Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!!

The time is near upon us for one of my favorite Chinese holidays. The Mid-Autumn Festival, a.k.a. the Chinese Moon Festival. (which is on Sunday, btw) Basically the way it was explained to me was that it's kinda the Chinese equivalent to Thanksgiving--friends and family all get together to celebrate and eat. hahaha.

The first year our family celebrated this festival was the year that Rosy was living with us as an exchange student. We went to eat Chinese food at our favorite restaurant and the man who owned it made special "real" Chinese food and we had moon cakes. OOOHHH the stories. Basically, moon cakes are like a mm of breading surrounding a solid paste in the middle made of various fruits or beans or something. Honestly, I have no clue what they are made out of, but I do know that they usually taste pretty much disgusting. But still, every year we have moon cakes, it's a happy occasion because it is a wonderful time to hang out with your family and you know--laugh at how awkward the cakes taste.

This will be the first year since we began celebrating this festival that I won't be with my family to join in the fun. I'm kinda sad about this, but I guess that's just a part of growing up. Sigh.

So anywho...Happy Mid-Autumn festival everyone!

Crazy?

So...I wonder. If the opportunity to do something you didn't think would happen for a really long time (if it ever happeed at all) suddenly presented itself...does that mean it's the right thing?



It sounds crazy...........






and yet so very PERFECTLY WONDERFULLY SANE

More Pictures.

So, I have some more pictures from Panama--mostly from the San Blas Islands. It seriously was pretty much amazing.

Some of the Kuna children. :) They were way fun, and I invited them to a children's service at the church the next day--good times.

I wonder--is this boat Coast Guard Certified? lol. This is like my favorite boat ever, idk why--just because it's randomly beautiful when you look at it like this, I guess.

Okay, so this is the look of the ocean about an hour before....

Okay, so this picture really doesn't do this storm justice. Basically, to get out to take this picture, I had to run through driving rain--I was dripping wet within the 30 seconds it took me to run from my hut to the beach. The water was going up as high (and sometimes a little over) the dock thing, and there was tons of lightning. We actually had to cancel our church service that night because it was so bad and lasted so long. . . .And yet, you will notice that there are still several little kids out playing in the water. SO dangerous, but it didn't seem to bother them at all.

So...I have more pictures, but most of them aren't really great. I was really awful at the whole picture-taking game this year, apparently.

Pictures! (Finally)

So..Here are a few pics from missions this summer. Basically, they are all from Panama because I kinda couldn't find my camera in my suitcase while we were in Peru. Sorry. :)

It's the "Airport" ont the San Blas Islands. ha. That's the control tower. Checking in for our flight involved walking in a hut and telling them our names. Seriously, it's like the most fun thing ever.

Quico, our amazing Panamanian contact, and I after our weekend at the San Blas Islands. Basically--I was sick and we all smelled like fish--ew. haha.

Good times.

Some Kuna Indians rowing a canoe in the ocean. Not more than 20 minutes later, a HUGE storm came up and the ocean was crazy fierce.

LaSharyn and I at the church on the San Blas Islands. It was AWESOME to get to spend a few days with them and worship with them as well! The bumper stickers say "Jesus is Lord of Kuna Yala" and the other is from Victory Christian Center. :)

More to come later.