life to sleep on the potty.

We've been practicing EC (Elimination Communication) since coming home from the hospital. I haven't been brave enough to have her go totally diaperless yet, but we've done pretty well just holding her over the potty as soon as she wakes up. In this photo, she really has just peed and gone back to sleep.

Daniel is impressed.

Ryan put together a short slide show of pictures with more family and visitor shots. We tried to post it here unsuccessfully; if you haven't seen it yet and want to, you can find it on Ryan's facebook page.

We are having a great time as a new family of five. Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes!

Last Post Before Baby

2011-07-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's been months and months and months since we last updated our blog. Until yesterday, I've been too lazy to even upload pictures from our camera to the computer. But I'm in that pre-baby "nesting" phase now, and find myself with plenty of energy! So, this will be a whirlwind tour through our last 7 or 8 months, in which I kindly do NOT make you stare at all 450 pictures that were languishing on our camera, but only provide the highlights.

Christmas Kiddoes.

Daniel's Really Really Big Birthday Present from Grammy.
Also, the Haircut that Wasn't His Mom's Idea.

Darcy's overnight visit. BBQ at the Daytona Pig Stand. Not sure what the car has to do with anything, except I guess monster cars and bbq are both Southern cultural obsessions?

Our trip to Charleston with Grammy. (Aunty Pat and Uncle Mike also came from Hawaii, but we didn't get any good photos of them). We visited Fort Moultrie on the 150th Anniversary of the first shots fired in the civil war. Fort Sumter is across the harbor.

Volunteers in period dress.

Sophie as Joan of Arc in her history fair in April.
Cousin Cailey is dressed as Dolly Madison. I don't think this is a strictly historical interaction.

The Cousins (plus Baxter) before their Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's.

At Young Life Family Camp, evidently designed to be a thoroughly humiliating experience.

Enjoying the hammock on our back yard. Ryan's been busy mulching, gardening and cleaning up what was essentially a dirt pit. But the flies are still awful.

Sophie going up the down escalator at the airport. We don't have pictures of the gruesome bruises and tread-shaped scratches that resulted from this little adventure. Again, Not Mom's Idea.

Annie's visit in April

Sophie up a tree at the "Tree Graveyard" Beach

The Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center in Georgia. This turtle was having balance issues; he has weights attached to his shell to help him stay evenly afloat.

With Aunty Tara and Uncle John at the Treaty Oak in May, in downtown Jacksonville. One of the oldest trees in the city, even if no actual treaty was ever signed here.

At the historic Wormsloe Plantation outside of Savannah in mid-June. This lane is planted with over 400 oaks, all over 100 years old.

That's 2011 so far! For the summer, Sophie is enrolled in art camp, studying the Harlem Renaissance. Meanwhile, Daniel's conversation consists almost entirely of quotes from Garfield, Snoopy, and Donald Duck. Our house is overrun with baby items in anticipation of "Sweet Sweet Petunia" (don't worry, not her real name), who could show up at any minute, but hopefully NOT before Sunday, when Ryan has to preach for three services, 2 in the morning, 1 at night. Most of the other pastors are on vacation, so an arriving Petunia could present a real pickle.

Sweet Sweet Petunia (as a luggage tag?)

I'm sure we will be inundating the internet with more photos once Sweet Petunia makes her way into the world.

We miss and love all of you, and hope you are enjoying your summer and your Fourth of July weekend! Let us know how you are doing, and how we can pray for you!

Our first post in forever . . . .

2011-01-18T11:49:00.001-08:00

At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Happy 2011, everyone!

Since I haven't blogged in months, this will be our official holiday edition. Let me post this disclaimer: Although Thanksgiving was fun, we had a really boring couple of months after that. Two rounds of bad colds and one of a nasty stomach bug pretty much ensured that. Also, eight weeks of the kind of morning sickness where, if I got off the couch, I threw up. On the upside, Sophie and Daniel have now compiled the largest collection of "vomit" synonyms in the known universe.

Back in November, Grammy visited for Sophie's birthday. A few weeks later, we took our annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to NY to stay in our old apt (while the current occupants vacationed), stopping over at the Ghiradella's in North Carolina.

Manhattan, especially cordoned off for the Thanksgiving Parade, was its quintessential mixture of the glamorous and the mundane.

John and Tara treated us to see the Rockettes -- and John on the trumpet! -- at Radio City Music Hall, then bought the kids bags of pink and purple m&ms at the Times Square m&m store. Thursday morning, we shivered along with Cris through the Macy's Parade (Shrek! Pokemon! Kung Fu Panda!) and later gorged ourselves on fried turkey and all the trimmings. And, thanks to the constant nausea that oh-so-conveniently showed up on the day we began our drive up to the city, we found out that we are indeed expecting a new Myers family member, due sometime around July 20th. We're betting it's a girl, but won't have final word until our diagnostic sonogram, which should happen in the next 5-8 weeks.

Daniel is telling all his Sunday School teachers that the baby's name will be Clark Magillicuty. Which I believe was the name of his fish.

Once back in Florida, we hunkered down for the coldest winter in years. I can hear all you New York folks snickering, but it actually snowed one day! A few flakes fell from the sky! Really! And our December heating bill for our old, huge, drafty, non-insulated house nearly caused Ryan apoplexy. So now we have a lot of new blankets.

We had a quiet Christmas, during which most of us were sick with one thing or another, and an equally quiet New Year. Only Sophie made much of an effort to stay up til midnight on New Year's Eve, and none of us succeeded. (Well, maybe the fetus did, but how would you know?)

Our height-challenged (but real!) Christmas tree

One thing we did manage to accomplish in December was the creation of a new home group. We meet for potluck, worship and prayer, and see what God has for us each week. So far we've had some powerful prayer times and started to forge friendships in our community. Ryan continues to work at church to help get a comprehensive small group program off the ground.

We look forward to the rest of 2011! God continues to provide for us in often unexpected ways, and we hope our season of illness is behind us. Blessings and love to all of our family and friends, and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Our New (Old) Home

2010-10-19T08:14:00.001-07:00

(I know this isn't a house picture. See bottom of post for explanation.)

Yes, it's true: the Myers have moved yet again. We like to do that every year or so, because we can't get enough of packing and unpacking.

We now occupy yet another old house, full of quirks and charm. Happily, this one is more charm than quirks (which is more than we could say about our 12th St. house, no matter how many good times we had there). Our new home is in the Springfield section of Jacksonville, close to downtown, a designated historic district full of houses built in the early 1900s. The owners we rented ours from spent five years of weekends rennovating, so we're moving into an almost completely redone space, which is a new experience for us after two NY previous homes that required major work just to feel, well, not yucky. We've had some minor projects: the kitchen sink broke the second night we lived here, and Ryan had to move or install some shower curtain bars and towel holders and the like, but the place was clean and freshly painted at our arrival, a major step up for the Myers family.

This house is HUGE by our standards: two stories: four bedrooms, with a sunroom off the master bedroom, plus an office, 2 1/2 baths, large eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, and living room. The kids are glorying in having their own bedrooms - and Mom and Dad are enjoying having our own bedroom, too. As I'm sure you can imagine. (Not that you want to.)

Ryan and I went to Chattanooga a few weekends ago for a Vineyard conference for prospective church planters. We enjoyed Chattanooga, a riverfront city with an active downtown scene. We stayed in the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo, where you can sleep in a choo choo, eat in a choo choo, and choo choo around the hotel grounds in a little trolley. (We did none of the above, sleeping instead in a strange Chinese-themed building with a elevator dolled up to look like a pagoda, and taking the free city shuttle bus around the city in our free time.) We came away from the conference feeling like we could plant a church; what we still don't know is whether we should. For now, we're pretty sure that God is calling us to "dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness." For us, that means reverting to old habits: gathering as many people as possible as often as possible, and having a great time doing it.

It's been a long time since we've had a home large enough for large crowds of people, and we can't wait to fill it up! So come visit us, okay?

Due to technical difficulties with iphoto and our external hard drive, we have no photos of our house to post. So instead, you're getting pictures of Daniel practicing his swordplay. He's about to dress up as a knight for Halloween, hence the plastic weaponry. Sophie is going to be a knight, too. The dollar store rocks.

You're also getting a photo of Sophie on one of her more injury-prone weeks. She scratched her forehead taking her shirt off (I'm not sure how it happened either), then got hit with a ball while she was wearing her glasses in Sunday school. On the upside, she got to hang out with her cousin Lauren at an early birthday celebration. In case you're wondering, Lauren is the non-scabby one of the pair.

Summer Wrap-Up Edition

2010-08-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

In July, Sophie went on her very first camping trip, with the kids from church, and came back appropriately filthy. Highlights: s'mores, swimming on the beach, and having a boys vs. girls war, in which either side tried to break into the other's tent. Not only did the girls win (with the help of a couple of turncoat boys), but they had a far superior tent. It had a lock and a fan.

While Soph was out with the big kids, Ryan and Daniel enjoyed "boy time" at Adventure Landing. They ate pizza and played miniature golf. Then Daniel found $20 laying on the floor and treated his dad to the Go Karts.

I don't remember exactly what Mom did while everyone else was busy, but I'm pretty sure whatever it was, it was done inside, with the AC on.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for Ryan's sermon! It went very well, and he continues to get positive feedback from it. The whole experience - from God giving him the message during his devotional time one morning, to the peace and excitement he felt delivering it, to the response from the congregation and the other pastors - really helped reconfirm for Ryan his call to the ministry. After the past year of limbo, he said it felt like reclaiming something he had lost.

At the end of July, the whole family drove up to Asheville, NC for the Vineyard Southeast Region Pastor's retreat, 3 days of worship, mini-seminars, and day camp for the kids. Thanks to a hilly campus, with the kids drop-off point practically up there on Everest, we got reacquainted with muscles we had forgotten existed. (Yes, the South and the suburbs have made us soft. And alliterative.) The kids were happily exhausted by hiking, games, crafts and treats. Daniel especially loved the last night's bbq at a local ranch, with hayrides, horseshoes, fishing and a big bonfire. He wants to go back for his birthday.

On the way back from the conference, we stopped to visit the Ghiradellas, and Ryan spent a whole Saturday in the rain helping Tarik and a neighbor put together a swing set for Izzie. Liz, the kids and I went consignment shopping. I don't know who had more fun, but I do know who looked cuter at the end of the day.

On Sunday, we got to visit Liz and Tarik's church, where Tarik plays drums with the worship team. That, and visiting their fellowship group that evening, brought back fond memories of our ACC days.

In August, Cynthia and her sister Camilia drove up from Orlando for a long weekend and we, being the superior hosts that we are, worked them to the bone. They went for an early morning walk with Sophie and / or Daniel every morning, and taught Ryan to make ginger beer, as well as ginger candy from the leftover root. Cynthia also showed me how to make earrings. Later, Camilia mailed Ryan his very own scotch bonnet pepper plant. He was so proud -- or overcome by the capsaicins -- he nearly cried.

This Monday we officially began homeschooling for the year! Sophie is in 4th grade, Daniel in kindergarten (only because FL law says he MUST enroll in K before 1st Grade, otherwise we'd probably keep things unofficial for another year). We're using a curriculum called Living Books this year: we'll cover the American Civil War, Medieval History, Astronomy, and (gulp) Japanese. As I'm typing this, the kids and Ryan are playing a game that's kind of like "Go Fish," but with Latin and Greek root words written on the cards instead of numbers. To my rather incredulous delight, they are enjoying themselves - and learning vocabulary at the same time. What a concept!

Please keep Ryan in prayer as he begins leading a class at church this month, along with Pastor Mike Townsend. The course is called "Naturally Supernatural," and is about the work of the Holy Spirit in the church today.

Let us know how we can be praying for you! We hope the Lord blesses you all as you head into fall!

Sophie's Bad, Really Awful, Terrible Hair Day

2010-06-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yup, that's Sophie with the biggest snarl in the history of the universe on her head, the result of standing bent over a gushing sprinkler for twenty minutes at the zoo water park. Amazingly, none of it had to get cut off.

Aunty Tara was with us that day. Doesn't everyone look cool in their shades next to the Mutant Leatherback Turtle?

The zoo has a fairly new exhibit where you can pet and feed the stingrays. The zookeepers keep the rays' barbs clipped (like fingernails!) so they're harmless. What you have to watch out for is their vacuum-suction mouths. Sophie once lost some skin off her finger when she didn't let go of her frozen shrimp piece fast enough, and an overzealous ray sucked her finger against his bony plate.

At the lorakeet exhibit, we bought small cups of nectar and held them out to the birds, which fly down and perch on your arm and sip with their tube-like gray tongues. There are a few aggressive ones that will take the cup right out of your hand. It's also common for them to hop on your shoulder or head and bite your hair.

Ryan's been extremely busy at church lately. He helping to organize a series of classes for newcomers, as well as launching fellowship groups for the summer. Given that helping people connect and running fellowship groups are two of Ryan's favorite things, you can imagine how excited he is these days. He's also scheduled to preach on July 18th, a sermon on John 2. So please keep him in your prayers!

Bonus picture (or not, depending on your point of view):
We're putting this last picture at the end because it might make some folks a little queasy. So if you're one of those folks - don't look! If you're not one of those folks, then it's a fascinating picture.

A flock of wood cranes nest at the zoo, in some trees in the Africa habitat. They're not in captivity, and weren't lured to the site; they just liked what they saw, and settled in. We're not sure what this vulture has in his chops, but we think it might be a baby crane that fell out of its nest. The vulture didn't eat his find, just kept banging it against the ground as though to make sure it was dead.

Just another one of nature's uplifting experiences.

The Frog Prince, the Missing Rib, Mr. T, and Other Modern Fables

2010-05-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

It's finally summer here in Jacksonville, after one of the longest winters on record, and a short, allergy-laden spring. We haven't been taking a lot of photos lately, but a few of our adventures are recorded below.

Sophie's History Fair Project
Sophie researched Susan B. Anthony and gathered her information into a display board and a two-minute memorized speech. She looks a lot like Susan B., don't you think?

Funnily enough, Sophie's Wii alter-ego, who predates this project by several years, is also named Susan, and also wears a bun and glasses. We're not sure what that says about Sophie's perception of herself. (But if it says she's not likely to date the football captain in high school, we're okay with that.)

Easter Egg Hunt at Chet's Creek Church
The mega-church across the street from us gave out 20,000 plastic eggs to about 1,000 kids in their annual Easter outreach. We took our neighbors, Eric - the one with the mohawk - and Miggie, and enjoyed the bouncy houses, games, candy, music, and the hot dogs and burgers sold to benefit Haiti.

Sophie and Daniel perform The Frog Prince
After a lot of conflict about Daniel's role - he didn't mind being the frog, but he wanted to be a blind frog - Sophie finally got Daniel to cooperate in her dramatic production. She even got Daniel to give her a kiss on her cheek - you can see him leaning in for it in the photo below. I like to think Sophie picked her green dress on purpose to symbolize the princess' unity with her amphibious groom, but I'm pretty sure she just liked how the dress looked with her tiara.

In Other News . . .
Ryan and the kids traveled to New York last week, while I went to California to stay with my mom after her kidney surgery. Mom had had a difficult few post-ops weeks, but was starting to feel better after having half a liter of fluid removed from around her left lung. She kindly showed me a photo of the surgery taking place, as well as one of the rib she had removed.

I will never eat ribs again.

Ryan and the kids had a less gruesome visit with our NY friends, which included a big birthday barbecue for Darcy that was just like old times. They didn't take a lot of pictures of their trip, but did get a few of Sophie with Isabelle Ghiradella.

What else are the Myers up to these days? Sophie is making a hat for Daniel, using a round knitting loom - just like Grammy! She also defended her desire not to eat broccoli with cheese with the comment, "Mom, it's just like Shakespeare! You know, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . . Broccoli with cheese still tastes like broccoli!" (Mom's unimpressed - and perhaps not very relevant - response: "Yes, but a rose with cheese wouldn't smell the same, would it?)

Thanks to his Dad and youtube, Daniel has been walking around muttering "I pity the fool!" and pointing out that "Chuck Norris doesn't blend!" ** It turns out that imparting useless, out of context low-culture knowledge to your offspring is really funny. I think that's a parenting tip for the ages.

**Just a warning: the videos themselves are clean, but some of the viewer comments are not. Don't scroll down if you want to avoid them.

Authorial Intentions

2010-04-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

Sophie and Daniel wanted to share their writing with everybody.

First, poems by Sophie:

Sleeping Dragon

Past me you must quickly creep.
Mustn't wake me from my sleep.
If you even turn the page
I will wake up in a rage.

* * *

Bunny

Bunny hops and hops and hops
Cute and cuddly, too.
Too bad it's getting home
Just in time for rabbit stew.

* * *

And now, a story by Daniel:

The Lions and the Cats

Once upon a time there was a kitten named Pert. He went along until he found a big lion. The lion said, "Would you like to play a game?" and so Pert said, "Sure." But then another big lion appeared and said, "What are you guys playing?

"Tag."

So the lion joined in. But then another kitten appeared and her name was Jehovah. And she said, "What are you guys playing?" And they said, "Hide and seek." And then nobody found nobody, and then they finally said, "Boo!" And then, "Aahh!" And then they all said, "Aahh!" because everybody scared everybody.

P.S. The lions were the only ones who didn't say, "Aahh!"

Jehovah was Pert's girlfriend.

THE END

Midterm Report (Homeschooling Thoughts)

2010-02-17T11:57:00.000-08:00

This post is mostly for those homeschoolers out there, or those who are thinking of becoming homeschoolers. We are a little past midpoint in our year, and I've done some curriculum shuffling and wanted to share some thoughts about the various books and programs we've been using.

Sonlight Core (History, Geography, World Cultures, Bible)
We use Sonlight for History, Geography, and World Cultures - we also follow their Bible reading schedule, but without any of the supplemental "Bible Facts" reading. Sophie is doing the 1-year World History 1 and 2 track (you can choose to do this over two years instead). What I like about Sonlight is that everything is scheduled for you. All the readings in several different books are broken down into a four or five-day schedule. There is no guesswork for the parent, and the notes are so detailed that no prep time is required. Their history / geo / world cultures reading and activities (map and timeline) are very strong; I especially like the Usborne Book of World History, which is full of information and illustrations, but not overwhelming either visually or content-wise.

Oddly enough, while Sonlight is considered a literature-based curriculum, I don't find that their literature selections are very well integrated. The "read aloud" novels ARE based in different historical time periods, but they don't correlate with the period that you're reading about in the history textbooks, which would seem to make more sense (although I suppose that would be difficult to pull off). Every day, Sophie also reads either an Aesop's Fable, or a selection from "A Child's Garden of Verses." There are minimal parents' notes for the fables, which is all that's necessary, but very little direction in how to help your child understand poetry if that is one of your interests.

Overall, I highly recommend Sonlight's Core. It is, however, an extremely parent-intensive curriculum as you will be reading and / or discussing all the material with your child. (There are no workbooks or written assignments.)

Sonlight Language Arts
The Language Arts program contains a lot of components that we didn't use (phonics, vocabulary, spelling) because we were using other curricula. We did use the reading list of novels and study guide, and the creative expression assignments and notes (copywork, longer writing assignments, both formal and informal, and some grammar).

I disliked this program. The reading list is fine -- although I would say it's inconsistent in terms of grade level -- but (and this holds true for the read-aloud study guides, as well) the study guide questions focus primarily on basic content-level understanding. There is almost no literary analysis. I also discovered that I'm not a big fan of copywork - I know it features heavily in a few different educational theories, but it just seemed pointless to me. Finally, I found their writing assignments and grammar instruction more than a bit random. Although there is some logic as to what specific skills are taught week to week, there doesn't seem to be much correspondence to the writing assignments (for instance, in week 20 the child learns about similes; yet the writing assignment does not require them to use that knowledge.) I also felt that there was little methodology for teaching good writing. I will say that if you are a phonics freak, the obsessively detailed phonics / spelling study guide will send you into raptures.

Singapore Math
We used Singapore Math for both Sophie and Daniel. Sophie tested into Level 2A at the beginning of the year, which is consistent with what the website says about their curriculum being about 1/2 year ahead of what's taught in most public schools. Daniel started with their Kindergarten B book.

This is a great math curriculum. Lots of manipulatives usage; multiple ways of thinking through the same problem; stresses conceptual understanding rather than rote memory of steps. If you didn't learn math this way yourself, the home instructor's guide (Sonlight sells one - it includes answer keys and some extra assignments) is a great resource. There isn't a lot of repetition in the books, so if your child needs reinforcement or memory work, flashcards or the additional word problem books from the publisher would be a good supplement.

Italic Writing (Getty & Dubay)
Italic writing is beautiful - looks a bit like calligraphy - and supposedly very developmentally friendly, with an easier transition from printing to cursive than standard methods. Sophie's printing was one of her weak points, and now she gets compliments on her cursive. Level B, which Daniel is using, focuses on using sight words in simple sentences, so it's easy to use for spelling lessons, too.

Easy Grammar Systems (Grade 3)
So far, so good. We've just started this workbook, and so far I like it. The book starts with prepositions and prepositional phrases and from there adds other parts of speech. Each day's assignment is short and manageable and well-organized.

I've discovered that I like separate grammar instruction, rather than having it integrated into a literature study. I'm not at all a grammar maven - I don't know if we'll ever get to diagramming sentences - but I do think it's important to be able to identify parts of speech. Grammar gives you a language and structure to talk about writing, and I actually wish we'd gotten to it earlier.

English from the Roots Up (Volume I)
My sister-in-law recommended this book. This approach uses Greek and Latin root words to build vocabulary and spelling. We could spend several years on this book, as each root has six or eight derivations and I only have Sophie learn 4. We like this book, but it might be more valuable for older children (the suggested range is grade 4-12) who are more likely to encounter some of these words in their reading. Supposedly this is a great book for boosting SAT scores, but we have a long way to go before we worry about those! I would recommend this series for those who want their kids to have knowledge of Greek and Latin roots, but don't want to bother with learning the complete languages, declinations and all.

Real Science - 4 - Kids (Pre-Level 1 Chemistry)
I found this curriculum online and ran it by Tara for approval (for those who don't know my sister, she has a Master's degree in education and works at the New York Hall of Science). It's written by a homeschooling mom with a science Ph.D. Every level has biology, chemistry and physics, plus accompanying activities. In the upper grades, the curriculum is interdisciplinary, integrating history, philosophy, and language. We just started using these books as well, and so far are enjoying them. The books are visually appealing (we bought the ebooks, which are substantially less expensive than the written texts) and easy to follow. And, our experiment this week features BOTH marshmallows and m&ms. Yum.

Artistic Pursuits (Grades K-3 Book 1)
This book has a variety of activities and uses several different mediums (so far the watercolor pastels are the kids' favorite). It uses full color reproductions of famous art works from different periods in history, as well as student examples, to show different forms and aspects of art (murals, still life; line, mixing colors). We've had fun with this book, and have Sophie and Daniel's art hanging all over our house now. The only thing that's missing is more instruction on technique, but perhaps that's covered in later books.

Institute for Excellence in Writing (Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales: Writing Lessons in Structure and Style, recommended for grades 3-5)
We have used this theme-based workbook for about three weeks, and I have mixed feelings about it. It contains short stories that the student is supposed to outline, then recreate in her own words, using what IEW calls "dress-ups" - "quality adjectives," "strong verbs," and adverbs. My opinion, based on some of the model paragraphs and stories that are in the book, is that these types of words are overused, creating stilted, flowery writing. My preference is for cleaner writing, and for a "show not tell" approach. Many adjectives the book suggests -- evaluative, non-sensory adjectives like "beautiful" or "fascinating" -- "tell" rather than "show." In other words, by themselves, they don't convey an image or other concrete information, just a vague, subjective impression. As for adverbs, I keep thinking of Stephen King's observation that J.K. Rowling never met an adverb she didn't like. He wasn't giving her a compliment. And why aren't students allowed to use "said" or "says" for dialogue attribution? Sometimes (often), a person isn't whispering, shouting, murmuring, exclaiming, ranting, snickering, gloating, hissing, grunting, venturing, querying, stating, or asserting. Sometimes a person just plain has something to say. And we should let him say it.

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant.

I do like that IEW provides concrete, easy to understand steps towards well-organized writing; it seems stronger in "structure" than in "style." Fortunately, we can take what we like and modify the rest.

Our Own Stuff
For additional vocabulary and literature, we are doing are own thing. I asked a few librarian friends to put together a booklist or two, and from them, I'm picking books and writing my own study guides. I'm also having Sophie read through each chapter and pick out words she doesn't know. She tries to discern their meaning from context, and then checks definitions in the dictionary. Then she uses the words in sentences. We spend two days on each chapter: one for vocabulary, and one for literary analysis. This is a slow method, so I may try to pick up the pace as we go along.

So, that's my two cents worth! Happy Homeschooling!

Zoo, Part Deux

2010-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

Darcy and Cris visited us for two short days last week. We had a day of dispiritingly cold weather, during which the boys went to a shooting gallery (Ah, the South!), and the girls went to Costco and purchased socks. Our friend Chris Trimpe happened to be in town from NY as well, for a conference, so she came along with us. Trust the Myers to show you a good time.

Wednesday was a sunnier day, and we were able to venture outside to the zoo. We rode the train, saw the komodo dragon and the kangaroos, and then were treated to a unique sight: an anteater licking the ears of a capybara, the world's largest rodent, for a good five minutes. The capybara loved it; he lay down on his side, and half-closed his eyes in bliss. I guess if you're essentially an oversized guinea pig, an ear wash is your version of a spa day. I'm not sure what the anteater got out of the arrangement: some tasty ear mites, perhaps?

Komodo Dragon
It was too cold for the real one to come out (seriously).

Can you spot the bat?
(Look at the mesh above and to the right of Darcy's head.)

Zoo, Zoo, Zoom

2010-02-09T09:29:00.000-08:00

Zoo . . .
Grammy came to town for Daniel's birthday week! We went to the Jacksonville zoo on a blustery day (you can see Grammy braving the cold in her thick jacket). The kids rode the carousel and oohed and aahed over the baby bonobo.

Zoo . . .
I discovered a deep bond with the colobus monkey. Like me, it has a vivid stripe of white hair on either side of its face. I used to refer to my white streaking as my skunk stripe, but as it's spread from the midline out to the edges, that name is no longer accurate. So it's with great satisfaction that I can now refer to my "colobus stripes" instead. It's not as pleasingly alliterative, but you can't have everything, can you?

two colobus monkeys snuggling (the one on the right has its back to the camera)

Zoom!

Daniel asked for another race track cake (a repeat of his third birthday) for his birthday this year. Even more so than most kids' birthday parties, Daniel's party was a celebration of all things sugary. This is because Daniel, whenever anyone asked what he wanted for his birthday, said very slowly and deliberately, "Candy. I only want candy." To his delight, and our consternation, he got EXACTLY what he asked for. And this is a boy who never sits still anyway. (Today's he's wearing a shirt that says, "Been There, Broke That." How true.)

Sophie's Bake Sale for Haiti

2010-02-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

Sophie, who is definitely the entrepreneur in the family, decided that she wanted to raise money for Haiti by having a bake sale. She and her dad approached our condo manager, Bonnie, who okayed a time and place, and put out signs and an email blast to advertise for her.

Sophie used her own money to buy supplies for rice krispie treats, peanut butter and hershey kiss cookies, and pink frosted sugar cookies. She made a sign for her table, and the whole family helped with baking. And on Friday night and Saturday morning, she and her dad set up their table outside the condo office and sold to our fellow residents. Many people stopped by and were very generous in their donations - so generous that she was able to give Pastor Lee an envelope containing 137 dollars!

We are very proud of our little fundraiser! The money she raised will go to the Vineyard Church's relief efforts in partnership with Convoy of Hope and Compassion International (more information on the Vineyard's Mercy Response here: http://www.mercyresponse.com/cgi-bin/kingdomtools/ktpublic.rb).

Fall Days

2010-01-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

On Halloween, Sophie dressed up as a Japanese Girl and Daniel as a Japanese Boy. Technically, these were not alternate identities, and were also an omission of half their ethnic makeup, but hey, it's not like dressing like a Caucasian gets you any candy. At least not in the suburbs. Anyway, as long as Sophie got to wear lipstick, she was happy. (Daniel, as you can see, was not. Of course, he wasn't wearing lipstick either.)

Before trick-or-treating, the cousins got together at Grandma and Grandpa's house to make ginormous caramel apples. Because it wasn't like they were going to get enough sugar that day.

For her 8th birthday, Sophie requested her annual Barbie Doll cake. Alas, Rachel Tessier, the professional pastry chef who has traditionally made Sophie's cakes, no longer lives anywhere close to us. So I watched a couple of how-to videos on the internet, whipped up some pink buttercream, and put together my very first plastic 'n' pastry confection. The resultant princess looked a little lopsided and perhaps a little pregnant, but was still quite tasty. Still, after all that effort, I'm pretty sure Sophie had more fun with the box cake she and her cousins decorated themselves, with Duncan Hines frosting and leftover Halloween candy.

Grammy Marilyn came to Jax for Sophie's birthday, and she and the kids enjoyed eating Auntie Annie's pretzels (Grammy's favorite), riding the kiddie train at the mall, and having sleepovers on the futon bed. Grammy also bought the kids warm coats, in anticipation of our Thanksgiving trip to NY. More on that in a future post; I'm trying finish up with 2009 photos, so I can feel briefly virtuous before falling horribly behind in the New Year . . .

The Force Comes to Jacksonville . . .

2009-11-04T08:41:00.000-08:00

. . . in the form of Blaine, Laurel, Baby James, and an encounter with Pottery Barn. Their marketing plan for overpriced Millennium Falcon Quilts? Get your picture taken with a Jedi and a Storm Trooper! Never mind that the Jedi looked like Al from Home Improvement - he had the outfit, and that's what counts. For bonus points, he left out the mullet. And the unbelievably strained and hokey dialogue.

You have never seen a prouder papa than Blaine holding his son holding a plastic lightsaber. You could almost feel the - what are they called, mitoclorians? Mitochondria? Anyway, you could almost feel them flowing.

Besides appearing at our own mini fan convention, we slummed around St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S.

We walked around the tourist trap village for a few minutes, then headed to the old Spanish fort for a cannon demonstration by volunteers in period dress. One of those cannon balls could be shot up to three miles.

For this week, our hope is that you will be just as relaxed as Papa Blaine is in this photo. A sunny day, a hammock, a straw hat, and . . . a cigar and a video camera? (And someone else in charge of the baby, we presume.)

Pretzel Day

2009-10-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

A few snapshots from Sophie and Daniel's field trip to Auntie Annie's pretzel stand, where they got to shape their own pretzels, choose their toppings, and sip lemonade while waiting for their pretzels to bake:

Sophie alternately ate hers and fed crumbs to the ducks and turtles.

Daniel wrestled with his for quite a while. He had a pained expression on his face the whole time. Imagine how he'd feel about wrestling with a NY bagel.

armadillos and other roadkill

2009-10-27T06:21:00.001-07:00

Sorry I am so far behind on our blog. I'll be posting a few quick pics that have been in the queue, and then will hopefully catch up on the rest soon.

When we first moved to Jacksonville, I started an armadillo roadkill count. I soon gave up. There's just too many of them. (We also have quite a few raccoons and squirrels.) One week, in Marsha and Craig's subdivision, a dead one lay on someone's lawn for three or four days while a flock of vultures took care of it. It was a weirdly Western scene, despite taking place on manicured grass. All we needed was a few tumbleweeds and a wagon train.

This particular one, one of the few live models we've seen, was snuffling about just outside our porch. Sophie followed it out onto the golf course. They are funny, prehistoric-looking creatures. I think Sandra Boynton captures them perfectly in her board books. They always look slightly wigged-out. Must be all that traffic dodging.

At long last, we broke down and bought some furniture. (I don't recommend buying used futon mattresses, by the way - you may think the smell will come out, but it won't.) We found an old bunk bed with a full-sized futon frame on the bottom on Craig's list. Ryan and the kids sanded and painted it in "Summer Splash," a classic Atlantic blue. They've been sleeping happily in it ever since.

Toofless

2009-09-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

Sophie lost not one, not two, but three teeth this week. Well, maybe lost isn't quite the right word, since what happened is that I reached into her mouth with a tissue, stuck a finger between each tooth and the surrounding gum area, and yanked those suckers out.

People, it was time. They'd been loose for months, and she had a little row of teeth growing in behind them just like a shark. And those silly teeth. Just. Would. Not. Fall. Out.

So now she has a little broken picket fence smile. It's quite endearing.

* * * * *

We may have settled into a church for the time being. We've started attending Beaches Vineyard pretty regularly. The vibe is a little bit surfer, a little bit aging hippie, in part thanks to its location in a converted movie theater by the beach. (Finally! Enough stalls in the women's bathroom!) It's a little strange sitting at barstools and tables instead of pews, but it's very nice to be able to sip coffee during the service. We like the no-frills, earnest worship and laid-back, very Scriptural preaching, and we've just started attending a Tuesday night class on spiritual gifts. Daniel is head over heels with his Sunday School teacher, Gus, and Sophie appreciates being able to earn candy with reward tickets.

* * * * *

About a year ago, I asked Daniel if he wanted Jesus to live in his heart, and his answer was, "No, I want Jesus to live in my tummy."

Or another time: "Daniel, do you love Jesus?"

Answer (nonchalantly): "No, I like ducks."

Whoever said "All theologies are heresies" definitely had our boy in mind.

But last week at lunch, when I asked him again if he wanted Jesus to live in his heart and forgive his sins, he said "yes." So we prayed together and were very happy. We found out later that Darcy accepted Jesus at the same age! It is of course beyond fine with us if Daniel continues to grow up just like his Uncle.

* * * * *

On a slightly less exalted note, Daniel introduced a new funny face into his repertoire. He calls it his "Butterfly Fart" face.

I didn't know those could be so uncomfortable.

* * * * *

We're now in our third week of homeschooling and we're having fun! I don't know if Sophie is learning much, but I sure am. I'd never heard of the Syrian Druzes before. Had you? (Makes me think of Lemony Snicket. Or the Mystery of Edwin Drood.) There have been a few awkward moments, such as, "Mom, this book says Adam and Eve were born in 5000 BC, and this book says the first civilization was around 10,000 BC. But weren't Adam and Eve the first humans?"

Darn those critical thinking skills, anyway. Thank goodness Ryan's been to seminary!

Finally Got Around to Changing the Title of our Blog

2009-08-23T07:14:00.001-07:00

Not an inspired change, but an appropriate one, as our island adventures are, alas, over for now. I also switched our honu picture for one of the kids in Astoria Park that Amanda Becker took it for us last spring. Just in case that picture of sibling-bliss makes you wonder, our kids do love each other that much all the time. Especially when bribed with Skittles.

The kids and I made playdough yesterday, and added food coloring and scent. Daniel mixed vanilla and lemon extract and his batch smelled exactly like Hawaiian sweet bread! Mmm. We had cookie cutters of graduated sizes, and Sophie used them to make layer "cakes" that she very sweetly offered to me: "Master, how many layers would you like?" Daniel, by contrast, kept barking, "Servant! I made you a cookie!"

We now have the all-important favorite coffee shop, in the Springfield section of town. It's a neighborhood in transition, close to downtown, with lots of beautiful broken down Victorians that are slowly being rennovated. The Three Layers Coffee Shop is a comfy, funky spot with lots of leather sofas, a Zen garden, homemade pastries, and local artists' wares on display and for sale. We spent a few hours there last week with some of Ryan's childhood friends; it turns out half of West Palm Beach now lives in Jacksonville. Sophie and Daniel played with the adorable Noah, the daughter of Heather, whom Ryan used to babysit.

Why anyone would leave their kid with a teenage Ryan is a mystery.

Church hunting continues. We've visited at least 10 churches in various denominations in the last two months, including a house church plant, but haven't found anywhere yet we'd like to settle in. We're afraid that David Ellis and Darcy Caires have spoiled us for any other pastors! This past weekend, Ryan attended a gathering for church planters, and continues to pray about whether church planting is an option for him, or whether he should pursue work in an established church or a local nonprofit.

We officially have the perfect kids for a small apartment. Even though they are sleeping on what is technically a king-sized bed (two twins pushed together) and have plenty of room to spread out, they prefer to sleep like this:

Ways to Amuse Yourself in Florida

2009-08-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

Last week, we moved out of Craig and Marsha's house and are finally living in Grandma Ardie's condo. After the apartment upstairs was gutted (someone told us it looked like a landfill up there) and bug bombed, we were able to start bringing in our stuff. We still have quite a few bugs migrating down from upstairs, but they're usually so dazed from the poison (which is good) and large (which is very, very, very bad) that they are relatively easy targets. Daniel and Sophie have become quite the experts at cleaning up the carcasses with a little bit of toilet paper and a good flush.

We are still low on furniture and toys here: perfect for our 1 bedroom pad. We sleep on air mattresses and a futon in the living room; Ryan's high school friend James gave us a nice antique white dresser; and my Brooklyn Ikea splurge helps us keep our closet and toys organized. The kids are using their imaginations to entertain themselves. Two days ago they invented the game "Chicken Farmer." Sophie plays the Farmer and collects the eggs. Daniel plays the chicken. He lays the eggs.

In "Skydiving," Sophie and Daniel take turns strapping on a pair swimming goggles, pulling a stretchy purse over their heads, holding up a shopping bag, and jumping off a chair. My favorite part? When they get this confused look on their faces and say, "Mom, why are you laughing?"

New York, New York

2009-07-14T07:25:00.001-07:00

For the Fourth of July weekend we drove up from Jacksonville to New York for a traditional Myers / Caires bbq. Where else would we be?

On the way up and down, we stopped for the night in North Carolina and spent some time with Liz and Tarik, and finally got to meet their little girl, Isabel. Isabel is bright-eyed and talkative, and enchanted with her Weeble Wobbles. Sophie spent a lot of time playing with her, and cooing, "I just love babies!" Daniel, on the other hand, nearly took Isabel's head off with a hurled empty plastic soda bottle. In his defense, he was aiming for Sophie.

When we got to New York, the Wades welcomed us into their home and we spent some time with them before they, too, went on vacation, and left us the house for the long weekend. Sophie and Violet immediately went into dress-up mode. Daniel was more interested in Brad's drum set. This made his Daddy very happy, as Daniel has often declared his desire to have his toenails painted purple, just like Sophie's. Very metrosexual of him, I suppose, but unlikely to go over very well in the South.

Saturday night and Sunday were all bbq, all the time. Well, we did go to church on Sunday. Sophie reunited with her old friend, Elena. In their newfound maturity, neither of them wore their tiaras to church. Many of our ACC friends joined us for meat, meat, more meat, a little beer (see incriminating evidence of underage drinking below), and an impromptu speaker war with our neighbors, who wanted to listen to Michael Jackson instead of Ryan and Janellie's eighties playlist. Out of deference, we let the Great Gloved One win.

Darcy in his rightful spot as Grill Master

Fernando, Greg, and Lara Sweatin' to the Eighties

Alejandra, Baby James ("Quattro") Hicklin, Ryan. Alejandra used to babysit Sophie and Daniel, and will soon be watching James. James is wearing his Brasil onesie and coordinating plug.

Ryan and Eddie, Alejandra's husband

The former Book Study girls.
Top row: Jin and Annie; Bottom row: Sylvie, Sophie, Carrie

Laurel, Sophie and Daniel relaxing on the hammock. Laurel is Baby James' mother, and aunt to Sophie's family of yarn Octopuses. One of them used to be a girl, but underwent a sex change so he could change his name to James and marry the other (female) octopus, Trolley, and they could have a baby together. Confused? So are we. But probably not nearly as confused as the Octopuses.

Aunty Cris and Daniel, in his Brasil shirt. Aunty Cris dresses all the kids.

Carrie and Lucinda

Janellie channeling Beyonce: "Put a ring on it!" Janellie almost got to bookend our blog today, to make up for the fact that she was our longest visitor in Hawaii, but didn't get a photo on our last Hawaii blog. But the final photo honor goes to Baby James and Papa Blaine, for reasons that I believe are obvious.

And that, folks, is how to have a party.

Five Cousins

2009-07-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of all of the cousins together in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard for Emma's birthday party - she turned 4!

From left: Sophie, Cailey, Daniel, Emma and Lauren.

(When I titled the blog post, I was thinking of Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins. Except with five instead of eight, more girls than boys, a lot less Existentialism, and definitely less marriage between cousins. Just so you know.)

Aloha 'Oe Hawaii

2009-06-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Just as we were surprised on Easter Sunday by a gaggle of guests from NY (DT and Heidi Slouffman and Brennan Mahoney and his wife and his daughter, Grace, plus Tara and John), we spent our last few weeks in Hawaii with many unexpected visitors from The Big Apple. First came Janellie - her trip was the only one planned far ahead of time, and she stayed with us for almost two weeks. Next Donna and her daughter Sumia arrived; they were in town for a last-minute business trip. They overlapped for a night with Cynthia, who threw together her vacation plans as soon as she heard that we were moving. And after Cynthia left the Moltz family stayed with us until just two days before we left Hawaii for good.

Donna, Sumia and Daniel at the airport.

Kristin, Steven and Josiah Moltz (1 year-old Aaron is asleep in the car); Cynthia and Sophie

It was great to have so many visitors to share our last days in Oahu. We repeated many of our favorite experiences: many days at the beach; lunch at Kua Aina Burgers in Haliewa (Obama eats there!), fresh shrimp drenched in butter and garlic at the Giovanni's shrimp truck in Kahuku; the scenic drive around the Windward side of the island, with familiar sights such as the Makapuu'u lighthouse and Chinaman's Hat island.

Sophie and Daniel at Ala Moana Beach Park

We picnicked with Uncle Rick and Allison, Daniel's Bible Study Buddy

Waiting for shrimp. Daniel in dreamland.

We also got to do a few new things: swimming with sea turtles at Lanikea Beach and snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, where you are literally exploring the inside of a volanic crater, amidst coral reefs populated with brilliantly-colored, and very friendly fish. And Ryan was introduced to the best poke on the island, at the Suprette in Kahuku, where we also saw, in the parking lot, our first wild boar, lying in a truck bed surrounded by the poi dogs that had hunted it. (poi dog=mutt). We also attended a luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center, which featured music and dance from seven Pacific Island cultures. The PCC is run by The Church of Latter Day Saints. This may explain why the female Polynesian dancers were so unusually . . . clothed.

Cynthia and the boys at the Polynesian Cultural Center

We are glad to report that Sophie was similarly sartorially inclined when she performed a hula with her 2nd grade class from Noelani Elementary. She danced using four smooth, polished stones called 'ili 'ili - she clicked them together to accompany the song she sang.

Saturday, we had a cleaning party at our house with friends from our fellowship group. They contributed the elbow grease - the real grease was all ours. We fueled up with take-out from Bangkok Thai and mango malasadas from Leonard's. (I was reading Pidgin to Da' Max in the airport and the official definition of malasadas is as follows: Potagee donut. No hole.) That night, we had a family dinner at Aunty Debbie and Uncle Karl's house, and Sophie made the observation, "Wow, I never knew I would get so many presents when I moved!"

Sunday, the night before we left, we had our last day at City Church, and said goodbye to our friends there. Afterwards, the kids got to go to a science-themed birthday party for Irina Quinn, and we had a group over for bbq. That evening, we had dinner with DeShannon and Rocky at Ninnikuya, a garlic restaurant. Garlic, as you know, is the perfect ingredient in which to indulge when you're going to spend 14 hours the next day on planes, squeezed into small, enclosed, poorly ventilated places with hundreds of people.

Monday morning we finished packing our bags, did a walk-through with the realtor to prove that we'd actually cleaned, fixed the disposal that broke at the last minute, and headed to the airport. After stopovers in Seattle and Atlanta, we arrived in Jacksonville Tuesday morning, where Ryan's dad picked us up and whisked us to the International House of Pancakes for breakfast . . . or whatever meal we were supposed to be eating.

So far, we are staying with Ryan's parents and grandmother at their home on the Southside of Jacksonville. We are planning to move into Grandma Ardie's 1 bedroom condo - just as soon as the bugs move out. Seems roach infestations aren't limited to New York City and Hawaii. Either that, or they've been following us.

(We also have just as many lizards here in Jax as we did in Hawaii. One showed up in our toilet, to the kids' delight. I was just glad it wasn't an aligator. More about those later.)

Uncle Blaine and the kids at the Disney Resort

This past week we drove down to Orlando for the day to meet our friends Darcy and Blaine, who were in town for the big PCA General Assembly taking place at Disney's Coronado Resort. Blaine was desperate to get out of Disney territory, where they charge $7.50 for a small, limp egg roll and only sell Coca Cola products (hence, no Mountain Dew, Blaine's elixir of life). So he took us to Gator Land, where we endured the 97 degree weather to watch a guy wrassle a gator, although not the thousand pound one, and see rare white gators: blue-eyed, white and uncanny as ghosts, but with a wickeder sense of humor.

Everything is bigger on the mainland.

Ryan has been busy meeting just about everybody in Jacksonville, it seems, thanks to many, many family contacts, especially from his mom. Please pray for wisdom for him as he discerns what church position to pursue next, and for God to provide the opportunity.

Thank you for all your prayers as we moved here from Hawaii! We are enjoying the time with Ryan's family, although we miss all of our friends and family in other parts of the country. As soon as we get settled, y'all are invited to come stay with us down South. (Like my Southern dialect? Don't it just sound so natural like?) We'll enjoy the sun, swim in the pool, and then you can join Daniel for a nap in the glorious central AC. Hopefully with more clothes on. (Modest attire, or its lack, has become a real theme in this post.)

Uncle Soko's Tea Party

2009-05-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, not literally, although the event did take place at a beautiful tea house with a panoramic view of Diamond Head and Waikiki.

It was Uncle's 72nd Birthday Party!

Tara and John flew in from NY, and a bunch of other family flew in from Hilo to celebrate Uncle's long life, eat a yummy Japanese buffet, and to imbibe a little sake (sparkling apple cider for the teetotalers and the underage!). Aunty Jan, who organized everything, set the tables with cute year of the ox centerpieces, and the rest of us helped to decorate the room with helium balloons.

After dinner, Uncle told me funny stories about my Dad's wayward youth (I won't go into details, but one story involved outhouses and firecrackers). And the cousins found non FDA-approved uses for the helium balloons (Donald Duck voices, lost brain cells). Did I mention the sake?

Flat Lauren Retires to Florida

2009-05-19T16:34:00.001-07:00

I wanted to post the last of our Flat Lauren pictures before moving onto more recent events. So here is the two-dimensional gal herself, with Greg and Lara, friends from Astoria Community church, who stopped by to visit us for a few days between jaunts to Maui and to the North Shore.

FL also accompanied Sophie to our friend Jasmin's promotion at Fort Shafter, April 1. Sophie was privileged to be a part of the ceremony - here she is with Jasmin while the General is conferring Jasmin's new rank. Sophie also got to pin Jasmin's beret with her new Major insignia - and keep her old Captain pin for a souvenir!

That, alas, was FL's last hurrah with the Honolulu Myers. Soon after, we sent her packing back to the real Lauren in Jacksonville, where she is hopefully making all the other Flats jealous with her tan. I know that's what I'd do.

Flat Lauren Can't Swim

2009-04-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

. . . So she watched from the sidelines and Sophie and Daniel splashed in the pool at the Hilton Waikikian resort, where Uncle John and Aunty Tara stayed for the week of their visit. Sophie spent an entire afternoon running up stairs and shooting down the two large waterslides at the resort. (Daniel was too small for the waterslides and wisely retired to the hot tub after a short time in the very chilly main pool.)

FL also got to hang out in John and Tara's suite, which is so much nicer than a typical New York apartment (at least in our income bracket) that it isn't even funny. Beautiful carved wood everywhere, a jacuzzi tub, a washer and dryer, not to mention a gigantic white lobster made from folded towels garnishing the bed. You know you're in Hawaii when instead of putting chocolate on your pillow they welcome you with crustaceans.

We are waaay behind on postings, so here's what you can expect when we catch up: Flat Lauren at Fort Shafter, Uncle Soko's 72nd Birthday Party, and Everybody Surprises the Myers on Easter Sunday. Til then!

Flat Lauren at Waikiki

2009-03-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

Sophie's cousin Lauren recently sent Sophie a "Flat Lauren." Sophie's job: Show Flat Lauren a good time around Oahu, and take pictures to send back to Lauren's class in Florida. If this makes no sense to you, it's because you haven't read the book Flat Stanley, by Jeff Brown, in which a boy named Stanley Lambchop is accidentally squashed flat by a bulletin board. Although being practically two-dimensional might sound like a drag, Stanley gets to do fun things like get sent in an envelope to visit his friend in another state - no plane fare plus exhorbitant fees for baggage for him!

Apparently thousands of school children around the world each year make their own Flat Stanley's, or Flat Alter Egos, and send them to other children to document their adventures. So, in the spirit of literacy and adventure, we dutifully brought Flat Lauren to her first shindig, a bbq at Waikiki for our friend Kendra's birthday. Kendra is the one with the lei; Josh is her husband. I'm betting you can pick out Flat Lauren, or FL, as she shall be known from now on, all by yourself.

After the party, we walked by the Military Museum so that Daniel could take a picture in front of a tank that looks just like the one on his shirt. FL came along, too. How many other Flats do you think can boast of seeing a beautiful beach and mobile armored weaponry in the same day?

Sophie at Starbucks

2009-03-25T11:49:00.001-07:00

The Myers are sick again this week. Runny noses, sore throats. Fun stuff. Especially during Spring Break! Sophie gets two weeks off, so hopefully she'll get over her cold in time to enjoy her holiday. Not that she objects to lying in bed reading for hours. I wonder who she gets that from?

Yesterday morning, Sophie accompanied Ryan to Starbucks (aka Daddy's office) armed with a few of her favorite books. A random guy walking by was so excited that she was reading the Hardy Boys that he stopped to take her picture with his cell phone and discuss all the characters with her.

That's it for today! Coming up in future posts: The Adventures of Flat Lauren.

lame filler post

2009-03-16T21:46:00.001-07:00

Seriously, we haven't done much lately, and when we have, we've completely forgotten the camera.

So here are two photos of Daniel with his favorite stuffed animals. Lamby Scooter is by far the best-loved, even though he seems to spend most of his days taking a nap.

The photo of Sophie is for Aunty Tara, who sent the tooth-holding pillow for future lost teeth. We knew it was in Sophie's room somewhere!

The photos I wish I had taken: The second-graders at Sophie's school took a trip to the Kewalo Tidepools. They started with a beach clean-up project - you've never seen so many kids so excited by so many discarded cigarette butts - then proceeded to the tide pools, where all sorts of fun creatures were in evidence: soft, leopard-patterned sea slugs with gently undulating frills; assorted crabs, squishy black sea cucumbers, chrysanthemum-like sea anenomes whose numbers are growing after three scarce years; a couple of sharp-toothed, bad-tempered eels; a flat-bodied fire worm whose cilia give a nasty sting.

We'll try to do better in future posts! We're finally all healthy after spending three weeks circulating a sore-throat virus through the family, so hopefully we'll we back to our regularly scheduled blogging soon!

A Turtle, a Tooth Fairy, and a Fish

2009-02-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

Two things happened this week, one potentially disastrous, and one cause for great joy. The bad news first: Daniel's fish died. It had been headed downhill pretty much since we got it - didn't each much, didn't swim much. A few times I'd thought it was dead, only to be mildly freaked out when it suddenly righted itself and started swimming unconcernedly around its glass salad bowl, as though it was perfectly normal for it to be lying completely sideways and motionless - taking a little siesta, I guess. We'd tried various things to perk it up, eventually deciding it wasn't sick, just extremely geriatric.

Sure enough, when we came out to breakfast on Saturday morning, the fish was literally dead in the water. I'd been preparing Daniel for the dolorous event, but was still worried it would be a blow to him. But without cause. Instead of being upset at his pet's upcoming date with the plumbing, he ran up to me, and said, "My fish is showing his upside-down skeleton. That's so cool!"

I just hope when it's my time to go that my corpse gets such a glowing review.

The happy news belongs to Sophie. At long last, she finally lost her first tooth! All those weeks of having her finger in her mouth, wiggling, finally paid off Sunday morning, just before breakfast. Alas, the Tooth Fairy only left her one dollar, not five, which, considering the country's financial state, is an awful lot of moola. Sophie, nascent capitalist that she is, considered selling her tooth to a higher bidder, but we talked her out of it, on the grounds that there is currently no other market for used teeth. If she doesn't have the gap-toothed smile you might expect, it's because her adult tooth has already almost completely grown in; it just has to move forward into the spot vacated by the baby one.

Our most recent visitor, my mom, also known as "Grammy," spent a week with us just after Daniel's birthday. Besides hanging out with (i.e. spoiling) her two grandchildren, Grammy especially enjoyed seeing the honu on the North Shore and visiting Camp Homelani, the Salvation Army camp where she worked as a counselor one summer back in the sixties. The cabin where she stayed is still on the property, though much of the camp has been modernized and the grounds expanded. We shot a few baskets on the camp court, and Daniel did his best Michael Jordan imitation - see the tongue sticking out?

We have now been in Hawaii for six months, and we can't believe how the time has flown! We again ask for your prayers as we continue to learn and get to know our neighbors at City Church and elsewhere on the island. Ryan is going to be very busy in the next few months - assisting the mercy team, organizing affinity groups, being very intentional about studying the culture, and gaining more theological training. We have been so grateful to the people at City Church who have given us their welcome, their time, and their patience as we try to adjust to completely different cultural norms and expectations. With God's grace, we are learning, and will keep doing so. We thank you, all of our supporters, family, and friends, for your help along the way. We love and miss you all!

P.S. Congratulations to our friends Blaine and Laurel on the birth of "Quattro!" We can't wait to meet him!

P.P.S. We're not sure why these last sections are in hypertext. Don't click on it - we have no idea where it will redirect you!

Creatures Great and Small

2009-01-28T21:11:00.001-08:00

For the past three weeks, I've been obsessed by caterpillars. Our friends the Quinns gave Daniel a monarch butterfly larvae from their back yard, where they have a large crown flower plant, the local equivalent of milkweed, the monarch's preferred food. Eventually we acquired two more caterpillars - one for Sophie, and another one that hitched a ride on a leaf that we collected for caterpillar food - and I spent literally hours every day watching the critters, held captive by their exponential growth and voracious appetites. It's pretty impressive to see something that starts out smaller than a fingernail sliver eat several times its body mass and double in size every day. By the end, the caterpillar is about two inches long, and so fat and bunchy it looks like it's going to burst out of its skin. (Which as a matter of fact, it does.)

When the first butterfly emerged, both kiddoes got to hold it. Well, Daniel attempted to hold it, shrieked, and dropped it on the floor. So after that we used chopsticks as a buffer and that worked okay. Sophie was less squeamish, and the butterfly perched on her hand before it got its wings and flapped into my hair. We placed it on a bush outside our house. The other two emerged a few days later, and we released one in our front yard, and the other at Sophie's school so her friends could see it.

Five things I learned about monarch butterflies:
1) Every fourth generation of monarchs lives three to four times long as the other generations (7-8 months instead of 2), so that it can make the annual fall migration -- sometimes transatlantic -- to a warmer climate.
2) As they grow, caterpillars shed their skin several times. Then, they eat it.
3) Caterpillars produce silk, but do not spin cocoons. Instead, they shed their skin; underneath is the green chrysalis. They use the silk to fasten themselves upside down, where they hang until they complete their chrysalis stage. Just before the butterfly is ready to emerge, the chrysalis becomes completely translucent, and you can see the butterfly's wings quite distinctly inside.
4) Male caterpillars have a black spot on each of their hind wings. Females tend to be smaller, and to have larger veins. (Our model here is male.)
5) When the butterfly emerges, he or she expands it wings by pumping in a viscous orangey-red liquid. Some of this liquid drips out. So your butterfly may look like it's bleeding, but it's not.

Bonus fact: Never release your newborn butterfly near a halogen light source. We've seen what happens, and it isn't pretty.

While Ryan's parents were here, we went to the Kahala Mandarin Resort for lunch, some photo ops, and to see its resident dolphins. Six of them live in a lagoon, all born in captivity (the PC term for this is "born with humans"), and taken care of by a staff of trainers and an in-house vet. You can sign up to swim with them for a cool $250 dollars for 15 minutes. We didn't. But we did get a very close-up view of them, and got to see some medical procedures being performed while one of the trainers explained what was going on. One dolphin rotated onto his back, holding his breath, so that his trainers could take a blood sample from his tail fin. Another dolphin held still while a tube was placed down his throat and into this stomach. This was just a training exercise - at other times they send a camera down the tube, or use the tube to sample stomach fluids to make sure the dolphin is healthy.

Five things I learned about dolphins:
1) It's tricky to take blood from a dolphin. While human veins bulge out of their skin, dolphin veins are depressed. So sometimes they're impossible to find.
2) Dolphins are never fully asleep. Half of their brain is always awake. This is because:
3) Unlike with humans, dolphins' breathing is under voluntary control. So if dolphin were to fully sleep, it would stop breathing and die.
4) It is therefore nearly impossible to do surgery on a dolphin, because you can't anesthesize it without stopping its breathing. This is why the staff is so diligent with blood tests and the like. They can't afford to let their dolphins get sick.
5) For one of the few successful surgeries, the dolphin was placed in a specially constructed iron lung.

January to March is humpback migration season in Hawaii, so we took Marsha and Craig hiking at Makapuu, hoping to see a few. We saw some spouting, but not the whales themselves. We did see a three-legged dog. She was bounding up the trail with her owner, not seeming to miss her fourth leg at all.

In keeping with the aquatic theme, Sophie and Daniel just became the proud parents of some fish. Two Bettas, to be precise. Daniel's is reddish purplish and the more aggressive of the two. Sophie's is mellower, with blue fins and a black spot on its pale pink head. I'm thinking of naming them Khrushchev and Gorbachev.

We've been promising Sophie a fish since before we moved to Hawaii. Daniel's fish was part of his birthday present - he turned four this past Tuesday!

Two birthday Daniel-isms: While we were camping on the North Shore on City Church's annual winter getaway (and I use the term "winter" most loosely), Daniel looked up in awe at the panoramic sky and said, "The stars are covering the whole world!" On another topic entirely, he ran up to me excitedly and informed me, "Mom, Mom! Kung Fu . . . is a Panda!"

In ministry news, Ryan has begun teaching the high school boys Sunday School class. It's been a very, very, VERY long time since he was a teenager (even though his wardrobe is essentially the same), so you can keep him in prayer as he tries to remember that far back. He has also put together a mercy ministry committee - its task is to find a ministry model that will be effective for City Church's work here in Honolulu.

The closing image this week belongs to Sophie Joy, who is anxiously awaiting the loss of her first tooth, and doing everything she can to help it along. Meanwhile, she's campaigning hard for higher compensation from the tooth fairy. Dad's told her she gets 5 cents per tooth; she's pushing for 5 dollars. Too bad our new president's put limits on lobbyists. She could have had a future in Washington.

We Never Should Have Dressed Like This in the First Place

2009-01-20T16:39:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we celebrated Ryan's 40th birthday with an 80's bash at our house, where we unashamedly committed the era's full range of fashion crimes: side pony tails, lace gloves with the fingers cut off, leggings and leg warmers, shoulder pads, pink hair, make up for guys, florescent colors, animal prints, chunky jewelry, multiple plastic bracelets, too much make-up, big hair. Our teased bangs alone were responsible for widening the hole in the ozone layer.

Josh and Kendra, from our Friday night community group. They look really good, considering they were, like, four, in the 80's.

Uncle Soko and Jan. Nice wig!

Me, looking much cooler than I did during the real 80's. Sad, but true.

Simpson and Lori-Ann. No, he doesn't wear eyeliner every day. Not even when he's leading worship. Although we'd love to see that.

Alyssa,
Annika, Amalia
Irina, Paige, Avi, Sophie.
Alas, "The Breakfast Club" will never mean as much to them.

Ryan lost much love because of his non-costume: a loud Hawaiian shirt and mismatched shorts. In his defense, that really is what he wore back then. You gotta give him credit for consistency, right? He had planned on getting an 80's 'do, but was defeated by his regular haircutter's lack of English. Also, his hair was too short for our friend Susan's flowbie.

In Ryan's honor, we watched a photo montage his parents put together, showing Ryan from babyhood til now, including his very funny peroxided bangs phase. DeShannon brought PacMan, the Yuen's brought Rock Band for the Wii, and everyone brought goodies. Our lovely ACC friends sent a birthday DVD and called us on Skype, and Darcy and Cris sent two dozen H&H bagels. Yum!

Oddly enough, we don't have a photo of the Birthday Boy on his actual birthday (probably 'cause he was behind the camera all night), but here is one taken a few days later:

(Note the prominence of the bug spray. When you get old you worry about stuff like that.)

So thank you to everyone who helped Ryan have a Happy Birthday! We are truly blessed to have such family and friends, both old and new, and it was great to see so many people, in person or by video, on his big day. Next year's theme: Battle of the Hair Bands. Mark your calendars, and start stockpiling your Aqua Net . . .

A New Year's Story

2009-01-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

This is a story about setting off firecrackers in our driveway.

This is a story about a kid who did not like setting off firecrackers in our driveway.

This is a story about the kid's sister, who did like the firecrackers, especially the long sparklers, which didn't burn her finger like the short ones did.

This is a story about things you should never let your kids do, even on holidays.

See what I mean?

Actually, this part of the story is not about fireworks, but about three kids who went to the Children's Discovery Center soon after the New Year began, and got to do things like learn how to use a wheelchair, and shop for groceries.

This is a story about two little girls who got their heads eaten by large sea creatures yet enjoyed the experience so much that they. . .

. . . Let it happen yet again, this time with a Hawaiian band.

But the weirdest thing that happened was that the kids started shrinking, like Alice down the rabbit hole.

And we heard them exclaim,
as they dwindled out of sight,

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

(And to all a good night.)

The end.

*** Author's postscript: The real story is that we set off a LOT of fireworks on New Year's Eve. First Uncle Soko and Aunty Marvalee took us out for a nice dinner at Willows, the same place where John and Tara had their wedding reception. Back at our house, we opened an entire box of firecrackers that Aunty Jan and Uncle Ron brought over. Daniel was alternately fascinated ("I love this!") and frightened out of his wits. Sophie had a great time until she burned herself on a sparkler, but after some drama went right back to holding sparklers again.

After blowing up our stash, we went over to our neighbor's house, where our friend was running around with a blow torch and setting off firecrackers in a large bucket of water so that the ensuing explosion sounded like a toilet flushing. After that, we went to another neighbor's house where they bought one string of 10,000 firecrackers, and two strings of 20,000 -- these were the kinds you needed a permit for. EXTREMELY LOUD. The strings of firecrackers were over 15 feet long each! Of course, each of the neighbors next to them had their own strings of thousands of firecrackers too. By the time it was done, Sophie, Daniel, and Zeke the dog had all decided to go inside to take refuge from the sounds of Armageddon. Since virtually everyone on the island was doing the same thing (blowing things up, that is, including the illegal arials - the kind you see at your local municipal fireworks display every 4th of July), the sky was pretty much obscured by smoke. We had to drive home slowly through all the haze. (Ryan: It was great!)

On New Year's day, all our Oahu family came over for a dinner of traditional Japanese New Year food (none of which I cooked), and set off still more fireworks in our driveway.

Our Discovery Center trip was a Christmas gift from Jan and Ron. Sophie's friend Paige joined us. All three children are fully restored to normal size.

Happy Holidays! (with lights on)

2008-12-26T12:09:00.001-08:00

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas this year! Although we missed all of our NY friends and family terribly (as well as others in other parts of the country), we had a great day here in Honolulu. The kids woke us up around 7:15 - not too bad. In homage to New York, we made latkes for breakfast before letting the kids rip into their presents, something they did with the enthusiasm of Godzilla demolishing Tokyo.

Daniel, before gift opening, in Spiderman shirt and pose

Sophie and Mom

Daniel's favorite presents are a Cars game for the Wii, from his Uncle Gene and Aunt Julie, and a kids' laptop. Sophie's says she likes all her Christmas presents, including a wide-eyed Japanese-looking doll with the unfortunate name of "Poupette." (Cue nonstop laughter by Ryan, who notes that it's not just any ol' doll, it's a doll that has fragrance! Poupette the Smelly Doll!!) Both kids have also spent an awful lot of time playing Whack a Mole, a truly inspired game of banging large, noisy rodents into submission. Too bad it doesn't work for New York subway rats.

Daniel with his dog bank from Aunty Kitty, our next-door neighbor

Daniel playing tee ball (a gift from Dad) in our garage

Kellen and Rocky competing at Whack a Mole

After gift-opening, we spent the morning at Kahala Nui, a retirement home not too far from us, where both DeShannon and Rocky work in the activities department. DeShannon led the sixth floor residents in a game of Christmas bingo, and Sophie and Daniel joined in, with Sophie helping our tablemates hunt for their squares of reindeer, Christmas lights, and snowmen. Daniel won one round, but everyone got prizes eventually. Both Sophie and Daniel picked cheetos for their prizes. And really, how much more Christmas-y can you get than that?

We spent the rest of the day cleaning, napping, and playing with our new toys. For Christmas dinner, Ryan and DeShannon deep-fried yet another turkey, and learned this startling fact: deep-frying turkey in pieces is not any faster than cooking a whole bird. Most of our on-island cousins, plus our neighbor Kitty, joined us for dinner, and later Rocky treated us to a mini-concert of Les Mis classics. Sophie sang "Silent Night."

The night after Christmas, we survived our first Hawaii blackout. The lights went out about 6:45. We coped by getting out our candles and flashlights and putting the kids to bed. The entire island, except for one neighborhood on the Windward side, was without power for most of the night. It was an eerie experience that really made us aware of the isolation of living on an island. I bet the astronomers on Mauna Kea loved it, though - usually the light pollution of Honolulu blocks their view of the stars.

Blackouts are a common experience in Hawaii, because of the limited number of power plants on each island -- it's not like on the mainland, where you can divert power from numerous other sources. Our power finally came on at about 9:30 the next morning, and the only causualties were a pizza we couldn't put in the fridge, and Sophie's outrage at having to go to bed earlier than usual.

So that was our Christmas. We hope yours was as fun, and as filled with family and friends (and perhaps somewhat more filled with electricity). We are eagerly looking forward to our first New Year's Eve here. Fireworks are a huge tradition, and everyone basically tries to blow up the island. For under $15, you can buy a 22 foot-long string of 30,000 firecrackers. And that's just for the amateurs.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year! We love and miss you all, especially around the holidays!

Just to make you jealous . . .

2008-12-16T23:40:00.000-08:00

. . . a few photos from our garden:

Let you think otherwise from these photos, we do have seasons here in Hawaii. The rainy season is now upon us in all its splendid sogginess. We did get to the beach last Sunday afternoon during an uncharacteristically clear day, but we've given up entirely on trying to line dry our clothes outside due to the frequency and violence of the cloudbursts. We can't complain - we know what the weather is like in NY in December. Besides, here you can still wear slippers when it's raining, which eliminates problems like soaked sneakers and smelly socks.

Ryan's small vegetable garden has finally borne fruit. Three, to be exact. All tomatoes. A few more, plus one miniscule eggplant, are in the process of ripening. Of the three tomatoes, Daniel has eaten two of them as though they were apples: raw, and plain, biting directly into them. When I was Daniel's age, I thought tomatoes were for slicing little mouths into, squeezing really hard and pretending to make them throw up. Oh, wait, I do that now. Never mind.

My Aunty Linda (my Dad's sister) stayed with us for a few days last week. She was in town to see my cousin Grant, who is an assistant band director here on the island. She and Grant both came to Sophie's ballet performance. I think she took video. If I can track it down, I'll post it.

Sophie is finishing up her last week of school before a three-week long Christmas break and is eagerly awaiting Sunday, when the children's choir performs their musical. She asked last week how long it was until the show, and when we told her a week, she complained, "Aww, that's so long!" She's doing an ensemble number dressed up as a cheerleader, pom poms and all, and has a few solo lines in one of the final songs.

Daniel refused to join the other kids on stage, but he's been singing along to Sophie's practice CD. He's a little confused about some of the lyrics, though. Sophie's "cheerleader" song is called "Mighty God," and the second verse begins like this:

Who can set the prisoner free,
Who walked on water, calmed the sea?

Daniel's version?

Who can send the Christmas tree?

So when you ask, "Daniel, who can send the Christmas tree?" he answers right away. "God!"

At least he's connecting God and Christmas there somehow.

A few weeks ago we took a drive up Tantalus, which is a long winding road up through the mountains. At the top, you have a spectacular view of Diamondhead, the ocean and the city. Ryan was trying to get a good shot for the City Church website. It was a little too overcast for a perfect photo, but you can get a good sense of one of Hawaii's famous views.

I meant to download and post a few more photos (one of Aunty Linda and Sophie and maybe one of our Angel Tree collection day at church), and revise this blog a bit, but since I somehow managed to accidentally publish it already (I really think blogger.com was born out of a fiendish plot to drive HTML-challenged perfectionists INSANE), I'm just going to gather my dignity and finish up for now.

Stuffed (and I don't mean the turkey)

2008-12-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

So, I'm finally sitting down to blog again. It's been a whirlwind few weeks, complete with THREE Thanksgiving turkeys (one roasted the traditional way, one smoked, and one deep-fried), a piano recital, a ballet recital, a birthday party or two, a baby shower (not ours), my Aunty Linda visiting from Hilo, and way too many leftovers for any one family to reasonably consume. And yet consume them we did. I think there may be a few scraps of ham left in our fridge, and a few tupperwares of turkey soup in our freezer, but other than that, if you cut us, we might bleed poultry and sweet potatoes, along with vast quantities of butter.

DeShannon and his favorite naked decapitated bird. Not quite as visceral as that Thanksgiving morning video of Sarah Palin at the turkey farm, but still not a pretty sight.

Uncle Soko brandishing his Thanksgiving booty. Cousin Kellan contributing to the dignity of the moment.

The Fam celebrating Carrie's birthday.

Back row to front, left to right: Grant, Kellan, Guy
Aunty Marvalee, Kyle, Christy (Guy's girlfriend), Jan
Sophie, Carrie, Daniel, Uncle Soko
(Aunty Debbie and Uncle Karl are somewhere around - it's their house.)

Sophie (who had not gone shopping with her dad) tried to help me guess what my present from Ryan was. "Chocolate?" she ventured. Daniel (who had gone shopping) said, "No, silly, it's shirts!"

Daniel blowing bubbles at Aunty Debbie and Uncle Karl's house - a very serious pursuit.

Sophie performing in her Worship Ballet recital on Sunday night. She is getting to be quite the seasoned performer: no stage fright at all, even though a few weeks ago, she had to be bribed with dessert just to play piano for our fellowship group.

The gals in purple dancing to "Joy to the World."

Season's greetings from Sophie and her face.

Gallop Pony

2008-11-24T18:48:00.001-08:00

Here's a little video clip of Sophie's First Piano Recital Ever last Saturday. The piano music, "Gallop Pony," and "Tambourine Party," is from Faber and Faber's piano method. Sophie's long red dress, complete with rhinestones all over the bodice and skirt, is from Ross. The occasional blinding flashes from the audience are, of course, from Ryan (using the new camera lens that Darcy brought him from New York).

When Darcy and Cris Came to Town

2008-11-16T22:32:00.001-08:00

No, that's not them. That's a crab we saw while at Turtle Bay with Darcy and Cris, our former housemates, best friends, and Sophie and Daniel's godparents. They were in town for a whole week - Darcy was on his way back from a missions conference in Thailand and Cris on the second leg of a vacation that started in Seattle. We took them everywhere . . . and fed them everything. We're all on a diet now. (We didn't see any turtles at Turtle Bay - that's what the crab is doing here. He's a placeholder.)

On Friday, we hiked the Makapu'u trail, on the southern Windward Coast. (It's name reminds me of "maka pia pia," the Hawaiian word for eye boogers.) Sophie was having a great hair day.

The view from the top.

Saturday morning we went to the Farmer's Market at Kapiolani Community College. Daniel got a strawberry mochi. You can't tell from his face, but he liked it.

Saturday night we went to see DeShannon play with his band, Bop Tribal, at the Dragon Upstairs in Chinatown.

The next morning, Darcy preached at our church. He doesn't look like a man who'd been out partying past midnight, does he?

On Tuesday, Ryan fulfilled his longtime ambition when we ate at a famous North Shore Shrimp Truck. We waited almost an hour for heaping plates of freshly-caught jumbo shrimp scampi, served with rice and mango-pineapple and coconut smoothies.

Because we hadn't had enough for lunch: dessert at the historic Matsumoto's shave ice stand on the North Shore. The passion fruit shave ice with a scoop of ice cream on the bottom was the best: tart and not too sweet. Sophie had a combination of bubble gum, cotton candy, root beer and coconut cream flavors. Sound disgusting? It was.

That's it for this round of photos! We have more that we'll put in a later post. We hope you can visit us soon, too!

Bingeing on Birthdays

2008-11-16T22:27:00.000-08:00

With Aunty Cris and Uncle Darcy in town, Sophie had a week solid of birthday celebrations and birthday treats. Birthday Party No. 1: The Old Spaghetti Factory. Sophie slurping up her Super Refined Sugar Bomb Oreo Shake (or something like that). Definitely a once-a-year treat.

Sophie with her brother on her actual birthday morning. The pink fuzzy pillow is a gift from Mom and Dad. I think the two of them look especially happa (half Asian, half haole) in this picture. But maybe that's just because of the thing Daniel's doing with his eyes.

That afternoon, we met Aunty Jan and Uncle Ron at Waikiki for a birthday picnic (Birthday No. 2) We had malasadas from Leonard's (Portuguese) bakery, in honor of the Caires. Right after the beach, Cris and Mom took Sophie to a Honolulu Youth Theater production of A Midsummer's Night Dream. It was a shortened, kid-friendly version, generally faithful to the original, except for a bizzare interlude called, "Halibut: The Fish of Denmark," in which the only things rotten were the puns.

Tuesday night, DeShannon took us to Tanaka's, a very yummy Japanese restaurant, for yet another celebration. Who's the birthday girl, and who's the queen?

Besides the parties and goodies already mentioned, Sophie also had a brownie and pink buttercream frosting cake with our fellowship group on Friday night, cupcakes with the children's choir on Sunday, then more cupcakes with her class on Monday. And that's not counting the two trips to Yogurt Land (a place where you can buy self-serve frozen yogurt and toppings by the pound) on Tuesday and Wednesday, shave ice from Matsumoto's the following Tuesday, Japanese sweet potato and haupia pie on Wednesday afternoon . . .

Did I mention that we're all on diets?

Fun in On-oh-lu-lu

2008-11-02T23:01:00.000-08:00

This week's blog title is in honor of Silas Wade, who brought parents Brad and Angela and his sister Violet to visit us this past week. For a nearly two-year old, he did an excellent job of pronouncing his vacation destination. While in beautiful Hawaii, his favorite outfit was not his swimsuit, but Daniel's Sesame Street bicycle helmet, worn backwards and with not much else.

The gang on the Pineapple Express at the Dole Plantation.

Daniel, Sophie and Violet with a genuine Dole pineapple. One pineapple per plant, and some of the varieties are pink!

Brad and Silas by the coi pond at the Dole Plantation. The pond was literally seething with coi. The kids got to feed them, and the little suckers are so aggressive that they flop on top of each other in huge piles to compete for food pellets.

One of several North Shore beaches where turtles come on shore to warm themselves in the sun. This one made several attempts to land, but found the surf too rough and turned back out to sea.

Sophie and Violet at the Old Spaghetti Factory. They were "twins" that day and "sisters" for the week.

Violet and Silas at Waikiki

Did we keep them busy, or what?

Myers' Funniest Pool Videos

2008-10-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we spent the afternoon with experienced grandparents and very gracious hosts Ann and Jim Wills. Next week, they will host a "40 Below" BBQ for City Church of Honolulu, for singles and families in that age range. So they invited us over to "preview" their condo facilities: a fourth-floor outdoor playground, swimming pool, picnic area, tennis court, and two grass dog runs, complete with decorative fire hydrants.

Ann took videos of the kids' pool antics, so we're posting a few here for your enjoyment. Jim is in the pool in one of the videos; you will hear Ann's voice off-camera. A couple of the videos show the fruit of Daniel's swimming lessons; others show Ryan flirting with death . . . or at least a hernia.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for Ryan's sermon on Sunday! He did very well. Pastor Andy was out of town, and our elder, Simpson (that's right, we have only one!), called in sick at the last minute, so besides preaching, Ryan had to run much of the service by himself. Rocky led worship, and, at Ryan's request, sang "Rock of My Salvation," a favorite from our time together at Astoria Community Church.

Ryan says he will absolutely NOT be posting his sermon on the blog. Guess that means everyone will have to come visit the next time he preaches. We'll see you here!

Bean Bags and Band Aids

2008-10-16T00:39:00.000-07:00

We went to a garage sale in Manoa this weekend and Sophie and Daniel each got to spend a dollar. Sophie got a "beanless (i.e. inflatable) bean bag" that came in what turned out to be an ant-infested box. Daniel got a lightsaber. I don't think real Jedis are allowed to get their weapons at garage sales. Although, come to think of it, maybe that's why there weren't many left by the time Luke Skywalker showed up.

Last week, Ryan took Sophie and Daniel to a winter league baseball game in Pearl City. The Waikiki Beach Boys vs. the Honolulu Sharks. They wore their Brooklyn Cyclones and Mets caps and still got a ball to take home.

Sophie finally finished reading her entire children's Bible (700+ pages) and thus earned her Daddy's permission to begin reading Harry Potter. I've pointed out many times that since the last Harry Potter book actually quotes the New Testament - in two places! - not to mention that Harry himself is sort of a Christ figure, the series is probably not going to lead her down the path of perdition. But making Sophie read the Bible first is Ryan's way of hedging his bets.

Please keep praying for Ryan as he preaches this Sunday! Thanks for praying for me as I played piano these past Sundays. It was a fun challenge, and I'm very glad to hand it back to the professionals!

Upcoming event to keep in prayer: This week our church will be participating in a ministry called Family Promise, cooking meals for homeless families who are being temporarily housed in local churches. A group will be staying at our host church, Central SDA, this week.

Here's a picture of Daniel praying. Actually, it's a picture of him trying to avoid having his picture taken. (He fell at Sophie's school and got a small bump and scratch, hence the band aid.) But it makes a much better ending to the blog if we pretend otherwise.

The Good News, The Bad News

2008-10-07T17:54:00.001-07:00

As most of you have heard by now, Ryan did not pass his exam. The exam committee felt that he needed more time and focus on some specific areas of Bible knowledge. The good news is that the committee encouraged him to study more and come back in March. The bad news was that he had to stay until all the Presbytery business was over, at 10:30 pm. The Presbyterians really love their meetings. The good news was that he got to go to In 'n' Out Burger right afterwards. The bad news was that the burger tasted like a salad with a little bit of meat for garnish, instead of the other way around. It is never good news when you get nostalgic for White Castles.

On Saturday, we finally made it to Waimanalo Beach, after several people had raved about the swimming and body boarding there. We picked a bad day. Besides the Portuguese man o' war warning in effect, the surf was incredibly rough. Soph caught one wave back to the shore, got scraped across the sand, and couldn't even make it back out without getting knocked over by another wave. Daniel wisely sat out most of our barely twenty minute swim attempt. But the scenery alone made the trip worth it.

The kids and I have been playing this week with Stockmar modeling wax. Our friend Ann Wills, who runs two art stores in town, recommended it to us. Made from beeswax, it's completely resusable, environmentally friendly, and pliable when warmed in your hands, and its colors seem to glow. Sophie made a baby in a basket floating on the water, a la Moses.

Monday and Tuesday, thanks to Pastor Andy, who had some gift certificates he passed along to us and the Higas, we all enjoyed an overnight getaway at the Makaha Resort, which is on the leeward side of the island, nestled in a valley between two mountains, overlooking the sea. After a weekend of Presbytery meetings and exams, Ryan really needed this break!

We swam in the freezing cold pool, played tennis, ate garlic chicken and musubi, ordered from the world's perkiest waitress, and saw our first mongooses (mongeese?) darting in and out of the bushes. Ryan and DeShannon proved their manliness at the batting cages. Sophie dashed through the golf course sprinklers. The staff came at our whim, day or night, to give us golf cart rides to our destinations. We got quite lazy.

Even better than the guest services are the views from the poolside. Behind, forming the point of a triangle, the green mountains rise straight up, and in front, the clean cerulean of the ocean disappears into the horizon below.

Last week during our planetarium visit we learned that Hawaii has one of the widest views of the sky on the entire planet. In Makaha, far from the city lights, there are so many visible stars that the night sky actually has depth - we could see the bright point of Venus and tiny, blurred clusters of stars dusting the sky from millions of light years away. It was both humbling and awe-inspiring: visible time.

Ministry news: Ryan is preaching next week on John 15, The Vine and the Branches. Pray for him! I am joining a mom's Bible study on Fridays, and looking forward to getting to know the other women better. We are reading John White's The Fight: A Practical Handbook for Christian Living. Also, our regular pianist is on vacation, so I filled in last week and will play this week again for the Sunday service. Pray for me! And this weekend Sophie and I will go to a bridal shower for Lisa Wagner, a fellow choir member who is getting married soon.

That's it for this week. Thanks for your continued prayers as Ryan considers how to move forward with the licensure and ordination process. Our little surfers salute you!

Tongue Twisters

2008-09-29T00:20:00.000-07:00

Aloha Kakahiaka! Sophie is learning some Hawaiian phrases at school. That one means "Good morning." Ryan tried to teach her to say, "Aloha Cucaracha!" She wouldn't.

Daniel, meanwhile, keeps calling the monk seals at the aquarium chickmunks. Confused? It goes like this:

Monk seal + Daniel's mixed-up associations = chipmunk + Daniel's lisp = chickmunk.

See?

We had two good Bible studies this week; Ryan's Thursday-night group had six people, and our Friday night group had eight, not including the kiddoes and their good friend Allison. On Friday, we ate something purported to be New York Style pizza. It tasted good, but it was dressed way too colorfully and wasn't nearly as loud and aggressive as it could have been.

Saturday we went to the beach in the morning and in the afternoon visited the Bishop Museum, which had free admission for the day. Sophie and her tiara fit right in with the artifacts of the Hawaiian Monarchy. Both kiddoes enjoyed the science building with its three-story high volcano - they got to control its "eruption" by pushing different buttons to alter the gas mixture in its cone. In the treehouse area, they dressed up in different animal costumes. They also climbed atop a giant African snail.

(By the way, Hawaii has the biggest, grossest snails and slugs you've ever seen. The slugs are longer and fatter than a large human finger. Also, I have no idea whose backside that is in the picture.)

Ryan is studying hard this week for his Presbytery exams on Friday. He'll fly in Thursday night, then wake up to an hour and a half exam before the committee. After lunch -- during which he can brush up on any areas in which the committee thought he was weak -- he has to preach a sermon, and then sit for another exam, this time in front of the entire presbytery. He flies home Saturday morning.

Please pray that Ryan will have energy for the long, draining day, and that he will represent what he believes honestly and humbly. Also, for a good memory for his exams!

We appreciate your prayers. We miss you all and would love to hear from you. Drop us a call or an email and let us know how we can pray for you, too!

The Consequences of Kmart Shopping

2008-09-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

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The Myers have been running all week - some of us more literally than others. Not just going to Kmart - although we did that twice this week. The second time, we bought Sophie dresses and pjs so she doesn't have to keep getting stuck in her too-small clothes. (Major sale alert - tons of items for $2.99 each.) The first time, Ryan bought Daniel Spider Man shoes . . . and The Force Unleashed for the Wii. All week, he's been wielding his Wii remote like a lightsaber, using his "force powers" to create lightning storms, hurl heavy objects, and duel hot alien Jedi chicks.

Not coincidentally, we've had several male visitors this week, at least one of whom went directly out and bought his own copy of the game.

Ryan would like me to point out that so far all the alien Jedi women are, in fact, blue and / or possess tentacles and so do not in his mind fit the criteria of "hot."

Aside from the Star Wars mania, here's what our schedule for the past week looked like:

Tuesday: Swimming lessons for Daniel. He's doing well, despite telling his teacher, Lara, that "only girls blow bubbles."

Wednesday: Class for Carrie. City Church choir practice. Sophie sings; Mom is the practice pianist (their paid pianist has another gig on that night, but still plays for the service). Sophie also had a field trip to the Plantation Museum - Mom chaperoned - where the kids saw plantation-era houses from different ethnic groups, a taro patch, a general store, and learned to count to ten in Spanish, Okinawan, and Hawaiian.

Thursday: More swimming lessons for Daniel. This past week, Lara enlisted another Daniel, a fellow lifeguard to help persuade Daniel to blow bubbles. They failed, despite demonstrated proof that it is not an exclusively female activity. I also took Daniel this week to "Tutu and Me, " a free traveling preschool complete with circle time, activity centers, a little library, outdoor play, and snack. It gets its name because many children in the native Hawaiian population are cared for by their grandmother, or "Tutu."

Friday: Praise Ballet for Sophie. Bible study at the Myers'. Our Papa John's pizza arrived after 1 1/2 hours of waiting and increasingly annoyed phone calls from Ryan. Sure enough, our lesson in Ephesians 1 focused on our eternal calling to God's glory, which Ryan decided did not involve bawling out the pizza guy.

Saturday: Beach day. Ryan and Sophie got sunburned. We had dinner with Jan and Judy Dill: "Tutu and Me" is one facet of of Jan's organization working with native Hawaiian families. Judy teaches college math and fed us her auntie's secret recipe Chinese salad.

Sunday: Church. Sophie barely made it out of the tree she likes to climb to sing the first song with the choir. Potluck afterwards. Ryan and Simpson played pick-up flag football and volleyball with a bunch of (much younger) guys at a local park. They are hoping to get some more church folks involved next time.

Monday: Due to yesterday's exertions, Ryan spent the whole morning going between Shirokiya and Brookstone at the Ala Moana mall, both of which have expensive electronic full-body massage chairs. (He did get some work in, preparing for service.) Daniel had an acai and blueberry Jamba Juice, in honor of Darcy. After school, Sophie had her first official piano lesson (not taught by Mom). Pastor Andy's daughter Avi came over to play kid's monopoly, and Harvey brought us homemade pickles.

Somewhere in there, we bought Daniel a new play hut. And one of Sophie's Kmart acquisitions was a new leotard.

We want to take this opportunity to let everyone supporting us know that you will receive an end-of-the year statement from the City Church of Honolulu for your tax records. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the love you have shown us, in both tangible and intangible ways. It seems incredible that Ryan is getting paid to build up the church by nurturing friendships, having barbecues, and getting folks together to hang out, and we know none of this could happen without you. We love you all!

Lava, Sweat, and Other Things that Flow

2008-09-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

This morning we hiked up Diamond Head, a dormant volcano, Honolulu's most famous landmark and an historic military defense site. It's a .8 mile climb in the glaring sun, 560 feet to the top of the crater, part paved trail, part dirt switchbacks, and ends with over 280 steep stairs. From the top are panoramic views of Waikiki.

The kids did great, got all the way up and down without any whining or complaining, and both only falling once. At the top, we looked down on the bunkers located inside the crater, and Sophie asked, "What happens if the volcano interrupts?"

As we were leaving, completely sweaty and red-faced, I told the kids to lick their lips and see what they tasted. Sophie asked, "Why do I taste salty?" I asked her what she thought. She said, "I don't know. Boogers?"

Our brochure says that Diamond Head is an "excellent example of a tuff cone." I think this means that the cone is made of rock formed from volcanic ash. Either that or it's some hip hop term I haven't heard yet.

We ditched the expensive shave ice at the Diamond Head concession stand and instead went to Waioloa Shave Ice for the best shave ice this side of the island. Shave ice is better than any snow cone

you have ever eaten;
instead of being ground up into chunks, the ice is literally shaved off in fine particles, heaped into a paper cone, and doused with syrup. It's like eating flavored snowflakes. Ryan and I split a POG (passion, orange, guava) shave ice, and Sophie and Daniel opted for vanilla ice cream.

Since we weren't tired enough for the day, Daniel and Sophie decided they wanted to go swimming. We just got back from the Makiki pool, where Sophie hitched rides on Ryan's back and Daniel peed on the kiddie pool deck. He was dripping and shivering so much anyway that no one noticed.

As soon as we got home, Sophie and Daddy washed the TB. Sophie earned a dollar.

Everyone is going to sleep well tonight.

Too Cute for My Suit

2008-09-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

The kiddoes in their swimsuits: Daniel especially gets a lot of smiles as he bounces down the beach with his inflatable inserts in his speedos, front and back. He looks like he's going two directions at once. Sophie is just proud to have words on her bottom - who wouldn't be?

Aaah! As soon as I sat down to write this blog, it started pouring, and I had to dash outside to rescue our clothes (the darks, if you want to know) from the clothesline. One of the hazards of living 5 minutes from the rain forest.

This weekend, Ryan finally got tired of me complaining about the unwashed socks smell of our couches and spent the afternoon steam-cleaning them. Too bad that Daniel fell asleep on one this afternoon without emptying his bladder first.

Our schedule is getting steadily fuller. Daniel now has swimming lessons on Tuesdays and Fridays down at the Makiki pool. I'm glad we have these photos immortalizing his "floaty" swim suit, because soon he won't need it anymore. Plus, someday they'll make really good blackmail.

Sophie started praise ballet class today, along with a few of her friends from church. I'm not entirely sure what "praise ballet" means; I think it's classic ballet forms choreographed to worship music. She came home and showed me a tondu. Ryan tried to tell her it was a fondue, but after six years, she's wise to him.

Tonight we had our first official community group / Bible study. We had 16 adults, 7 kids, one act of violence (Daniel pushed Liam, 14 months, because he wasn't Sean), one injury (Sage, age 7, fell off the bed onto a board game and gouged her knee on one of the pieces), 3 kinds of dessert, and 72 slices of Costco pizza. Oh, and we studied Acts 19, as a set-up for the book of Ephesians.

Just for fun, and because I'm an unrepentant English major (and a hopeless nerd), I'm throwing in some book recommendations -- all children's or YA, all things I've been reading this week -- for anyone who's interested. Seriously, stop reading here if you're not, because I ramble on for a bit:

Momo, by Michael Ende (author of The Never Ending Story). Wanna read a banned book? Spanish editions are freely available in the U.S., but it is not published here in English, and its British publisher is forbidden to ship it here. (I got it from an online used book seller after my prof assigned it for class; he's ordering copies from a dealer in England who doesn't mind smuggling them out) It's a very gentle fantasy about a girl who saves her town from the Time Stealers. Completely G-rated. I can't imagine why it's not allowed in the country - except that it offers a devastating critique of a media-driven and consumerist culture. Also stars Cassiopeia, my favorite precognitive turtle in all of literature.

Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up, by Lisa Westberg Peters, pictures by Cathie Felstead. Fun poems about geology. Sample line, from "Instructions for the Earth's Dishwasher" : "Remember / if anything breaks, / it's your fault." Sophie might be a tad young to understand all the puns, but she'll get the gist (jest) of them.

A Wreath for Emmett Till, by Marilyn Nelson, illustrated by Philippe Lardy. A Printz Honor Book for Young Adults. A heroic sonnet cycle -- fifteen interlinked sonnets, with the last poem made up of lines from the previous fourteen -- about the 1955 lynching of teenager Emmett Till and the acquittal of his murderers. Beautiful and horrific and intricately crafted, and with notes from the poet and the illustrator explaining the literary and visual allusions.

Lately, I LOVE The Magic Treehouse books. Sophie is reading them non-stop and I got hooked, too. A little Arthurian legend, a little time travel, two siblings that actually like each other (a rarity in my house), and a lot of history, art and literature. And Morgan Le Fey as Camelot's librarian. It doesn't get any cooler than that.

(Unless, of course, it's a bonus Daniel picture . . . )

This is what happens when you try a new beach

2008-09-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

Jellyfish! Actually, it was a very undramatic encounter. It was only one baby Portuguese man o' war, maybe a centimeter wide. It was quite beautiful: a translucent polyp with indigo tentacles. It brushed up against me and, thanks to a strong current, was out of range by the time I yanked Sophie out of the water. It raised a few lines of pin-prick sized welts on the inside of my right upper arm and stung like crazy for about twenty minutes, and then felt fine. I can see a few red marks now, but nothing I'd notice if I didn't know to look for them.

Supposedly a good, cheap treatment for a jellyfish sting is fresh urine. But I didn't try it, so I can't say for sure.

The new beach in question is Kailua Beach. Sophie had a day off today, so we decided to venture out of Waikiki. ("There are other beaches out there, you know," Tara told us.) Cousin Guy mentioned Kailua - so off we went. We took the scenic route, which is about 40 minutes of driving around the coast, past Hanauma Bay (famous nature preserve, great snorkeling) to the Windward side of the island.

Kailua looks like a fantasy version of a Hawaiian beach. The water spreads out in wide ribbons of sea green to turqouise to deep blue and there are small, green peaked islands on the horizon. The white sand feels like powdered silk underfoot. The waves were too flat for body boarding, but great for the numerous kayakers and windsurfers, and Ryan and Sophie had a rollicking time body surfing. Daniel, as usual, was in and out of the water every five minutes. He gets cold fast. (He takes after his Grammy Marilyn.)

We had a meeting at our house tonight with about a dozen people interested in forming a community group / Bible study. We did a potluck dinner - Ryan made kahlua pork in our landlord's crock pot, and Mandy Watanabe brought a killer fruit pizza. For an icebreaker, we had to talk about our favorite childhood superhero. Perfect opportunity for me to break out a photo Tara just sent of us with our Dad, circa 1980 (?). Check out those underoos! (And the bowl haircut. Thanks, Mom.)

It's late now and I'm going to bed, but wanted to post some pics for Aunty Tara, so she can get her Danny and Sophie fix. The first is of the kids' first bubble bath here in HI. (There was a sale on Clean Kids Natural Bubble Bath.) Note the Peach the Starfish tatoo on Daniel's chest, courtesy of Aunty Cris and Uncle Darcy. The second is of Daniel reading to himself and halfway sulking about it. He prefers to be read to.

nostalgia

2008-09-03T22:30:00.001-07:00

We bought Daniel a children's Bible a few weeks ago. His favorite story from the first has been Samson - mostly because our former cat is named Samson. Tonight for the first time, instead of saying "Sam-san," the way he has since he learned to talk, he pronounced the name correctly. It's progress - but I'm a little sad to see the baby pronunciation go. I felt the same way when Sophie switched from "beesee" to "blankie."

The Bible also figured prominently tonight in Daniel's excuse not to go to bed: "You read me too long Bible verses and now I'm not sleepy anymore."

We just finished a dinner of fried rice (great kitchen sink meal and quickly becoming a standard) and now Sophie and Ryan are playing "Chicken Little" on the Wii. Why are the chickens in space again? I just don't get it.

I may post occasional random thoughts rather than complete updates, usually without pictures because I'm way too lazy to download those every time and hassle with the formatting, which for some reason is always more complicated than it should be. I don't think I'll have Ryan send out notices for these regularly. Just check in every so often if you're interested!

Love,
Carrie

Whatever Happened to Dim Sue?

2008-09-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Dim Sue - Noun. 1) Affectionate name for an analytically-challenged female, perhaps in a Shel Silverstein poem
2) What Sophie says when she can't remember "Dim Sum."

We apologize for the long delay since our last post. Here's what we've been up to in the meantime.

Sophie: At lunch with family and City Church group, commits linguistic crime above. Plays with friends Paige, Sage, Irina, Annika, Anneka, and Avi. Makes her own Okinawan headband at the Okinawa festival. Learns to jump rope.

Daniel: Goes to the Waikiki aquarium. Twice. Has a chance to hold a hermit crab. Refuses. Plays with his new best friend, Sean, an 18th month old who shares his love for running at top speed while insanely giggling. Alas, the joy is mixed with pain: Sean also likes to pinch. Hard.

Carrie: Procrastinates on writing this blog. Attempts yet again to bake Cris's cheese balls into actual ball shapes. Whether by humidity, altitude, or both, is yet again defeated. Sits in on a Children's Literature and Existentialism class. Learns that Heidegger is a philosopher and not a) a college football trophy, b) the East Coast version of Best Foods Mayonnaise, or c) an exploding blimp.

Ryan: Studies for his written exam - taken today! Sets a new personal best in grilling from noon to 8 pm on Labor Day. Learns to pronounce Okinawan beer "Orion" so that it doesn't sound either Irish or like the constellation. (Carrie tries and fails to write it out phonetically.) While playing "Rayman," tosses virtual cow over 700 meters.

All: Cheer Aunty Jan and Uncle Ron as they perform with their Taiko Drum troupe (group? corp?) at the Okinawan Festival. Wave to DeShannon as he plays at the same festival with the Royal Hawaiian Band. Spend Labor Day with Carrie's family - Aunty Marvalee and Uncle Soko are in town - in the afternoon and City Church folks at night.

Thanks so much for your prayers for Ryan's exam! He thinks it went well. Please keep praying: the oral component will take place by phone in two weeks. Also keep Pastor Darcy in prayer as he is in the Amazon working with a remote tribe. We also would like prayer for some family members who are going through a difficult time.

Aloha! We love you all.

Captions: Left to right by row
1) Irina as Okinawan angel; Sophie as Fairy Princess Tan Lines; BatDan; 2) Paige and Sophie; 3) and 4) Daniel with fish friends; 5) Daniel's BFF Sean, a real bruiser; 6) Carrie and Aunty Marvalee; 7) Sophie in Okinawan headband

How To Tire Your Kids Out and Amuse Yourselves at the Same Time (Or, The Real Value of Wii Boxing)

2008-08-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

In our quest to get to know as many church people as possible, we continue our parade of barbeques, outings, and Wii-faciliated socialization.

Thursday night Ryan got a group together to hear Rocky sing at the W hotel. Friday night we had the visiting pastor and his wife, and Simpson and Lori Ann Tsang over for dinner and a boisterous night of Wii boxing. Daniel, who knocked Simpson out in three rounds, kept saying, "He's dead!" And we kept correcting, "Not dead. Down."

Friday Sophie had a school holiday, so I took the kids to the Honolulu Zoo to see the (hopefully pregnant) Siberian Tiger and the mating tortoises, neither of which you see everyday. In between animal sightings, the kids climbed every tree in sight and Daniel nearly lost a finger when he tried to feed pizza crumbs to the hordes of pigeons swarming the lunch area. At least he did it right in front of the "DO NOT FEED THE BIRDS" sign.

Saturday we all went to Waikiki first thing in the morning, and ran into Craig and Mendy Landreth, friends of our NYC friends Bryan and Lisa Taylor. The Landreths just moved to Hawaii to work with a Honolulu church. They were having their monthly Body Board Outreach. I'm guessing they didn't have those when they lived in Texas.

Sophie sang in the church choir for the first time on Sunday. She sang through a couple of praise choruses and hymns, then as soon as the choir was dismissed, bolted out of the church like she was being pursued by banshees. Next time, we're recommending that she go to the bathroom before the service starts.

A friend of ours from church, Susan Yuen, has published a children's cookbook, featuring decorative bento boxes (local-style lunches, with tiny dishes of rice, veggies and meat). It's called, appropriately, "Hawaii's Bento Box Cookbook" and has such recipes as "Penguin SPAM Musubi with Macaroni Salad" and "Pumpkin Patch with Tamago and Fried Chicken." My description is not doing justice to Susan's creativity or cooking skills, but you can find the book here: (Sis, don't buy one 'cause I've already picked you up a copy!)

On a serious note: Ryan is studying for his pastoral licensure exam. He needs to complete the written component by September 2. Most people study for this test for six months; Ryan has two weeks! As someone who can't tell Habakkuk from Hammurabi, I am in awe at the amount of material he has to memorize. Please keep him in your prayers as he reads, takes notes, and consumes massive quantities of Starbucks!

For Laurel

2008-08-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

See what we got yesterday?

Ryan and I finally got our Hawaii driver's licenses, complete with rainbow illustrations. As soon as we picked up Soph from school, she and I went straight to the library to get our library cards. We've been singlehandedly supporting our local branch's used book sales for the last two weeks (this is how I picked up the Dark is Rising sequence for $1.25) - now we can get our books for free again! Well, free-ish. I have trouble returning books on time, and Sophie has trouble finding them so she can return them. We get a lot of fines.

Ryan and I had to pass a written test in order to get our Hawaii licenses. We needed to score 26 out of 30 to pass. Ryan scored 28. I scored 26. I'm usually a good test-taker. I don't think driving is a good subject in which to become a C student. (Insert snide comment by Ryan about how my driving is actually much worse than that.)

Ryan wants to name our Flying Tofu Box "Sponge Bob Square Car." I think we should just call it "TB." That way I can say things like, "I can't bring Sophie and Daniel to church today. Her dad has TB."

You may throw virtual tomatoes as you please.

This morning, while I was volunteering in Sophie's classroom -- which, incidentally, sports more trendy names than a Manhattan preschool prep program (Harmoni. Braden. Skyler. Emerald. Alyssia, pronounced "Alisha.") -- Ryan and Daniel started a garden. Ryan sawed off the tops of plastic soda bottles and used the bases to plant roma tomatoes, sweet basil, Korean hot peppers, and eggplant seeds. He used a fork to poke holes in the bottom of his makeshift pots - and he only stabbed himself in the hand once! A small-scale version of the time he drilled a hole in his leg while putting together our kitchen cupboards.

My job will be the composting. The Waikiki Worm Company sells starter kits, complete with a supply of the wiggly perionyx excavatus (sounds like a gum-eating disease), a spaghetti-like purple-hued worm that is not native to Hawaii, but has long been established here for agricultural use. Importing your own worms, which could carry invasive species and threaten Hawaii's isolated ecosystem, is a serious crime.

See picture of the little critters here: http://www.waikikiworm.com/3wwaboutwms.html

By the way, if you're wondering why Sophie looks a little . . . ruddy in her photo, it's not because she's sunburned. It's because ever since she got her face painted at Downtown Disney while we were in California, she's been trying to recreate the effect. With Crayola markers. They say they are washable. They must not have tested them on face.

Mud, Musubi, and More Sausage

2008-08-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Today is our 10th Anniversary! For years, we had talked about celebrating with a huge party for all of our friends and family in NY. Instead, we had dinner at our new home in HI with just our family and a couple from church, Harvey and Kathleen (a trio, if you count Kathleen's baby, due in December). Ryan grilled. Is anyone surprised?

It was a week of local-style eating for the kids. Tara and John told us about Tanabe, a local joint just below an apartment building where John used to live, and we stopped there several days this past week. The kids tried:

- Portuguese sausage musubi (Sophie loved it; Daniel wouldn't eat it)
- Bologna musubi (Sophie loved it; Daniel wouldn't eat it)
- Chinese hot dog musubi (tougher and darker red than its American counterpart; neither kid liked it)
- and finally, spam musubi, brought by their cousin Jan (both kids loved it).

This week, we are putting them on a cleansing diet of mango and papaya. Oh wait, I forgot that we stopped by a handmade ice cream shop last night for something called, "Knock Me Up on the Blower" (all the desserts had suggestive names), a pie of whipped cream, fudge, mint chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate fudge ice cream, and an oreo cookie crust. And just now we had vanilla ice cream and pineapple for dessert.

At least we got fruit in there somewhere.

Thursday night, the cousins came over for a bbq (more sausage) and Wii sports. Sophie was a bit off her peak bowling form (hand on the hip, wild swing and hop to release ball) and scored less than 200 for the first time in forever. After the kids went to bed, we tried Wii boxing. It's amazing how sweaty you can get pretending to hit someone.

On Saturday, we went for a hike up to Manoa falls; the trail is a five-minute drive from us to the back of the valley. Every guidebook we read classified it as an "easy" hike. What nobody told us is that the trail is extremely slippery with not only your garden variety mud, but also with some kind of extra goopy clay.

By the time we got back to our car, Daniel was a mudball. He spent half of the hike holding his dirty hands as far away from his body as possible, expostulating, "Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!" every step or so. If we'd let him dry, we could've sold him as a garden gnome.

The falls are at a trickle this time of year; they will reach full force during the autumn rainy season. The water is infested with some kind of bacteria, and a several ton rockfall about a year ago prevents hikers from getting close to the pool. Also, the mosquitos were out in force. But the rain forest flora is strange and wonderful: gigantic trees with multiple trunks twisted together; others with above-ground root systems that spread out in arches like low cathedral ceilings; slender bamboo groves; fern fronds several feet wide.

(The other girl in the photo is named Isa; she is from Japan and she and her family hiked with us for a while. She looked exactly like a Japanese Hannah Montana.)

Sunday, while Daniel took a nap and I curled up with Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" sequence, Sophie and Ryan tried a new beach. Sophie didn't enjoy it much - she kept getting scraped across the sand by the heavy surf. She came home with pretty much the entire beach in her bathing suit. (Harvey and Kathleen just told us that people die at that beach all the time. Oops.)

Lisa Taylor emailed to tell us that ya'll in NY saw a rainbow today! We saw one here today, too, while we were eating dinner outside. We're posting a picture (from yesterday's rainbow, technically, but they look very similar) which does not do it justice. Somehow, when you see a rainbow in person, you mentally erase the power lines and just see the rainbow, the blue sky with its hint of rain, and the mountains behind.

Who You Really Want to See; Our Flying Tofu Box

2008-08-04T18:01:00.001-07:00

So, here at long last are photos of the people that ACCers are really interested in: Rocky and DeShannon. We've seen them a few times this week, and finally got pictures on Sunday. Rocky stopped by our house a few days earlier to surprise us, but fell on the way over and took a dime-size chunk out of her knee. It was literally hanging off her knee by a shred of skin. Depending on your age and gender, it was either incredibly gross, or really, really cool.

On Saturday, DeShannon took us to lunch at Rainbow Diner, a favorite spot for plate lunch - a combination of meat (DeShannon had chili, Ryan had

barbeque beef, the kids had shoyu [soy sauce] chicken), rice, what passes in local food for green salad (usually a few shreds of cabbage), and the ubiquitous mac salad, made with large quantities of mayonnaise and not much else.

The church welcomed us officially during Sunday's service with floral leis for Ryan and I, a haku (floral headpiece) for me, and candy leis for Daniel and Sophie. I think Pastor Andy was trying for minor ceremonial splendor, but Daniel ruined it by
refusing to have anything to do with his lei. As soon as it was put over his head, he shrugged it to the floor. Ryan and I both tried to pull it back up, but no matter what we did or said, he kept shrugging and pouting and stepping on it. The congregation was howling. Pastor Andy couldn't see anything from behind his podium; all he knew was that he had totally lost his audience.

In return for the leis, Ryan distributed Mets baseball caps. I'm sure there's a profound cultural commentary right there, but I can't seem to come up with it.

Later that day, we learned something about island living: Whatever you do, don't try to find street parking at the beach on a Sunday at 4 pm. It's impossible. We did make it to the water finally, by parking in the zoo parking lot at Waikiki, which was not the beach we were aiming for. It has more surf, and is better for body boarding, but has a ton of rocks: not just the large ones underfoot, but golf ball sized ones that get picked up by the surf and pelt your ankles. I got a nasty bruise earlier in the week. The beach we meant to go to, San Souci, is slightly east of Waikiki, just past the Honolulu Aquarium; it has smoother sand and calmer water and is off the tourist-beaten track.

Monday, we picked up our new / old car, a 2005 Toyota Scion with 24,000 miles on it. It's got a roomy interior and good mileage, and Ryan likes its design even better than his recent favorite, the PT Cruiser. The locals call it the Flying Tofu Box.

This afternoon, we tried out the outdoor community pool. As soon as we got there, it started raining cats and dogs. Nobody got out of the water, so we stayed long enough for Daniel to get cold, get wrapped up in a towel like a burrito to keep warm, and get a nice scrape on his chin when he fell going up some stairs and didn't have any hands free to catch himself.

Now that I've managed to insert injuries into nearly every section of our post, I'm going to sign off and spend some time listening to the musical sound of my very own portable dishwasher. It's my anniversary present! Isn't love grand?

Starting to settle in

2008-07-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

We've now been in Honolulu a week and our lives are taking on some semblance of normalcy and routine. A big part of that is that Sophie started school yesterday! (The Honolulu public schools are on a year-round schedule.) She seems to enjoy it; her teacher, Miss Choy, is very young and enthusiastic and actually likes children, which makes a big turnaround from our experience in NYC last year. Sophie is most excited by the fact that there are TWO recesses, neither of which involves sitting in a packed auditorium between two kids who are mean to her, without even being allowed to read a book.

When we first got here, we spent several days cleaning our new house. Every corner of the living room, china cabinet, and kitchen was filled with our landlord's stuff, some of it beautiful, some of it decrepit, and some of it strange. We put some of it in storage under the house - the wooden fertility god with the indicative anatomy was among the first to go - and packed some of it high in cabinets where we won't be able to hurt it. We met the landlord, a sweet Japanese old timer, and he really wants us to use everything in the house (he even bought new bed linens before we arrived), but there are just some things we are too scared to touch. Two rambunctious kids playing racquetball in the hallway do not mix with an entire set of Tiffany gold-edged china.

As it turns out, the landlord doesn't have any "regular" dishes, so we are eating off of the least intimidating set of china we could find - and our silverware is SILVER. We might be most spoiled by the icemaker in the freezer, and the fact that you can now run water in the kitchen and flush the toilet without scalding or freezing the person in the shower.

Sunday was our first day at The City Church, although Ryan doesn't officially start work until next week. Everyone welcomed us very warmly and we were received as new members. We have been spending as much time with church folks as possible. Someone gave us a grill, so we even had our first barbeque, with our friends and mentor couple, Harvey and Kathleen, and it went great until we realized we had forgotten to buy any matches. Then we couldn't find the bottle opener for the beer.

We also had a fun dinner with my family: Cousins Jan and Ron, Guy and Kristy, and Aunty Debbie and Uncle Karl and sons Kyle and Kellan. We went to an all-you-can eat Japanese restaurant here in town, and Sophie had us in stitches when she went back for her second helping of shrimp tempura, and didn't bother to bring a plate. No sooner had I run up and put a plate under all the shrimp stacked in her hands, than Daniel ran under the plate and jumped up, upsetting the plate and knocking the shrimp to the floor. Later, he refused to get measured so our waiter could see how much to charge him for his dinner (they bill kids according to height). They must've been glad to see us leave at the end of the night.

Every day we are realizing how blessed we are to live in this house. Besides being open and airy, light-filled, centrally-located and completely furnished (minus the fertility dude), it has gorgeous views of the lush green mountains. Yesterday Sophie saw a rainbow from our driveway, and our visitor, who lives further up in the valley said, "Oh, you'll see those all the time."

Tonight, we are going to a birthday party for another New York transplant and former Redeemer member, Kip Wilborn. Between him, the Higas, Mandy Watanabe, and a few other former New Yorkers who attend the church, I think Pastor Andy is worried that we might attempt some sort of a coup. You know, start singing hymns with Long Island accents and staging traffic jams in the church parking lot, just so we can remember what it's like to scream and honk and make rude gestures.

We Made It!!!

2008-07-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

Aloha from Honolulu!

We arrived safe and sound here in Hawaii on Tuesday, the 22nd. We do not have internet access at our house, so I (Ryan) am at a coffee shop putting up a quick posting while Carrie as at the beach with the kids. Sorry, it's just me, so it won't be a funny, witty, or interesting post. Just some pictures and a thanks to everyone who has prayed for us.

Our house is great! It's a gigantic three-bedroom place in Manoa valley. It's cool and breezy in our neighborhood, the house is perfect for having people over, the pastor lives right around the corner, and it's minutes to downtown and to the beach. God has really blessed us with this place! We can't thank you enough for your prayer or Him enough for answering them!

Anyway, here are some photos of our last day in NY, our trip to CA with Carrie's mom and Iron Kim's family, and some of the kids wiped out on our first night here. We'll give you a more thorough update and some photos of the house as soon as we get our internet access middle of next week.

We'll have Skype access then as well - my username is ryantmyers. If you want to call us, our cell phone #s are still the same, but we ask that you call no earlier than noon Eastern time - that's 6am here! In return, we'll promise not to call after 4pm local time - which would be 10pm Eastern.

Blessings to you all. Pray for our things to arrive safely and soon. Pray for us to begin to make some good relational connections with Carrie's family here, folks from the church, and our neighbors.

Halfway there!

2008-07-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

After many tearful goodbyes, we have finally left New York. Many things about our departure seem surreal, not the least of which was seeing everything we own packed into 60 boxes (30 of those containing only books) and not even filling half a postal truck. We owe thanks to many people for helping us leave in relative sanity: Shanan, Dennis, Darcy & Brad helped load our boxes; Annie, Silvie, Grace, and Livy swooped in for last-minute cleaning; Darcy and Cris provided breakfast and a ride to the airport; and many many people helped us by taking stuff that we would have had to throw away otherwise!

We mailed our packages out on Tuesday so we could spend our last day in NY with our closest friends and family, doing some classic NY things. First, Aunty Cris and Uncle Darcy joined us for a day in the city. With Ryan and Darcy's Hawaiian shirts, Daniel's Mets hat, and Darcy's large camera, we looked very much like tourists. People kept asking us where we were from, and we kept answering, "Astoria" and watching the look of disbelief flicker across their faces. We started at Joe's Shanghai for soup dumplings; for dessert, Sophie tried to drink a whole coconut, and Darcy had a dubious introduction to bubble tea. After a forty minute search for a public restroom in Chinatown -- the Starbuck's bathroom was out of order, Burger King tried to charge a dollar, and the person in one of the only two McDonald's stalls was either dead or doing an extremely difficult Sudoku puzzle -- we finally made it down to the Staten Island Ferry, where we watched the Manhattan skyline recede into the distance, then loom up again on our return trip. Aunty Tara, Uncle John and the Hicklins joined us for dinner back in Queens at Tierras Colombiana, where both the plates and the gastric consequences are huge. (Ask Darcy how he liked the blood sausage.) Later in the evening everyone from dinner, plus Janelle, Jeanette, and Lucinda, came over for birthday cake with Cristina, some final Wii bowling, and goodbyes.

Since arriving in California, we have been at my mom's house in Anaheim. Yesterday Grammy (as the kids call her) and her husband, Mark, took us to the Downtown Disney area to brunch with bears and chipmunks at the Storybook Cafe, and Sophie got her face painted. Daniel got the bejeebers scared out of him by the animatronic gorillas at the Rainforest cafe. Afterwards, we stopped by the Orange County Fair for kiddie rides and the strange, smelly world of 4H competitions. Ryan was expecting a West Coast Coney Island, and was rather dazzled by the fair's size, cleanliness, safety, and lack of freaky people. The selection of deep fried food included not only twinkies, oreos, funnel cakes, frog legs and spam, but also White Castles! It was a statin-manufacturer's dream.

Since we left our two photomasters, Darcy and Janellie, behind in NY, Ryan "had" to go out yesterday and buy a decent camera to take pictures of the kids. (I'm smug about this arrangement only because Ryan now owes me an equally nice anniversary present next month.) Keep an eye out for more photo updates; before we left, Janellie gave us a CD containing over 4 GBs of photos that Ryan has yet to go through.

Tonight we have dinner with friends and some extended family, and tomorrow Ryan plans to visit Iron Kim's church, Trinity Presbyterian, while the kids and I head back to the church I grew up in, Anaheim First Church of the Nazarene. We head to Honolulu on Tuesday the 22nd.

Pray for us, please. Right now Ryan is feeling emotionally drained. He slept for 7 hours last night, got up, ate breakfast, took a short nap, went shopping, had lunch and napped again. We are both exhausted from several weeks of nonstop packing, planning, and emotional ups and downs.

Pray for the kids, too. Sophie cried herself to sleep the night before we left and kept asking why we had to move. We're filling their time here with activities, and they love being with Grammy, so it's hard to tell how they will handle the transition when we settle into "normal" life in Honolulu. Please pray that we get into a good routine soon in Honolulu and that they find some friends their age right away.

Thanks so much for all your prayers and help in moving us and saying goodbye! We love you all.

Love,
Carrie, Ryan, Sophie Joy and Daniel

our new house!

2008-07-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here is a first look at our new home in Hawaii!

It is a three-bedroom, 1 1/2 bath house in Manoa, very close to Pastor Andy's house, to the University of Hawaii, and to the best public elementary school on the island. It comes furnished - very convenient since we had already decided to bring none of our furniture with us. It has a good-sized kitchen, a living room and family room, a laundry room, and ample space for hosting fellowship groups as well as everyone who will be visiting us this year (hint, hint!). It has only a pocket hanky yard, but is equipped with solar water heating, which will keep our energy costs down. Best of all, we can get off the plane in Honolulu and move right in.

Everything happened very quickly. Our friend DeShannon found the house on Craig's list two weeks ago and forwarded info to Ryan. Tuesday night, three people from City Church attended the open house. We spoke to them on the phone while they walked through the house, emailed us pictures (gotta love those iPhones), and filled out an application on our behalf. Wednesday afternoon, just as we were about to ask all our friends to pray that our application would be accepted, the realtor called us to offer us the house. She is sending us our rental agreement as we speak.

(The photo above shows the house from the street; the one at left shows the living room area. The random people in the picture were there for the open house. I'm sure they're very nice, and we'll be proud to share the island with them.)

We are extremely grateful to the City Church folks who helped us out, and to God for providing something so perfectly suited to our needs. Please pray with us that the rental agreement will go through without a hitch and that our move will go well.

We are spending these last weeks (well, we're packing all the time, but besides that) in some of our favorite New York activities. Typically, our adventures in Manhattan have been exactly that, filled with the city's joys, frustrations and eccentricities. We took the kids to the Natural History Museum, where Sophie completely ignored the Early Human room on her way to the collection containing her ruling passion in life: gemstones. Which I suppose saved us a few awkward conversations. ("Why is that guy's head so big? And how come he's so short and hairy?") Today we went to the MOMA, where the painting we went specifically to see - "Starry Night" - is away on tour. Instead, Sophie got to see some Seurats and Monets, and Daniel counted Matisse goldfish and picked out shapes in the Miro paintings. Neither of the kids fell in the reflecting pool in the sculpture garden, though they both tried really hard.

Last week, Ryan and I spent an afternoon in the Met. I was completely creeped out by the unblinking eyes of the mummy cases (that wing of the museum is a horror movie waiting to happen) and bemused by the high-fashion interpretations of superhero costumes. I've always wanted to wear a neon spider-web dress with a sky-high chartreuse wig; who knew that Dolce and Gabbana would design one just for me? If only I were two feet taller! We stopped by the Guggenheim, which turned out to be not only closed for the day, but completely shrouded in scaffolding. We then left one restaurant due to non-existent service (another persistent NY phenomenon), and ended up in a charming pub with an authentically Irish waitress and its own brew on tap. Ryan was in heaven.

Yesterday, Aunty Tara and Uncle John took us to Central Park Zoo, which has penguins and polar bears as its main attractions, but is somewhat lacking in its temperate zone species. Apparently the only animals that thrive in moderate climates are turtles. We overheard that the rest of the animals were off-limits because of a private party. That's how you know when you've made it in New York - when you can invite all the fancy animals to your shindig and leave the turtles at home. Friday night, we are going to our last Mets game with Tara, Darcy, Cris and Janellie, and if Sophie wants to eat a nasty ballpark dirty water dog and a cotton candy AND a dippin' dots I suppose I will not object (too much). Ryan and I are trying to eat lots of falafel and farofa and pernil, and refusing any more thai and sushi until we get to Honolulu.

So that's the latest! Please continue to pray for our move, especially in this last week of packing up, shipping our stuff, and saying goodbye. Thank you again for all your prayers and support - especially those of you who prayed specifically that we would find a three bedroom house with lots of room for visitors! We expect to see you soon!

Love,
Carrie, Ryan, Sophie Joy and Daniel

Counting Down

2008-06-23T04:36:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

The official countdown has begun! We just bought our tickets this week; We'll first fly to California to spend a couple days with Carrie's mom and some friends, then on July 22 we'll head out to Hawaii and start a new phase of our lives. (Cue the inspirational music by "Iz." One of the classes at Sophie's ballet school performed to Iz's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" but it was mistakenly credited to Eddie Izzard. Which is so many kinds of wrong.)

Our imminent move seems more and more real all the time, especially as we pack more things and get rid of even more. We had our yard sale -- really a "sidewalk and basement" sale -- this weekend with some help from some goods friends Linda, Jay & Shuang. We made a little bit of money and sold a few things, but still have a basement-full more to go. By the way, if you didn't stop by our house for some reason, you missed out on some really indispensable items. A stuffed bird sitting on a plastic nest: only $1! Why didn't anyone buy the bag of wee-wee pads? It's a mystery.

Sophie was the star of the yard sale. She stood in her yellow voile floral dress and sold pink lemonade to passers-by, looking as perfectly and graciously Southern as any half-Asian New Yorker can be. She effortlessly raked in $16.60, giving minute by minute updates on her total throughout the day. ("I only have 40cents to go to get to $10!") We're not sure how it happened, but we seem to be raising a card-carrying capitalist. Hopefully she will make lots of money and support us when we are incontinent (see "wee-wee pads" above) and toothless. She proudly set aside several dollars for tithing, without any prompting by us.

We are starting the process of saying goodbye to friends here. It has been good to see people, to remind them of how much we appreciate their friendship, and to pray with them before we go. We will miss our friends and family here in New York tremendously!

Please pray for us as we pack and decide on movers - we want to find a reputable company we can trust. (We just watched "Batman Begins," so we know that strange things can show up in shipping containers.) Please also pray for our housing in Honolulu - we would love to find a place to live that is conveniently located and spacious enough to host both our neighbors and our out of town guests - all within our limited price range!

That's the update for now. We love you all very much and we thank God for your friendship and prayers.

Ryan, Carrie, Sophie Joy and Daniel

Memorial Day BBQ Update

2008-05-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

The Myers have had some big parties, but our Memorial Day BBQ was the biggest by far: 72 people, including our family. Between the mounds of meat we consumed and the amount of charcoal burned to cook it all, we probably left the carbon footprint of a small country. It was the perfect way to kick off our last summer in NY.

Thank you to everyone who was in town and showed up to be with us and brought food to share. We obviously couldn't get everyone in pictures - partly because there were so many people present, and partly because some of you just didn't want to be photographed! (You know who you are. We also weeded out the ones that were too humiliating - you can thank us later.)

We had a brief time to share a bit of the story of our decision to move and to talk about the vision for our ministry with The City Church of Honolulu. I was at the grill so much I wasn't able to talk in-depth with many people, unfortunately. Hopefully the bratwurst and chicken made up for it. We will be around until approximately the middle of July - so we'll be available for those of you who want to hear more of the story. Call us up for coffee, have us over for dinner, or invite yourselves over for more BBQ! (We grill pretty much every six minutes, so stop by anytime.)

As far as the fundraising goes, everyone was tremendously generous. As of today, we have raised over half of the money that we will need for our relocation to Hawaii. God has really shown Himself to be faithful to us already.

One of the questions that people ask us frequently is if we are excited about the move. Right now our standard answer is that we WILL be excited, but we have two major things to do first: pack up everything we own and say goodbye to many of the friends and family that we love. These things are so big in our minds right now that it's difficult to see past them! Although packing up 12 years of stuff will be hard, saying goodbye is infinitely more difficult because of the wonderful friendships and relationships that we have built over the past 10 years that we have been in Astoria. Many of our friends here have become like family to us (this is not to disparage our actual family members, just to comment on what great friends we have! We will also miss having Aunty Tara and Uncle John living just a few minutes away).

As I was reflecting this morning during my devotions on the amazing relationships that God has given us and on the dreadful prospect of saying goodbye to so many people, I read the Gospel of Mark, the 10th chapter. Christ says to the disciples "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life." I was deeply comforted by the promise that when we follow where the Lord leads us, even when it costs us dearly in terms of relationships, that He will provide for us all we need and more. We are not looking forward to leaving so many good relationships here, and it is hard to see into the future, but we are trusting that God will lead us into deeply loving relationships as we move on.

That's all for now. Again, we want to thank you all so much for your prayers and your support!

We are truly blessed by your friendship and generosity.

We love you all.

Ryan, Carrie, Sophie Joy & Daniel

Here we go!

2008-05-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

Well, if you are reading this then you have probably already heard the news that the Myers family is on our way to Hawaii to work with City Church of Honolulu. You may not have heard the whole story yet, so let us give you a little bit of the history to date.

Since graduating from City Seminary of New York last May, Ryan has been sensing a call to serve in a more pastoral role with a church. When Pastor Andy Lee of City Church called in February of this year (a mutual friend suggested Ryan for the position), we were more than a little bit surprised. We had kicked around the idea of moving to Hawaii, because of Carrie's family connections there (and her dislike of NY winters), but never spent much time seriously considering it.

We spent several weeks talking over the phone with Pastor Andy. What would Ryan's role be? How would we fit in in Hawaii? When we'd worked through some of our initial questions, we planned a visit. We dropped off our 2 children in Jacksonville, FL at Ryan's parents' house (where they promptly forgot their parents existed) and flew to Hawaii for a week to meet with the people of City Church.

Most people go to Hawaii to relax, but not the Myers! We spent virtually every waking minute in meetings, gatherings, lunches, and dinners getting to know the people of City Church, and letting them get to know us. We also spent some time with Carrie's family, some of whom live in Oahu, and some of whom flew in from the Big Island, Hawaii. Based on our visit, and some follow-up conversations, we mutually felt that Ryan would be a good fit for City Church, and vice versa.

City Church is a unique church in that Pastor Andy Lee has been very intentional in reaching out to the local Hawaiian people. With so many tourists, military personnel, and other people coming and going, Andy made a conscious choice to build a church for long-term residents, those rooted in Hawaii. It is an approach which can be slow going at first, but can provide great long-term stability in an otherwise transient community. He also consciously reached out to people who had never attended church before.

We were slow to accept the idea of moving, because our family is so rooted here in Astoria; our dearest friends live here, and our children have grown up in Astoria Community Church, a church that we helped start. Ryan is also a die-hard New Yorker. But the more we understood about City Church, beyond the serendipity of our marriage by Pastor Andy, the more it seemed that God was bringing us and the Church together at a very strategic point.

City Church has basically doubled in size in the last few years. There have been many people coming to the church from all walks of life - young people with families, people later in their careers and some retired couples as well. There is a broad, stable group of people who are positioned to help the church reach into the wider Honolulu community.

Since planting City Church, Andy has been the sole pastor and worn every conceivable hat. He not only preaches every Sunday, he teaches Sunday school class, sets up the sound system, and prints out the bulletins. Not once has he missed a Sunday due to illness. And he and his wife have six children! Given the church's recent growth, it's more than time for him to take on another staff member who can help him nurture current members, grow ministries, and share the administrative load.

City Church's long-term goal is to develop a movement of church plants on the islands of Hawaii. City Church will become the "mother church" from which series of "daughter" churches can be established. Ryan's role in this church-planting movement will be support the growth of the "mother church."

Ryan's responsibilities at City Church will include working with the young singles and married couples, supporting & developing a small groups ministry, helping out with some administration, and developing a coordinated mercy outreach to the city of Honolulu. As we've noted before, this is a job description tailor-made for him, given his love for building small groups and relationships and his background in urban mercy ministry. (It may seem strange to refer to a place in Hawaii as "urban," but Honolulu is in fact a city, with problems of traffic congestion, skyrocketing real estate prices, and endemic homelessness that would be familiar to any New Yorker, albeit on a smaller scale.)

Another key reason our family is attractive to the church is because Carrie has family in Hawaii and spent a lot of time there in her childhood; unlike someone coming in with no previous experience or connections with Hawaii, we are much more likely to fit into Hawaii's unique culture.

So, there in a nutshell is the picture we have come to see: on City Church's side, the need for someone trained in urban ministry and mercy outreach who can build strong relationships with the young families and singles, and has pre-existent ties to Hawaii. On our side, the opportunity for Ryan to follow his calling into church ministry in a role uniquely suited to his skills and gifts, at a time that is strategic not just for City Church, but also for its church-planting movement in Hawaii, as well as the opportunity to be closer to Carrie's family in Hawaii and on the West Coast.

We are sure that you may have many other questions to be answered. Please give us a call anytime. We are going to be planning a huge barbeque on Memorial day to kick off our last summer in NY and spend some time answering questions. Come over for some grilling on Memorial Day and let's talk!

As we move to Hawaii, we'll be considering ourselves as sort-of missionaries - leaving our home, going to a new culture, raising some support. To keep our friends and supporters aware of how we are doing, we'll be updating this blog on a regular basis. We'll send out emails to anyone who wants to subscribe.