To prep Ellie for the Long Flight across the Pacific, we had told Ellie we would be going on a Sleeping Plane. This conversation is from that flight.

Ellie: Your bed? (tr: Where is my bed?)

Jason: (points to Ellie's seat) This is your bed.

Ellie: (starts crying) NO!! This is NOT your bed!

Jason: No, it's not, but this is where we sleep on the Sleeping Plane.

Ellie: (becomes stoic) Grammy will have a bed. A biiiig bed.

I haven't written yet about our trip last week from Taiwan to Virginia because...well, I think I was trying to repress the memory.

I've decided to do a quick rundown of the nuts and bolts of what it takes to fly from Asia to the East Coast of the US, and then later share a few stories from our trip. The stories are more fun anyways.

The Trip included a one hour ride to the airport. Waiting. A three hour plane ride to Tokyo, Japan. Waiting...three hours in that airport. Thankfully it was a nice airport. The bathrooms were so cool! Automatic everything.

Next was the Long Flight: 11 hours across the Pacific Ocean. Landed at LAX. (worst airport on the planet!) We had 2 hours at LAX to haul our two children and four large suitcases from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, recheck our bags and find our gate.

We took a one hour plane ride to Las Vegas. A forty minute layover there meant we found our next gate and boarded our plane immediately.

Then it was 5 or 6 hours from Vegas to Raleigh/Durham North Carolina. This flight took forever. I remember looking out the window halfway in and thinking, "We land at 11pm, but the sun is still out. If it's still light out we can't even be close." I felt like crying.

Once we landed in North Carolina we had another 3 hour drive to my parents house.

If anyone's counting, that's about 30 hours of total travel time. When we got to California we were barely over halfway there! This really is a big country.

You might also notice there was no time for eating from the time we hit LA until we got out of the airport system. Thankfully most of that time was "night" for us, so we weren't very hungry. We also had snacks with us. But we all ended up pretty dehydrated. I still feel dehydrated.

Other notable events included airsickness, not getting the bulkhead seats we requested and being Those People on our cross-country flight. You know, the ones with the loud, crying kids that cause people to start breaking out earplugs.  We were probably the smelly ones too. Glad to give everyone something to talk about.

Then again, even though the trip in itself is grueling. Harrowing. Even though doing it with young kids makes it even more...harrowing. Even though all of it, I remember on our Long Flight when they turned on the lights for breakfast, Ellie and Abram had both just woken up, Abram smiled BIG and Ellie giggled and then all four of us were smiling and laughing. And I looked at all the other travel weary people around us, and realized that as tiring as it was to be playing puzzles or jiggling babies instead of sleeping or watching the in-flight movie...at that moment we were also the only ones smiling.

The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
Psalm 23:1-3

Some of the fun things that Ellie is saying these days.

Ellie's word: Buh-bana
Real word: Banana


Ellie's word: God bless you.
Real word: Sneeze (the verb)

So she might say, "Abram god-bless-you-ed!" or "You're god-bless-you-ing!"


Ellie's phrase: Pony-tail ride.
Real phrase: Piggy-back ride.


Ellie's word: puh-tu-ter
Real word: computer


That is biiiiig. And the other word is "huge". (the second sentence was in a singsong voice)


(after she got burned by the steam from "our" rice cooker)
That cooked you!


When she is asking permission for something, she simply states  her request, adding a question word to her statement. This is especially funny because she still switches her I/you pronouns. For example:
"Would you want to come with me?"
her meaning is:
"I want to go with you."
but she's learning that she needs to ask for permission, so she tacks on "Would" to make it a request.

Here's another example:
"Would you like some milk?"
That's Ellie asking for some milk, not offering you a glass of milk.


Ellie is also learning how to use adverbs:
"That is so, so, so, so silly."
or
"It's kinda, very, hot."


And finally, just because we hear it so often:
"Would you want to watch Tom & Jerry?"

We had our new GCC coworker, Doug, over for dinner last Friday night. This is from a few days before then.

Kristie: I bought some extra salad for Friday in case Doug is really hungry and wants to eat a lot.

Jason: hmm.

Kristie: I'm sure he'll be glad to know that I got salad for if he's extra hungry.

Jason: (laughs) Yeah, he's not trained like I am. He's going to say, "Note to self: Never get married."

You know, they say the world is shrinking.

It's still pretty darn BIG if you ask me.

This Monday-ish our little family is flying home. HOORAAYYY!! It's been two years.

We'll be traveling from about 7pm (EST) Sunday until 2am (EST) Tuesday.

Because that's how long it takes to get halfway around the world. When you don't have a private jet, that is.

It is NOT a small world.

If you think of us between those times, please say a little prayer.

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 124:8

Happy Father's Day!

(Photo from the China Evangelical Seminary website)

So...what was Ellie doing in that picture from last week?



Can you guess it now?

Don't worry if you can't. The mind of a two-year-old is a deep mystery.

In her own words: "You're making your little mouth."

Still don't know? It's okay.

She was making herself lips out of PlayDoh!

It seems Ellie favors hot pink lipstick.

Abram, contemplating his future...

One night during family devotions Jason was reading the story of the wise men coming to visit baby Jesus from Ellie's Jesus Storybook Bible.

Jason: (reading) ...They took off their rich royal turbans and gleaming, golden crowns. (explaining to Ellie) Turbans are like hats. They took off their hats.

(The illustration has a picture of three old men with bald heads and long pointy beards.)

Ellie: (studying the picture) They have hats! On their chins!

Kristie: No dear, those aren't hats. They look kind of like hats, but those are beards. Like Daddy's beard. (Jason hadn't shaved in a couple of days.)

Ellie: Daddy have a beard. And Mommy have a beard. And Ellie have a beard.

Kristie: Well, no. Only Daddy has a beard. Do you see the hair here on his chin and face? That's his beard. Mommy and Ellie don't have any hair on our face. We don't have beards.

Ellie: Daddy have a biiiiig beard. Mommy have a medium size beard. Ellie have a little beard.

Kristie: (to Jason) Let's just finish the story.