Birthday and Spring Break

Well, it certainly has been an interesting few past weeks. First of all, Penny and I drove out to SD to attend the funeral of one of my uncles on March 3-4. He was a very special man and will be missed dearly. But, we're all so thankful to know that he is no longer suffering and went home to be with the Lord. I think it was actually a very good, growing experience for Penny to face her fears about death. She seemed more at peace afterwards. And she seemed both glad and overwhelmed to meet my many relatives. (My dad comes from a family of eleven kids and I have around 30 some first cousins on his side). Here's a picture of those of us cousins who made it for the funeral.

When we got home she performed in a community talent show. She did an AWESOME job performing a Thai dance that she choreographed herself.


Then she went back to school on Monday, however, that night she was moaning about her head hurting. I thought it was because she was studying for a quiz in science, her worst class. But, on Tuesday morning she got up looking miserable. I took her temp and it was 101. So, she stayed home again and it turned out that she stayed out the whole week with the flu. She was the worst on my birthday, the 9th. That day Grandma was with her and when I got home from work her temp had spiked to 104. I was quite worried, but the doctor tried reassuring me that such a kind of bug is going around our area and not to be alarmed.

And now for the week of the 14th she has no school because it's Spring break. When she goes back they have a week of standardized testing. So, that'll mean that she won't have had regular classes but once in eighteen days. I don't hear her complaining. It's not like we're doing nothing. She got all of her make up work done. And we've been working on her confirmation project and banner. For fun, we've gone ice skating, biking, playing tennis, to a farm, to a park and out for authentic Thai food. Grandma also took her to her favorite new movie, Tangled. It's helpful that the temps have been mostly in the upper 60's lately. We did also finally go out to celebrate my birthday, just five days late, at the East Moon Asian Restaurant. Penny wasn't too impressed with their Thai.





Jay had good news yesterday that we celebrated by going out to Country Buffet. He got asked to switch from part-time to full-time at his new teller job at the Credit Union. Combined with his part-time job at the school he'll now be working 52 hours per week until the end of the school year. Very helpful as our income had dropped to less than half of what it was the year before. But, we still feel VERY blessed, especially since the news of the horrible devastation in Japan. It especially hit me hard as I spent six and half years of my adult life living and working there as a missionary. I truly left part of my heart in Japan. So, I'm praying and asking if somehow I may be able to eventually return on a short-term trip to help meet some needs, both physical and spiritual there in the future.