Arizona?

Can you believe this is the forecast for Mount Lemmon? It had 1/2" of snow this morning. :) No, Dave did not got snowboarding yet.

True Fans

Go Irish!

Thanks to Johnny, we have this year's "The Shirt" from Notre Dame. :) We wore them on Saturday, November 25, for the game against USC. We watched the game until the very last second, even though it was quite painful. It is truly tiring to lose to SC AGAIN!

It's okay--we will continue to cheer for the Irish.

Cheer, cheer for ole Notre Dame! Cheer with us (click on the "us")!

Oh, no!

It was difficult watching the Irish lose (again!) to USC this past Saturday. Our little Irish girl stayed up to cheer. She loves watching Mommy do the Irish jig when the Irish score. Unfortunately, there weren't enough of them for victory in this last regular season game of 2006. :(

Give Thanks

We are so grateful that God provides a family for us wherever he takes us. Here in Arizona, the chapel community has embraced us as ohana--family--and for that, we are truly grateful. :)

We enjoyed having The Ground Floor (ministry for young airmen) community come over for Thanksgiving Day. It made me feel at home with all the people milling about. :) Hey, and I didn't have to cook any of the 3 birds (Well, I did make shoyu chicken in addition to them, though.).

Every place we move to makes us miss the people we used to celebrate with in the past: family in Vermont & Hawai'i, the Hospitality House family, our international family in the Kentuckiana area (especially Jian & Jill), & our Crossroads to the Nations family. However, we are constantly awed by God's provision to allow us to serve him in another part of his family whenever he takes us away to a new place.

1st Annual Turkey Bowl for the Ground Floor

On the 23rd of November, Dave gathered some friends gathered before the feast to make room for some turkey. Without a coin, they tossed a dollar bill to see--heads or tails?--which team would get to kick off. They enjoyed it so much they went to work off some of the feast after the meal as well. :)

God also painted a beautiful sunset that day. Alas--it's printed in our minds, since we don't have it captured to post.

Hi, Auntie Jung Min! :)

A Tribute To Uncle Johnny

Can you see the writing on Zayne's outfit? "Little Stinker" is a tribute to Uncle Johnny for several reasons, but here are two main ones.
1. Uncle Johnny teaches children (to the parents' chagrin) the true meaning of flatulence.
2. When Uncle Johnny was living in Indiana with his sister and brother-in-law, a skunk sprayed Uncle Johnny as he road home on his bicycle one hot, summer evening. Yikes! Uncle Johnny and the house smelled like the stinky critter for WEEKS! Mon called Dave's mom for advice, for there are no skunks in Hawai'i. Advice: Skunk-be-gone (or something like that) works tremendously with the tomato juice/sauce.

Bug-Eyed

What goes up . . .

Whew--came down nicely! Chaplain Dave did ministry on Saturday, November 18th at Marana Skydiving Center by jumping out of a former crop plane. About 17 people from the base did the jump, and Dave's friend from a chaplain school--Chaplain Rick, serving in New Mexico--jumped from the same plane. :)

It was Dave's second skydiving adventure, and he is looking forward to serving the Lord in similar ways in the future. :) Makana thought it was cool that Daddy had a huge balloon attached to him as he came down. :)

The S . . . Word

Today in our Ephesians Bible study, our leader asked how 5.22ff are linked with the previous verses. "Wives, s . . . to your own husbands" seems to stump the North American female today. Why? Because we've worked so hard to lessen the gap of disparity.

However, as Dave always remembers to link 5.21 with 5.22ff: "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ," I also like to go back to 5.1, where Paul exhorts us to be imitators of God. V 18 also tells us to "be filled with the Spirit." If that is the case, within the triune Godhead, there is submission. Jesus submits to the Father. The Spirit is sent by Jesus. If I am to be a true imitator of God, an image-bearer of God, I should be willing to submit according to his design in my marriage.

Gladly.

Happy Birthday, Donna! :)

Happy Birthday, Donna! :)

We love you and hope you have a blessed next year! Perhaps AJ and Dominic will be good to their Mommy today?

Thank you for being a great sister and aunt! :)

(BTW--You look great!)

A Gift by any Other Name . . .

How did we come to name Makana? Loooong story, but here's the quickie of it.

Dave and I could not agree on an English name; there were too many name-associations (like word-associations). The names I liked for biblical reasons, Dave didn't like because of pop-culture ones. I thought the ones he liked were either TOO common (especially amongst Christian circles) or reminded me of former students (we'll leave it at that).

We were forced to choose a name in April in order for us to be considered in the Marshall Islands. Dave also wanted to name our daughter after me. If you know anything about me and how I feel cheated regarding my name, that idea did not sit well. I had always liked the name Makana, as it means "gift." Dave actually liked it, even without me pointing out that it has the same phonetic consonants as my name.

Having a child has truly been a process we could not really plan nor coerce into happening. Our child is a gift. We could not earn her nor deserve her into being. God has given her to us. (True, we had to fill out all the paperwork, ETC., but it was in God's timing and matching.) Thank you, God! BTW--Dave likes to remind people that a definition of "grace" is that we could never earn it nor deserve it. More on that to come. :)

Happy Birthday, Lisa! :)

Hau'oli La Hanau! Otanjoobi Omedetoo Gozaimasu! :)
To my sister whom I followed around relentlessly as a child: sorry for tagging along! At least you know you were loved by your little sis' to the point that I followed you to kindergarten when I wouldn't stop crying for you at pre-school.

Things I remember you liked as a child: purple (any shade of it), lace (You had your lacey blanket.), pickles, to be the doctor when we played hospital, to be the mommy when we played house, and to be the teacher when we played school. :)

Have a wonderful birthday! :)

Makana's Eyes: Kason's Perspective

Kason: Grandma, everybody has different size eyes.
Grandma: Yes, Kason.
Kason: Grandma, you have the BIGGEST eyes, and Makana has the smallest!

(Mom + I figured Kason must be including Grandma's big glasses in his calculation of her eyes. Perhaps?!)

Happy Camper :)

The first weekend of October found us camping with about 50 military people on Mt. Lemmon. Dave was the sponsoring chaplain speaker, or something like that, and it was fun to be out in the low 40 degree weather (at night). Makana, as usual, was a happy camper. She is quite amenable to all sorts of situations. :)

She enjoyed the 3+ mile hike through a beautiful area that allowed us to see some fall foliage--in Arizona! Makana was fascinated by the bon fire and ate up all the attention she received from her "aunties and uncles" from Davis-Monthan AFB, Luke AFB, and Yuma Marine Camp.

Things we feared:
1. We'd run out of food, diapers, etc. When Makana's on the road, her tummy tends to get a little hungrier than normal.
2. Makana would be too cold.
3. Makana would feel uncomfortable with all the new faces at the campground.
4. She would start to not like the hike about halfway through. Yes, there is turning back, but it would have been just as long as proceeding forward.

Once again, God is gracious. None of our fears were realized! Actually, the second one was, but Daddy gave up his sleeping bag in the middle of Saturday night for his baby. The Vermonter toughed it out. (We had lots of wee wittle blankies for Daddy to use!)