Dedicated to Isabelle Jade Lynne Pense

2008-03-31T23:18:00.010-04:00

Bright in the Dark

Ten months ago our first child was born the day before her due date. She was beautiful and precious to us. She had dark hair and reddish eyebrows the color of her father's goatee. In fact she looked a lot like my baby pictures with the same nose. Jenny cried five months later, at Christmas when she unexpectedly happened upon a baby picture of me because we looked so much a like. She had Jenny's chin and eyes and petite size, she only weighted 5 lbs 14 ounces.

I haven't taken the time to write this final post to this blog because I haven't want to spend the tears necessary to write it. I loved her. When I held her and looked at her and traced her features with my finger tips I felt proud and full of love for her. I wanted to share her with the world, but knew I never would because she was cold and limp and I was rocking her in a rocking chair in an empty hospital room with a nurse supervising my visit with my child because they didn't trust me with her. Through the tears she was even more beautiful, arrayed in a glistening halo of light. My wife lay in a room down the hall spent physically and emotionally from giving birth to our beautiful child and afraid to see her. Not an hour later she gathered her courage and held her. Her tenderness broke my heart. My mom called right then and I told her we were spending time with Jade Lynne. It was my chance to share her with my mother. I described her first grandchild to her without shedding a tear.

We spent time at the Shorts house, some friends from Taiwan who lived near the hospital and who four and a half years earlier had attended our wedding. The next day my parents had come in and we went to the funeral home she'd been sent to. I dressed her alone and anointed her body with tears. I brought her out to my family and I experienced a life long nightmare. One by one as I brought her around and shared her with my family I looked into their tear filled eyes. I don't know why, but since I was a young boy I've had a recurring nightmare that either my father or my mother or my sister, Resa, had died; but strangely when I looked into their face they were always crying with me. After I married Jenny I had the same dream about her. I often awoke from this dream crying in the night. Now my dream was real, but it wasn't their death but my daughter, Jade Lynne's, that we mourned. We gathered together and my dad said a prayer. It was one of the few times I've seen him cry. I don't know if he stopped crying the whole time. Then he read the Bible to us. Psalms 103. A photographer associated with the network http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.com/ came by and took pictures for us of our daughter. She did a wonderful job and took some beautiful pictures we will always treasure. We cried more and said good by to her for the rest of this life.

Now ten months later the wound. The gaping hole in our lives reopens with ease and the blood and water pours out. We had planned a life with her... Planned our lives around her, and now those plans are null and void. After two weeks at my parents, during which letters and cards from friends and family around the world poured in, we decided we needed time alone back home in WV. We stopped in Berea at the Carricks on the way and were further comforted. Before we left Southern Illinois my parents church ordered the stone in the picture at the beginning of this post. It was a thoughtful gift we still appreciate. Back in WV we slowly began to pick up the pieces. The world beneath us had spun out of control and we had fallen and now we tried, falteringly, to get up.

God was faithful to us.

Slowly we've found that we can say, with Job, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Really it is only through our relationship with Him that we've been able to

bear up under this. Actually He has often had to hold us up because we couldn't

hold our selves up.

This is a slide show shot and put to music by Robin and Sam Watson. Sam actually planted the flower less than a month after Jade Lynne died. He e-mailed me his plans and then e-mailed me again when he had completed his plan. It was touching that he did what he could from where he was to comfort Jenny and I. The more I think about it the more I appreciate the living memorial he's erected, in Taiwan, in memory of our daughter Isabelle Jade Lynne Pense. Like me, her father, Jade Lynne grew up in Taiwan, and so it is fitting there is a memorial to her there.

I had been planning on putting up this final post up for about eight months now, but I haven't had the strength or courage to do it until now. It took Sam's slide show to get me going. Then it took over and hour of tears, but here it is. I plan on editing this post and furnishing more pictures as time goes on, but this will be the last post on this blog.

2007-04-22T18:10:00.001-04:00

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggiddy Jig!

Jen points in surprise at all the stuff we managed to cram into a Toyota van. You can see my baby cradle in the van, soon to be Jade Lynne's cradle. You can also see my bike on top of everything. The Lord provided the perfect vehicle to make our trek from Carbondale to Berea to Asheville. Originally we'd signed up to rent the cheapest car in Hertz's fleet, but got upgraded to their most expensive because the guy running it said that no one was renting the Toyota van and he wanted to unload it on another larger Hertz shop! We were more than happy to oblige.We enjoyed a fun and momentous visit with our family in Carbondale on the way home: Christy lost a tooth while we were there, the girls got to feel Jade Lynne kick and squirm in the womb, I got to milk Elissa's birthday goat with her, we went to Church with them, we made and enjoyed Jimmy's famous Sho-Bings, and Mom bought and planted two more blueberry bushes!

We stopped for an overnight stay and dinner at Alex and Debby Carrick's place in Berea on our way to Asheville. It was good to see Debby and Alex and Elliot again after so long. We also got to see Joel and Naomi Johnson while we were there, as they are living at the Carricks right now. Naomi is two weeks further along than Jen in pregnancy. It seems like everyone is getting pregnant these days! A luminescent lunch in Asheville, NC. We really enjoyed this evening with Jim and Judy and Melissa. It was our first hamburger lunch in six months!

Jenny loves the stone walls and phlox at her Dad's castle-like estate in the mountains of North Carolina. We took a tour, as is our custom, and were surprised at how much they'd done in the six short months we were gone!

Behind Jen you can see Judy's garden house and more of their castle-like walls. Jim and Jen on a new stream bed he'd recently put in. He'd also built a dam in a wash where he has plans to put in a water fall and pond. Unfortunately a late frost crippled the flowers this spring, still their landscaping looked great to us! Jen's having second thoughts about racing, but can't find the door handle in Melissa's snazzy BMW! Some how Melissa talked Jen and I into some racing on our way to South Carolina. We had a lot of fun and were quite impressed with Melissa's driving. Two sisters enjoying lunch after a long morning of racing!
We enjoyed a wonderful visit with Grandmom and Pops in South Carolina. Here we are sharing breakfast with them. We also got to see Aunt Susan and two of Jen's cousins: Rachael and Chrissy.

Jen loved hanging out with her Grandma Pennscott and seeing Bei-Loang again!Grandpa showed us his new cap and some of his other sun wear, which he bought after having some skin cancer cells removed.

Grandmom thanks for the swim trunks and the purple shoes Jen is showing off here! Jim thanks for the Jeep! Our kayaks and bikes fit on it a little better than they did on our Honda Civic! We can't wait to drive your granddaughter, Jade Lynne, down for a visit.

Finally, after a long hard trip (as the prievious photos attest) and many long hard visits and meals with cherished loved ones, we arrived back home in West Virginia. We couldn't resist buying some blueberry bushes just before we pulled up. We are so excited to be back!

This beautiful sunset wished us goodnight on our first evening back. Here is Jen with Sam and Sarah our neighbors. Sam and Sarah help Sam's parents, Frank and Mary Ellen, tend the beautiful farm you can see in the back ground. Sarah is expecting their first child as well. It is going to be the summer of the babies here in "almost heaven" West Virginia!

2007-04-22T18:09:00.000-04:00

G&G trying to k iss for the camera! (Apparently they couldn't stop thinking happy thoughts long enough for a picture...)

Happy 1st Anniversary!!! No, wait... You've been married longer than that. I was at your 50'th anniversary. Why is there is only one candle? I guess the baked Alaska wouldn't have held 53 candles.
We had a wonderful time in Hemett, CA with Grandma and Grandpa. The highlight of the trip was celebrating their 53'th anniversary with them!

Thanks for picking us up at LAX Grandma and Grandpa and then treating us to an all inclusive stay at a resort with a golf course, heated pool, hot tub, and card table! We really enjoyed seeing you two. Thanks for the baby blanket too Great Grandma! (That and early thank you on Jade Lynne's behalf!)

We got to see Erich twice while we were down there too. He showed us amazing hospitality (tea, cheese and crackers, cookies, candy) when we stopped by his and his Grandma's place. His plans for the future are growing. This summer he gets his commercial pilots license and keeps soaring from there! Good work Erich! We're proud to have a friend like you!

2007-04-13T20:37:00.000-04:00

East Coast Trip: Hiking in Taroko Gorge and Rafting in Ruisuei

Here we are at our first stop on our trip. We had just come to the famous East Coast high way that snakes along the mountains that drop into the sea on this side of the island. The views were great. Jenny was constantly reminding me to watch the road so she could enjoy the view! We stopped a couple of times and enjoyed them together. We stopped at Taroko Gorge first, Taiwan's most spectacular natural treasure, and did four hikes over two nights and three days. We saw more wildlife in those three days than the rest of the four months combined. Seems like every ten feet I was photographing another bug or reptile or mammal the first day (after that I calmed down a little). The hiking was great, though tame, all of the trails were cleared and wide with viewing platforms along the way. We wanted to do some more real hiking, but they all required permits and at the least overnight stays and we didn't have any camping gear. Leaves something for us to do next time! The first hike was called the Mysterious Valley Hike. It was a nice trail along a river. We saw two snakes, dozens of lizards (three species), some spiders with large webs (6 ft by 8 ft), a family of over a dozen monkeys, squirrls, birds, butterflies, and fish. I've put up some of the better nature pics bellow.

This spider was one of the ones with a huge web. Jen has seen me catch larger spiders (I caught three tarantulas in Oklahoma one night and let them loose on my white shirt, I felt like Indiana Jones!) but she'd never seen webs this big. I remember as a kid hiking with a hiking stick to clear the cob webs rather than help me along.

Here is one of my favorite lizards. I used to catch these guys all the time as a kid. They are just gorgeous. Some of them have blue stripes or white stripes instead of yellow stripes. We used to call them "monkey lizards," I'm not sure what their real name is. This Taiwan "Beauty" snake gave Jen a pretty good start. We were walking along and suddenly Jen just wrapped her arms around me as she tried to walk right through me. She startled me more than the snake. I recognized the snake as a Beauty snake because my high school biology teacher Daniel "Doc" Anstine had two in an aquarium in his class room when I was in high school at Morrison. They are non-poisonous and very shy. We were lucky to see him. He disappeared just after I got the picture. I'm guessing he was about 6 ft. long. Later we happened upon a small cobra in the trail. I got a picture, but couldn't get him to show off his hood before he disappeared into the bushes. Here we are at the most beautiful final destination of any of our hikes, the "bai-pu-bu" (white water fall). There were actually four water falls, but the other three weren't nearly as photogenic as they were further away and our camera doesn't do the zoom thing. We enjoyed looking at them though. We spent a bit of time discussing how to run this particular water fall in a kayak. Of course neither of us has the skill or the gumption to attempt something like that, but what made the thought of running this water fall really interesting is that it has a reactionary wave at the top as the water bounces off the canyon wall is forced into a sharp turn. Just after that turn the water slides down about 8 feet of rock and then drops to the pool below. If you flip on the reactionary you're going to do the rock slide part of the falls on your face. I've paddled through a reactionary wave that is quite a bit smaller back home on the Gauley called "The Pencil Sharpener" and flipped and received a sound thumping. I can't imagine running this reactionary properly and then dropping a 15 ft water fall! I'd love to see it done though. Here you can see the famous marble walls of Taroko Gorge and the railing across that way that marks the trail they've cut through this section called "The Tunnel of Nine Turns." This was a great walk. Pictures didn't do the scene justice. I guess they never do. (Ansel Adams came close in some of his pictures of Yosemite though.) We went to Ruisuie and managed to find the one company with duckies! They only had four though, so Jen and I had to take a double ducky and trade off "guiding." It was an absolute blast! One of the absolute most fun days we had in Taiwan. The river was picturesque and had just enough rapids (28). Non were as big as what we work on back in West Virginia, but they were a lot of fun nonetheless. Here we are following another ducky through one of the stouter class II rapids, one of the only ones that could have flipped a ducky.
It's interesting how there's a bridge at the end of most of our raft trips! You can see the sea under the second one. It was poetic paddling through the mountains and ending at the sea.

2007-03-21T09:46:00.000-04:00

It's a Girl!!!

We just got back from our most recent prenatal earlier this evening and the doctor said that it's a girl! We've settled on the name Isabelle Jade Lynne Pense. We got some great ultrasound footage this time and its all on CD. I'll try and get some digital stills off of the CD and put them up on the blog, but I'm not sure when (or even if) I'll be able to do that. Also our due date got moved to June 25. I feel like we're playing musical due dates! This is our third one. Truly, God alone knows.
Also to further update everyone on what all is going on with us:
We just got back from four days on the east coast of Taiwan. We spent two days in Taroko Gorge, the marble 'Grand Canyon' of Taiwan, hiking and soaking up the natural beauty of the place. We spent a day and a half in Hualien, the primary port city on the east coast. We also went to Rui-Shui (pronounced Ray-Shuay) and went white water rafting! Actually it was white water duckying (duckys are little one or two man inflatable kayak like craft). The water was low, but there were still over 20 fun rapids with 3 good sized ones, so taking a ducky meant a bigger ride at this level and smaller risk of getting stuck on rocks. Jen and I took a double ducky. We ended up paddling it like a raft though, since they didn't have double bladed paddles for them. The other oddity was that the paddles lacked T-grips. I still held it "properly" however, and discovered why T-grips were invented! (Boy was my palm bruised for the next couple of days!) Jen and I traded off "guiding." I was sore the next couple of days on the right half of my back from J-stroking as well. The white water was refreshing and excited us about heading back to West Virginia for our second summer as white water guides at ACE!
Also, we are heading back to the States a little earlier than we originally thought we would. Our new "due" date (not to be confused with Jen's pregnancy due date) is April 5.
Today was a full day. Besides the Doctor visit this evening, which I mentioned above, we also spent several hours at Jimmy's breakfast shop learning how to make a different kind of shoa-bing. Then in the afternoon I went with Jimmy and his wife to a friend of his to learn how to Po-Cha or brew tea in the traditional Chinese manner. I'm looking forward to doing some Po-Cha for folks when I get back! I'll post pictures in the next few days, hopefully.

2007-02-23T09:23:00.000-05:00

Here are pictures from Kenting! Kenting is down on the southern tip of the island, the warmest spot with the best beaches. This was our family vacation spot growing up. It is about a 5 hour drive from Changhua. It was fun taking Jenny all around and doing things I used to do as a kid! The picture above is of Jen soaking up the sun on our hotel room's private balcony.

We only had two beautiful days out of the four, but we enjoyed the blustery weather anyways! Here we are at the "windy point" and boy was it windy that day. The waves were huge too (15-20 ft.). The coast line below is where we go looking for glass balls. We went down there the next day and actually found one, though it wasn't a glass ball but rather a glass "rolling pin" float.

Here I am with the prize, as yet untouched by man! It had some sea weed and barnacles on it. These hand blown glass floats were used years ago by the Japanese on their fishing nets. They've long since switched to plastic floats so the glass ones are something of collector's items. They circulate the Pacific and get dropped on coasts from Taiwan, to Japan, to Alaska, to California and the South Pacific islands. I think they stopped making them back in the 1950's. We were first introduced to collecting glass balls by Kevin Hake. He had a collection of over 100 balls when we met him. Kevin, if you ever read this, how big did your collection get? When did they stop making glass balls? Have you gone collecting anywhere else since heading back to the States? Just curious.

This is Robby and Boaping and their family and parents and Robby's sister. We just happened to run into them at a breakfast shop down in Kenting. Neither of us knew the other would be down there then. It was great. We had breakfast and hung out for a couple hours. We snapped this photo opposite the breakfast shop down by Nixon's.These are some flying fish on display by a side walk vendor. I had never had flying fish before so we ordered one. It was really good! My favorite treat down in Kenting is squid on a stick, though! Here I am enjoying a squid on a stick. They baste them with this BBQ sauce that is pretty good and then sprinkle some sesame seeds on. I love them! Jenny wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the delicacy, but she tried it! Jumping off Nixon's nose! Jen took this picture from the water while we were snorkeling. I think I ended up jumping like 6 or 7 times over the course of our four day trip. I'll never forget the first time I jumped. I was with my dad, Patrick Doherty, Jesse Hake, and Kevin Hake. I remember it as a kind of choppy cold day and it seemed like such a high jump once I got up there. I was about 12. It was a blast. I think I ended up jumping three times that day. Snorkeling was definitely the highlight of the trip! We found out our digital camera really works underwater and takes some pretty good pictures! Here I am diving to the bottom after a shell that caught my eye. The fish would have been really hard to photograph if there wasn't so many of them. I found that my photos of groups of fish from a distance didn't turn out nearly as well as the pictures I captured of lone fish up close. I probably took sixty plus pictures, but only a few of them really turned out very well. Trying to photograph the fish while snorkeling added a whole new dimension and challenge to the activity. Of course at first we just floated and enjoyed watching the fish go about all of their interesting daily activity, but after a couple of dives I got the biggest kick out of chasing them around with the camera trying to "shoot" them.

I loved these little guys. They are so bright. They were very shy though and when ever I got the camera close enough to take a picture of them they'd dart behind some coral. Finally I waited for one to come back out of hiding and that's how I got this picture.

These angel fish were impossible to get close to long enough for a photo. I finally snagged this shot while at full speed with fins on about ten feet underwater. Underwater photography can be every bit as demanding as raft guiding... Especially when you don't have scuba tanks on. I'm going to have to try scuba diving some day. I know I'd love it. Jenny is Padi certified thanks to her Dad. We thought about renting her the gear, but didn't as we weren't too sure about how safe it is for the baby. The rare, beautiful, and deadly lion fish. I wish I'd gotten a better picture of him, but I didn't want to be to pushy and irritate him. I've heard they'll chase you if they get irked. Some of the other things we saw included a jelly fish, sea anemones, brittle stars, sea stars, puffer fish, a huge dead lobster, some big and beautiful sea slugs, needle or maybe pipe fish, and parrot fish. Surprisingly we didn't see any eels, something I always remember seeing when I was a kid and went snorkeling down here. Yet another beauty rarely seen under the sea!It was a good trip. We enjoyed this sunset our last evening down in Kenting.

2007-02-20T21:06:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. I got a year older. We moved. We celebrated Chinese New Year with Jimmy and his family. We got a dog. The baby has started waking Jenny up in the middle of the night when it moves. I've felt the baby, too!

We spent my birthday at Dan and Grace's. They served us up a birthday dinner to be remembered. The highlight of the meal (for me) was a special Chinese dish called "gwa-bow." It is kind of like a Chinese hamburger of sorts. It is stewed pork sliced thin and put in a steamed bun. After that we had cake and I blew the candles right off the cake! Dan managed to get this picture with the candles in the air!

We moved from Erich and Andy's house (Thank you for letting us live there!) into the Navigator's Church building, our (the Pense's) old house. We are living in the nursery room, my parents old bedroom the very room Elissa was born in! Technically we are still mid-move, as we are looking for another place to live for the next two months. We can't believe we only have two months left here! The time has flown!
We enjoyed a wonderful Chinese New Year celebration at Jimmy's new house! His wife, Jenny, fixed up an amazing meal. They explained the symboism behind some of the dishes they served. Fish is served because of a Chinese saying, "Fish for every year," which means something along the lines of hopefully we'll have extra fish left over at the end of the year for next year or money left over for next year. Then they have chicken because in Taiwanese the word for Chicken, "gay," also means household and it is hoped that each year you'll be able to celebrate New Year with your whole house hold. Then they have two types of soups. One soup is made from a white beat that they call "white carrot" in Chinese and is supposed to be for good luck. The other is made with a green vegetable that is really long and bitter and called "long life vegetable." They drink it for long life. It was a very special meal and we were honored to partake with them.
After wards they pasted up some Chinese letters on red strips of paper around their door. Seeing them do it reminded me of Americans hanging Christmas lights. The whole family was out there while one of Jack was up on a stool and everyone was saying "Up higher" "No, more to the left" "More to the right now!" It was fun. The red on the door always reminds me of Passover as well. Here are some pictures of the baby! These are 3-D ultrasounds taken at 4 months and 3 days. The baby is at 6 months now! We've finally come up with two names we both like. If it is a boy: Joshua Luke Pense. If it is a girl: Isabelle Jade Lynne Pense. Now all we have to do is continue reading up on the birthing process and wait!

A final word on the dog. Jen found a pitiful little stray puppy and named it Ginger. It had apparently been hit by a car and its right back leg and all of the ribs on its right side were broken and then healed, as a result it hobbles with a sorry looking limp. She bought it dog food, a toy, treats, and a collar and leash. And we've taken it for several walks up Ba-Gua-Shan. We found out from some neighbors that there is a club on campus that helps find homes for stray dogs. So after New Years break is over we are going to take Ginger to the club so that she can get a more permanent home.

2007-02-12T02:22:00.000-05:00

The Art of the Shao-Bing...

Jimmy told us we have to learn how to make Shoa-Bings, our favorite traditional Chinese breakfast food, before we go back to the US. He scheduled a morning and went through the steps slowly, Jen by his side frantically scribbling notes the whole time. I took pictures and traslated. Hopefully we'll beable to make some Shoa-Bing for everyone when we get back!
First he showed us how to mix the dough. It is made of only hot water, cold water, flour, salt, and sesame seeds.

2007-02-12T02:09:00.000-05:00

The "High Speed Rail" trip to Taipei...

Here we are just after arriving in Taipei! The trip was fast. It only took us about 45 min. to complete what is normally about a two hour drive. The train travled at about 209 km/hr. or about 120 miles an hour. The tickets were half price for the first month after the train started running, so we couldn't resist taking it up to Taipei. It was about $10 one way.
I loved this little bonzai display at the train station in Taipei and couldn't resist taking some pictures. Resa, how are your bonsais coming? Jen loved the "Lion" dogs at the fronts of some of the places we visited. Here she is in front of the National Palace Museum with one of the bigger ones we encountered. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures once we were inside the National Palace Museum. We really enjoyed it. They had Ju-ware on display while we were there. Beautiful celadon glazed palace ware and among the rarest fine ceramic pieces of ancient China. There are less than 70 pieces in existence and 21 of them were on display. The Museum owns the largest single collection of them in the world. Click on the following link to see pictures of the display http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh95/grandview/juware/account_en.html

Jen really enjoys feeding fish. These were some of the biggest goldfish she thinks she's ever seen. The duck vied with them for the food she threw and was often pushed out of the way by the fish.

Resa we thought you'd like this shop in Yingge. Yingge is Taiwan's most famous pottery village. This shop focused on plant potters in contrast to the tea pot obsession most of the shops seemed consumed with.

We got swept up in the craze. We bought this little tea pot. We will bring back tea and "pow-cha" for everyone when we get back. Imagine the size of kiln it would take to fire this vase! We got to see a lady painting bisqued porcelain with cobalt stain. I thought I took a picture of here, but apparently didn't. She had traced out her pictures with a pencil and then was going over them with a brush and stain. They were really beautiful.

Here we are with Jimmy's brother, Ted, and his wife. We rendezvoused with them in Taipei and enjoyed going out to eat with them. They treated us to a traditional hot-pot or "hwo-gwo." You can see the hot pot steaming at the side!

Here's Jen at the Chang-Kai-Shek memorial. Its a pretty big place. The one place that was just as big as I remember it. On the inside there is a big statue of Chang-Kai-Shek sitting in a big chair. It looks a lot like pictures of the Lincoln Memorial I've seen. It is kind of funny that I've never seen the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Memorial, but I've been to this memorial a number of times. We might have to make a trip to DC when we get back. The Palace Museum really made me want to visit the Smithsonian.

Jen being spontaneous!

We went to a famous jade market in Taipei and picked out a piece of jade for Jen. My dad has always given my mom a gift when she's had one of us kids, so I thought I'd carry on the tradition and asked Jen what she'd like. She decided on a piece of jade.

We finally made it to Taipei 101. We enjoyed seeing it, but it wasn't as big as we thought it would be. Also, to our dismay, the restaurants at the top weren't open and serving yet, so we settled for some tempura in the basement food court.

Wow! What a big bellied bathing beauty!!!

We enjoyed a relaxing evening soak in the hot springs at Bei-Tou. (Don't worry, Jen stayed out of the really hot pools.) On the baby front, Jen is experiencing a lot of activity. I've even felt the baby a couple of times! Wednesday (tomorrow) I should be able to post some more ultra-sound pictures, as a friend of ours said he'd scan the pictures for me and put them on a CD.

2007-02-06T20:57:00.000-05:00

Brief General Update:

We have been back from traveling for a week now. We enjoyed an extended trip on which we spent time in Taipei (the capital way up north) and Kenting (a great beach town way down south) with stops in Beitou (a hot spring spot), Yingge (a pottery town), Sanyi (a wood working village), and some beach combing on the Pacific coast.
I've created multiple posts to cover these trips, but haven't had time since getting back to Changhua to post any of them. The problem lies in that we started working at the same time Chinese winter vacation began. Our work takes up a lot of our day time hours, while Chinese vacation has limited library hours at the university (where we gain computer access) to those same hours.
I (Andy) am currently substituting for a friend at an English School. My friend, Greg Grobler, a South African went back to South Africa for a month to visit and attend his brother's wedding. I've also picked up several hours of private tutoring. Jen has been doing a winter camp at the Changhua Girls high school and also has several hours of private tutoring.
Both of us are still enjoying Taiwan, but we've made a transition from tourist to short-term residents. Jen's really getting to see what living in Taiwan is like, daily grind and all. I'm getting reacquainted with it as pleasant memories fade in the face of present realities. There is a lot I forgot about life in Taiwan over the last seven years I've been back in the States. Time seems to sift memory simultaneously leaving the most pleasant and difficult memories, while letting the rest of the daily grim drift through. Pollution, dust, the weariness of driving in chaotic traffic, the noise pollution, the light pollution at night- are all things I'm remembering as the honeymoon ends... But we still love being here. The friends we have here especially make it a treasure.

2007-02-01T02:21:00.000-05:00

So this is how they plant trees in Taiwan. I used to wonder how they got them into some of the inner court yards and up on some of the roofs. I always figured it was by creative Sherpa style hauling that they got some of the trees into some of the places they do. But alas we stumbled upon this sight on our way to a coffee shop and it shall hence forth remain forever de-mysticized.

Here we are eating lunch with our old friends, Bob and Huei Pierce. We are at Tea Works, a coffee shop in Changhua not too far from where we live. Kris Watson took this picture. We ran into him a couple of weeks ago. He was here visiting friends for a month. We went down to the Science Museum in Taichung and hung out with him for a morning after grabbing some dan-bings and drinking some doa-jiang at a 24 hour breakfast shop.

There is nothing like a jun-ju-nai-chia in the middle of a hot Taiwan day. Actually I think Kris got some kind of carmel and tea concotion, Jen got a mu-gwa-niou-nai and I got a hong-cha with jun-jus. (For those who don't know all of those weird names are romanizations for Chinese words. For those in the know good luck figuring my romanization out.) Here we are at the park up by Dong-Hai. We came upon this massive garden of transplanted boulders and decided that it was designed expressly for the purpose of allowing MK's to play tag on. It was a blast. It was tag and you couldn't touch the grass.

Here we are afterwards with Taichung city as our back drop (beyond the trees).

Scooter Kings! This was our parting shot with Kris! He left for the States the next day. It was neat catching up with him and hanging out for a day. So many good memories, so little time.

Here Jen is enjoying a giant crepe wrap with some sort of salad inside. On our way home we stopped by the Feng-Jia night market. A famous night market in Taichung and grabbed some shiou-chir for dinner.

2007-02-01T02:09:00.000-05:00

Here we are with Ta-Ta Shan in the back ground just before we launch off on our hike. It ended up being a lot longer hike than we originally thought it would be and allot more rewarding.

Here's Jen almost at the top. She counted 3,447 steps to the top! Kinda blows the Kaymoor mine hike out of the water!
Here I am on the summit! It was gorgeous. I'll insert another picture later of Jen and I. I don't know how I ended up over here (at the computer lab) without the picture. Its nice these posts aren't set in stone.Here we are on our way back to Ali-Shan.
We looked all over for a place we could prop our feet up and get the classic Chaco foot pose. Finally we found the one spot that seemed to work, but it was in the middle of the road! There was actually a car coming full throttle at us when I clicked this picture. As soon as the picture was taken we darted to safety!

2007-01-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

We finally did some traveling! We spent half a day in Chia-yi, where we toured two museums and ate some famous turkey rice, and then went on by train to Ali-Shan, a beautiful mountain area renowned for its sunrises. The sunset, pictured above, was there to greet us upon our arrival!This is the train we took up to Ali-Shan. According to our Lonely Planet it "is one of only three remaining steep grade alpine trains in the world." The train ride begins just above sea level at 30 meters and ends at Ali-Shan 3 and 1/2 hours later at over 2200 meters above sea level. During the course of the train ride you go through 49 tunnels and over 77 bridges and complete two switch backs. You also go through three different Forrest zones. The first is the subtropical which has banana, bamboo, and dragon-eye trees. The second is the temperate zone which has camphor, cedar, tea, and betel nut trees. The third is the alpine zone which has cypress, fir, pine and hemlock. (Of course I gleaned all this info from our Lonely Planet write up on the area.)

Here is our first view of Ta-Ta-Shan. The Lonely Planet guide didn't have anything on this mountain, but we ended up enjoying this mountain more than anything else while we were up at Ali-Shan. It dominates the view from Ali-Shan and so I asked if there were any trails that lead to the top of it. It turned out that the summit used to house an old military radar station and there was a trail up, so we found it and hiked it. It was a surprisingly nice trail, not much bushwhacking required though we did some anyways.The moon came out really big and bright our first night up at Ali-Shan. I tried and tried to take a picture of it, but with the time delay required the pic was always blurry. Finally I pined the camera to the ground so it wouldn't move in the slightest and snapped this photo. I think we need a tripod. We rose early and hiked an hour to see the sunrise the next morning.The next morning this "show of color" greeted us after our hour or so long hike up through the woods to a pavilion that had been built especially to watch the sunrise from. We ended up getting to the pavilion an hour before anyone else and seeing some really beautiful color on the clouds. By the time the sun actually rose high enough to make it over the mountains the color was all gone, but it was still beautiful. Here I'm warming Jen's feet up while we wait on the sunrise. We were plenty warm on the hike up, but once we got there we started to feel the cold.Where else can you see a beautiful sunrise in such a picturesque setting and get yelled at by a man with a bull horn? The Taiwanese haven’t quite caught on to the idea of seeking serenity in nature. Everything is a marketing opportunity. From what I could gather he was selling wasabi (Ali-Shan is the only place in Taiwan where wasabi roots are grown), high mountain tea (something else Ali-Shan is famous for), and sugared and dried cherries and plums. Apparently he was just taking advantage of a captive audience who'd come up to this pavilion to see the sunrise. It was kind of bizarre. Not exactly our ideal sunrise viewing. We decided we'd find a less public venue for our future sunrise viewings, but then were too tired from all the hiking we did to get up for another sunrise. Plus the sunsets ended up being allot more beautiful and allot less work.Here the sun is rising over Snow Mountain, Taiwan's highest peak, so named because it is one of the only mountains that consistently sees snow in Taiwan when it does it is front page stuff!We went off the beaten path and explored some wasabi beds up in the woods. They were terraced nicely and seemed to be farmed by ghosts as we never saw any farmers up around the beds though we'd see them in town on their way out there in the mornings or on the roads coming back in the evenings.I guess the unusually warm weather for this time of year teased this plum tree into producing an early blossom. It was the only one in a whole orchard of plum trees. The plum blossom is Taiwan's national flower and tons of people come up to the mountains when the plum trees bloom. It is also the flower painted on the tail of China Airlines planes. (China Airlines is Taiwan's national airline, not China's. Check out their website to see what I mean about the flower on their airplanes http://www.china-airlines.com/ch/index.htm )

Here I am posing with a 2000 year old Chinese cypress. One of the last remaining. There were a lot of stumps in the forest left over from when the Japanese clear cut the region about 100 years ago. Some how this one managed to escape the chainsaws.We couldn't believe this sign when we saw it! The things people see in an old stump. "Vast imagination" is right!Here you can see what they refer to as the "sea of clouds" some thing that happens once in a while up at Ali-Shan. We ended up seeing it two of the three days we were up there. This photo was taken at sunset. We'll put up some pictures of our Ta-Ta-Shan climb next.

2007-01-11T01:26:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of Jen paddling a Ducky this summer on the Gauley river! They will only be available for viewing till the end of January so look quick!

http://www.leisuresportsphoto.com/mp_client/pictures.asp?action=viewphotos&size=fullsize&pagenum=32&id=1668680&eventid=23880

http://www.leisuresportsphoto.com/mp_client/pictures.asp?action=viewphotos&size=fullsize&pagenum=31&id=1668679&eventid=23880

2007-01-10T04:25:00.000-05:00

She's so beautiful! And her belly looks nice too. We’ve been to the doctor twice in the last two weeks. We are still not sure if we are going to have a girl or a boy, but we got to see some really amazing ultrasounds. On one of the visits we got some 3-D pictures taken! We’ll try and post them when we find a scanner. Here are some pictures of Jen’s belly to tide you over till then. It is even bigger now! She’s at 17 weeks and 5 days now, where as these pictures were taken at 16 weeks. Seeing the baby move around on the ultrasound really makes the idea of having a baby come to life. When I found out Jen was pregnant I started thinking about how much this was going to change our lives: the costs, the inconveniences, the trials ahead. But when I saw the baby’s heart beating on the monitor and then the baby bouncing around in utero the joy of having a real live baby hit home. Can’t wait! Oh, the doctor in Changhua moved Jen’s due date back from the June 14, the due date we received in Tacoma, to June 11. The baby probably won’t come on either, but hey at least we have a good idea of when to expect him or her. Maybe we’ll have the baby on Dad’s birthday!

It’s been a whole year since our last post! Actually it only been about two weeks since we last posted, but it is 2007 now! I hope everyone enjoyed ringing in the New Year with close friends and family! We had a good New Year, though we didn’t stay up till midnight. Staying up late has been bothering Jen since she’s been pregnant, and we didn’t want to risk her feeling bad for a day or two over staying up till midnight. We did rise early for the sunrise though! I don’t know if it is an Asian tradition or not, but a lot of people over here rise really early for the first sunrise of the New Year. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we didn’t get much of a sunrise. We enjoyed the morning in spite of the clouds, though. Here we are with what should have been the sun rising over the city of Changhua in the back ground.

Here is the view down from the highest point on our 12 story apartnment building into the court yard where the fish pond and garden are. I'm actually standing on the roof of the water tower on top of our building. Geckos are common here. We startled this one when we climbed up on the water tower. It ran over near my foot so I snapped its portrait. Here's Jen decending from the water tower to the roof after our attempted sun rise viewing.We stumbled on this delacacy while it was awaiting preparation for a funeral feast. We couldn't resist snapping a photo. I've had pigs ear several times, as an appetiser before meals, since being here.We have this lovely orchid on display in our living room. We bought it on the side of the street for $6 US. It smells as good as it looks.The Mini Reunion! I got to see some class mates from high school last week! Gabe Chan, Grace Harbour, David Lin and Jenny and I got together for some Chinese Hot Pot down in Tiger City. The meal was great! We enjoyed just sitting and talking and eating for about three hours. Definitely the way reunions should be conducted, over steaming plates of good food. Gabe is quite the chef, when he has the fire under the hot pot turned up! I got to catch up on seven years with Grace and five years with Gabe and Dave. Grace is going to graduate from Columbia in New York with a degree in Law this May. Gabe is mid way through a Masters in Architecture at MIT. Dave is two and a half years into medical school at Drexel University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They all promised to come white water rafting with us this summer!Here I am gaurding Elliot Tan! When I graduated from Morrison he was 8 or 9 years old. Now he's schooling me in the Alumni game. He burned me at least four times. I don't think there was any Alumni fast enough to gaurd him, though Dave did a good job. He dunked in warm ups before the game!Here I'm going up for a shot. (Which I made! I was 100% from the 3 point line, though I only took one, and 0% from the free throw line though I took 4.)Here's Dave exploding to the basket after burning his defender! He was unanimously voted the Alumni player coach! He is both a phenomenal player and leader.Here is Dave and I with the score board behind us, after our unexpected victory by a mere three points! The Alumni, at least, had a lot of fun that night!

2006-12-27T20:13:00.000-05:00

Two things transpired recently that I thought would be of interest but that I don't have pictures to go with. First we experienced three minor earthquakes. They were minor for us anyways. Down south at its origin the quake registered at 7.1 according to the USGS. For us it was just a firm shaking and slight rumble. It made Jen pretty nervous and was the first earthquake she remembers experiencing. Because the apartment we're living in is on the 7th floor I think we felt it more than if we'd been at ground level. There was a bowl of soup on our kitchen counter and after the earthquake the bowl was still on the counter but all of the soup was all over the counter and floor. That was as close as it came to tragedy for us. The other thing I wanted to post was we spent yesterday with some old friends. We went out to lunch with David Lin, Bruce Moore, and Robert Turner. Dave was a classmate and good friend in high school. We played on the basketball team together and worked on the year book together. Now he's in medical school at Drexel University in Philadelphia http://www.drexelmed.edu/ . Bruce was my health class teacher in high school and a good friend. We did some sports ministry together including a missions trip to Malaysia. He reminded me that at one point on that trip I left my passport and ticket in my suitcase and then checked it. The flight ended up delayed for a half an hour over that. I ended up having to buy another ticket, which was refunded when I presented the original. Bruce is now the Director of Development at Morrison. Mr. Turner was my JV basketball coach. I remember him as a calm, serious, and focused coach. I enjoyed two great seasons with him. He was a dorm parent when I was in high school, but now he is the Boarding Supervisor (supervises the dorms). After lunch we played basketball at Morrison. Which was also allot of fun. Though I'm in terrible shape. There is an alumni game on January 3 that I plan on playing in.

2006-12-25T06:34:00.000-05:00

Christmas was Great! Here's Jen next to my stocking... er I mean sock.

Here's one of her stocking stuffers! This is a box of mochi a chewy Japanese/Chinese confection that Jen has fallen in love with. The flavors represented are: peanut, red bean, green tea, taro, sesame, strawberry, chocolate, and coffee- all wonderful we can assure you!

Here's the gifts we enjoyed opening. Thanks Dan and Grace! Thanks Mom and Dad! We had fun opening our gifts. Thanks for the slippers Grandma and Grandpa! They fit great! We'll prove it.Here we are (Jen's taking the picture) at a Christmas party with some old friends! Dan and Grace drove us down to Taichung to the Anderson's house. Starting in the back from left to right we have: Ryan Anderson, Andy (me), Dave Anderson, Mr. Kuhn, Dan Hurd, (front) Karen Anderson, Ruthie Kuhn, Rachel Kuhn, and Grace Hurd. It was a fun time. We had Christmas dinner, then talked and reminisced about past Christmas's and then had pie. Thanks for having us!

2006-12-13T02:03:00.000-05:00

The cities here really start to wake up somewhere in between when the sun sets and moon rises.

The pond in the garden at our apartment building. We'll post pics of the apartment we've been graciously given to live in by our friends, Eric and Andy, later. We've really started to settle in and look for work.

A bouquet of live phalanopsis orchids.

The lay out at a local vegetarian buffet. Eating vegetarian has never been so easy for Jen. Instead of picking from four or five options she's asking me what forty different dishes are. I'm learning patience.

Just couldn't resist the urge to climb a good tree.

The rare and often maligned Taiwanese Two Headed Butterfly, native and found exclusively on the island of Taiwan... Actually this is the first X-rated picture on our site.

Here we are eating dinner with some old friends. Jimmy (middle) and his wife Jenny (left) used to employ me at a breakfast restaurant. His son Jack sits on the right. We ate beef noodles, Chinese ravioli, pot stickers, pig ear, a sweet kimchi, and some sea weed. It was excellent. Jen sampled all but the pigs ear!Here Jen is drinking one of our favorite drinks: pearl milk tea. You can see the black pearls in the bottom of her milk tea. They serve them with a thick straw so you can suck up the pearls while your drinking! The pearls are actually these chewy balls kind of like giant tapioca balls. It makes a tasty dessert drink.Sugar cane is tasty and good for your teeth. Often we'll buy a bag of sugar cane and pause to enjoy it in a local park, as we are here.I should have framed a bunch of night scenes between the sun set and this moon rise, but I didn't have them. I'll put some up latter. I've got a job interview today with a kindergarten that wants me to teach their students English. Hopefully it'll work out and I'll get some hours. All the jobs I've been offered so far offer relatively few hours, except one which wanted me for 45 hours, but was going to pay less than half the going rate here.

2006-12-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

This is Jenny at the dinner table with Robby and Pauline and their two precious kids: Joshua and Grace. They picked us up from the bus station in Taichung and have hosted us now for nearly a week!

Here we are on Robby's motor scooter at a local outdoor market. We are going to buy our own scooter soon. The markets are really neat places. The food is really cheap, if you take the time to bargain. Its the equivilant of a Wal-mart. You can buy anything from shoes to fruit.

Here is Jenny eating some beef noodles (without the beef, she gave that to me!) in a favorite restaruant of mine up in the village. The plate has chopped sea weed on it, a tea egg, and some chopped pigs ear, three of my favorite appetizers!

This is Dragon's Fire fruit (direct translation of the Chinese name). It is really good. On the inside it is white or red (depending on the variety) with tons of little black seeds which almost look like pepper lightly sprinkled on it.
Here's a ghastly sight! AAhhhh! A vegitarian's worst nightmare! This is a pigs face, some hearts, and some livers on display at the local butcher stand in the open market near Robby and Pauline's. Lucky for Jenny it's not what we had for dinner!
We couldn't finish our post on such a frightful note, so here is a lovely orchid. This orchid only cost about US $6. They are really really cheap and really really beautiful. I'll be buying lots of orchids for myself... I mean Jenny, while we're here.

2006-12-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

One last State side picture! We had a great time in CA. Jenny did an amazing job of keeping her cool while in the midst crazy in-laws, as you can see by the picture. I'll be trying to chop the delay time down between picture taken and posted. For now patience. Thanks for all the wonderful comments! We enjoy reading them!

2006-12-03T19:48:00.000-05:00

A picture of Jenny's belly was requested before we left the States, so here it is. Three months seems awfully earlly to begin showing, but then she is pretty tiny.

The day before we left my Grandpa Norm set this mug down in front of me and told me that it was what I have to look forward too!

2006-12-02T23:44:00.000-05:00

Erich Rempel went climbing with us in Joshua Tree two days before we left for Taiwan. All said we climbed three routes in about 5 hours. It was an amazing day. We went to Hidden Valley. Walking in to the walls we climbed felt like walking through a weird maze. We warmed up (and I pumped out) on the Thin Wall then we walked across to the Great Burrito wall and enjoyed a really long exposed route. We thought we were set with a 60m rope, but then there wern't any rap anchors so we (Erich and Andy) had to take a walk on the wild side (precarious walk off). It was adventure climbing at its best. The rock was very different from the southern sandstone I'm used to. It is a really corse decomposing granite. The setting was surreal at times. At the end of the day we enjoyed the incredible sunset pictured above. I'm definitely going back for more someday. The more I climb trad the more I love it. We took a lot of pictures while there. Here are a few.

2006-11-27T22:16:00.000-05:00

Washington seems to be the place we commemorate our largest leaps in life. Four years ago I proposed to Jenny in the Space Needle. This trip we found out we were pregnant! Here is an ultrasound we got in Tacoma the day before we left.

Right now we are in Hemet、California visiting my Grandpa and Grandma Dyck. We had Thanksgiving dinner here with them. Erich flew in for the day as well and took Jen、Grandpa、and I up in the plane he flew in on. It was a two seater so he took us up one at a time. It was a lot of fun! We played golf after dinner on the par-3 course near Grandpa and Grandma’s house in the afternoon after Thanksgiving. Then of course we had pie. Our days here have been very relaxing. We’ve played golf and shuffle board and gone to their local swimming pool (where we meant to test out the water proof capabilities of the new digital camera we purchased、but forgot… maybe tomorrow) and of course we’ve played cards (Hand and Foot) each night. We’ve also called my parents and some Taiwan friends on Skyp! A really cool internet phone system where you can see who you’re talking too and the best part is its free!
All the pictures are from here in California、as we just got the camera. Hopefully we’ll do a better job of documenting things from here on out now that we have a camera!
Here is a gorgeous sunrise we weren't awake for、but Grandpa snapped a picture of with our digital because we left it out on the coffee table! Our digital is already paying dividens! We don't even have to wake up to enjoy a wonderful sunrise!

2006-11-27T20:40:00.000-05:00

Melissa came up and visited us at the end of October in West Virginia just before we embarked on our epic-end-of-the-year-family-visit-trip. We took her climbing and rappelling in the scenic New River Gorge and did some hiking there as well. Here are some pictures from her visit.

Can you see the monkey's face? Mellisa has her hand on his head. He looks more like a gorilla than a monkey to me.

Even Bei-Long couldn't resist getting some climbing in. Here he is pulling the crux on a high ball problem.

Here I am showing Melissa how to rappel. Our rafting trips ended on a beach beneath the New River Gorge Bridge each day this past summer. Its a beautiful bridge no matter where your looking at it from. It's 876ft. off the water and 3030 and 1/2 feet long. Each fall base jumpers parachute off of it on the the bridge's birthday which is known as Bridge Day.

Here's Melissa about to go over the edge. The rappel was about 100ft. long, but you have about a 1000 ft. view. That muddy streak is the river far far below.

Hanging out West Virginia style!

2006-06-13T06:31:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from graduation! We had some distinguished guests come in from over 2500 miles away: Norm and Pat Dyck from Hemet, CA! The picture on the right is of everyone (Seb, Elisa, Jenny, Christy, Norm, Vicki holding Grace, and Pat) at the coluseum except Resa who took the picture and Al Degiacomo. Al came seperately and was seated across the way. Thanks for coming guys!

Here's everybody afterwards just before going to our favorite restaruant in Berea: Papa Leno's for lunch.
Here's a picture from the picnic. Eva and Carrie made this wonderful cake and half the food. It was a lot of fun.
Since graduation we've moved to Fayetteville, West Virginia. We've settled in and completed our white water raft guide training. We've worked two weekends so far. Andy has been doing both rock climbing guiding and raft guiding while Jenny is sticking to the water. We live on Pleasant View Farm with Mary Ellen and Frank Coffey. Its a really beautiful place and has a pleasant view as the name suggests. We've been attending church at the Borsman's. They are a wonderful family who've taken us under their wing here in WV. We're publishing this post from Denny and LaVonne's in Moneta, VA. We will post some pics from our trip down here in a couple of days and hopefully some pics of our West Virgina friends, home, and work.

2006-04-24T13:44:00.000-04:00

Alot has happened in this last month. Stuff we should have been posting about, but didn't have time because things were going so fast. At the beginning of the month we house sat out in the boonies for a week. That was really tough, but the good thing about it was we were able to buy another kayak with the money we got from that. So Jen has a new kayak now and she's given me her old one. Lucky me! Then the next week Al DeGiacomo visited and we found out at the same time that Simeon was heading home for the weekend with his truck and was willing to take some of our stuff up to West Virginia for us! So we stayed up late strapping stuff onto Simeon's truck. I think he was surprised the next day when he saw it. We strapped on a couch and chair, Jen's dresser, and several boxes of stuff. Wish we had a picture of it. It was crazy. We got to catch up with Al some. It was a good time, but too short. Fortunately we're going to see him before we graduate and leave Berea.
Things are going so fast! We can't believe it is already the end of April. A month since we last posted (don't worry we'll begin posting more regularly after May 13).
Well, this past week we had alot of rain and so the creeks around here were up. A friend of ours Matt Dalton took us out on Silver Creek this last Saturday. We ran a 4 foot water fall! We got some really good video and photos. Let us know what you think. Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a kayak exploits blog. We'll start posting pictures of other things as well.
Here's the Crew before putting in. Three kayaks up on top. Think we could fit another one or two?
Here's Jen (in the pic on the left) having fun on the river! We have an awsome video of her doing the waterfall we'll show you next time we see you. We want to post it, but it hasn't worked when we've tried so we'll just show ya'll in person.
Here's Jen just after she went over the water fall! Over on the Right is Matt and Josh surfing. We ended up spending two hours at this surf hole because we were having so much fun!

2006-03-24T12:54:00.000-05:00

Some pic's of Andy's broken nose just after the accident. He broke it on the first rapid he kayaked through but did the rest of the six miles of the river sucessfully. It blead for the next few hours and we were afraid he might need stitches. We got it checked a few days later and it seemed fine aside from it being broken.