We made it through Thanksgiving! The time celebrating with friends was really sweet, and the initial fear of the turkeys lurking in my freezer eventually panned out to some darn good birds, if I do say so myself! I even managed to squeeze both seventeen-pound birds (separately, of course) into the oven bags made for 8-10 pound birds without anything igniting during the baking process. I wasn't too sure just what would happen with the plastic bags being a bit more snug than the manufacturer intended; but alas, my fears were in vain. We had moist, non-scorched turkey for both the meals I was responsible for, with lots of leftovers (turkey chili) to boot.
I will confess that the food and friends were a highlight; our family dynamics were not. Without going into too much detail, I'll share just a bit about the realities of living overseas in a pretty challenging environment and the struggles that brings, at least for our family! We've noted that as the stress mounts from so many life circumstances that are out of our control, we're often unaware of how much we are each affected by the tension. Well it kind of hit a snapping point the week of Thanksgiving, leaving Kevin and me in conflict but the kids (I thought) pretty unaware of the tension between us. It wasn't until we'd returned home on Thanksgiving night after a fantastic day celebrating with friends that Eli, my most sensitive child as far as being intuitive to others' feelings goes, made a comment that shocked my socks off. When I was debriefing with the kids and asking how they'd enjoyed Thanksgiving, Eli's response was that it was his "worst favorite" holiday (meaning, his least favorite). When I asked why, he couldn't give me a good reason. In fact, he couldn't give me any reason at all! And this is after he'd had a day of pumpkin pie and getting to play football in the snow and his favorite strategic war board games with his best buddies. So I realized then the effects that our mounting stress is having on our family. While we sometimes can't even verbalize what it is that isn't "right", we still have a number of things that are obviously wrong. So the past several weeks have been spent doing some heart searching and crying out for wisdom and discernment about what change looks like for us. We have no easy answers at this point, but both Kevin and I are actively engaged in pursuing what needs to be tweaked (or even radically changed) to get us to a point that is both walking in obedience and also taking our family's emotional well-being into account.
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| Noah's penguin-style sledding |
In the midst of so much heaviness, we've also been making "fun" more of a priority! We managed to coerce a friend's daughter to watch the kids so we could have our first date night in months. We went to one of our favorite restaurants--it's central Asian cuisine with a Russian flare. Kevin found what I termed a "Chinese pot roast" on the menu--chopped up beef and veggies in a sauce, Chinese style, served over mashed potatoes. Kind of cracked me up! Karis and I went to the Art College's dance recital with a few other ladies and their daughters and had such an amazing experience. I would have given anything to take some pictures and videos to post but didn't dare, as they gave strict instructions not to. During the performance there were a few ushers walking the aisle with green laser pointers. If someone was talking or their phone buzzed, they would zap you with the laser pointer, making it obvious to everyone around that you were the perpetrator! I think my friend and I actually got zapped once as we whispered about one of the dances.
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| sledding |
We also took off one day last week when Kevin's language tutor canceled and drove about an hour to the mountains where we spent the day sledding. The kids (and Kevin and I!) had such a blast! The snow was amazing and once we had the "hot hands" in our gloves, we stayed warm enough to spend most of the day there. We had surprised the kids with this outing, which made it even more special for them. We've decided that it might behoove us to make this same trek once every other week for the sake of everyone's mental well-being!
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| Rolling dumplings with our Chinese teacher |
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| Trapper trying to catch snowflakes |
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| Building snow caves |
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| Eli going record-deep in the snow! |
Shame!!! (Key buzz word in this culture for how discipline is doled out.) But it really just made us get the giggles.... :)
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| The snow mountain built by Joseph kids |
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| gingerbread men decorating |
We came sooooo close to our first real local cultural event this past weekend. Some of our favorite neighbors are an older couple who have 4 kids--one living in the US and one living in Canada with their families. The Canadian couple is back here visiting, and we've had such a great time connecting with them and their 5-year old son, who is bored and so thankful to have other English-speaking kids around to play with. In this culture, it is usual to have the boys circumcised at age 7 or 8 and then throw a huge party afterward; culturally this is about as big a deal as a wedding is. So our 5-year old friend was planning on having this done early since his grandfather has cancer and the fear was that he would pass away before getting to experience this rite of passage of his grandson. So we got invited to this super fancy party where I was going to have to get my hair done in an up-do and was instructed to wear lots of heavy make-up (eye liner especially) and big, sparkly earrings. (These are the signs that you've put time and effort into preparing to attend this sort of event. Yikes! I'll be honest that I was NOT excited about getting my hair done poodle-style!) Unfortunately, the grandfather ended up passing away two days before the big party, so they canceled it. I'm still wondering how they got the word out to the 400 guests who were supposed to be in attendance. I think that the emphasis on family connections and tightness of community maybe make this sort of thing not as big a deal to communicate; they seem to have such tight circles that maybe it's easy to get the word out quickly without having to do anything too official or formal? So they told us the party would be re-scheduled and they'd let us know when that happens, but I'm thinking for the 5 year old's sake that putting it off a bit is probably the preferable option!
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| Kevin's Chinese pot roast |
Our other main entertainment as of late has been the snow. So I thought I'd been in snow before when I'd taken trips to the mountains of Colorado. Not so much. I've never seen anything like this! It started snowing about a week and a half ago and everything has been COVERED ever since. Like, feet of snow so deep that our pathway out our front door to the market stores is literally several feet higher off the ground than it used to be due to how much snow you are walking on top of! They have the most amazing machines to clean both the roads and the walking pathways, but even with all of those machines mobility around town has been significantly hindered. I just drove the kids to a practice for a Christmas drama they're participating in and it took me 40 minutes to get them there when it normally takes about 10. And I was slipping and sliding on so much ice that I was holding my breath they whole way. At one point I got hung up on some of the bumpy icy parts and literally couldn't move forward. The men in the two cars behind me got out and kindly pushed me so that I could gain traction. So thankful for kind helpers along the way! The kids have been building all kinds of snow forts, snow mountains, and sledding courses around our building. I'm amazed at how long they can stay out in the cold. It's just warmed up to 14 degrees today (it's been down to 1 degree several times in the last week!), but they can stay out for over an hour at a time. Now I will say that we are going through LOTS of hot chocolate, but at least I've been able to find it at one of the larger grocery stores here in town so I'm not having to totally depend on our care package stash.
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| the depth of snow on our car |
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| Eli helping shovel us out |
So with the cold and the snow there is no doubt that we have at least the climatic feel for Christmas! The kids are marking the days till December 25th. We'll spend Christmas Eve caroling at a friends home and haven't quite figured out Christmas day yet--maybe opening our home to a group of friends or maybe just doing a low-key family celebration. I'm hosting a Christmas brunch for a group of ex-pat ladies in town this weekend along with a friend who also had the itch to do more holiday celebrating. We're basically just using it as an excuse to make lots of our favorite holiday dishes (most involving cream cheese!) and have some ladies fellowship time--something that seems all too rare out here where we are. I did convince one friend to take off across town with me in a taxi (it took over an hour and a half due to the distance and the snow still on the roads!) to go to a newly-opened H&M! NOT my favorite store in the US, but man was it refreshing to walk around a mall in what seemed like a "normal" holiday activity of doing some shopping! I even found some skinny jeans, which sounds a bit problematic considering the very conservative culture in which we live. But I've found that my bootcut jeans don't go over my "real" boots that I have to wear here--the ones that are super thick and able to handle the extreme cold and snow that we walk through every time we go out the door. So skinny jeans are actually the acceptable pants of choice around here where heavy boots are required! Who would have thought?! (Wish I'd brought those skinny jeans that are still in my parent's home in Dallas...) I don't see the trek across town coming again any time soon, but it's nice to know that within an hour or two there are a few "getaways" that feel like a bit of a treat from what's normal in our neck of the woods.
I will confess that the food and friends were a highlight; our family dynamics were not. Without going into too much detail, I'll share just a bit about the realities of living overseas in a pretty challenging environment and the struggles that brings, at least for our family! We've noted that as the stress mounts from so many life circumstances that are out of our control, we're often unaware of how much we are each affected by the tension. Well it kind of hit a snapping point the week of Thanksgiving, leaving Kevin and me in conflict but the kids (I thought) pretty unaware of the tension between us. It wasn't until we'd returned home on Thanksgiving night after a fantastic day celebrating with friends that Eli, my most sensitive child as far as being intuitive to others' feelings goes, made a comment that shocked my socks off. When I was debriefing with the kids and asking how they'd enjoyed Thanksgiving, Eli's response was that it was his "worst favorite" holiday (meaning, his least favorite). When I asked why, he couldn't give me a good reason. In fact, he couldn't give me any reason at all! And this is after he'd had a day of pumpkin pie and getting to play football in the snow and his favorite strategic war board games with his best buddies. So I realized then the effects that our mounting stress is having on our family. While we sometimes can't even verbalize what it is that isn't "right", we still have a number of things that are obviously wrong. So the past several weeks have been spent doing some heart searching and crying out for wisdom and discernment about what change looks like for us. We have no easy answers at this point, but both Kevin and I are actively engaged in pursuing what needs to be tweaked (or even radically changed) to get us to a point that is both walking in obedience and also taking our family's emotional well-being into account. 
