Welp, never been here before :)

Mandalay, Myanmar. That's where I am. I've been telling people that I'm going to Burma, but I've learned it's more commonly called Myanmar by people here.
We arrived here yesterday. But we didn't come straight here, we spent two nights and a day in Singapore. And it was incredible. Absolutely amazing. I suppose the fact that we got to stay in one of he world's nicest hotels helped to give that impression:)
I haven't seen much, but so far the culture has reminded me a little bit of Nicaragua and Ethiopia. Except in those countries, I can still sorta read the language. Not understand it, but they use letters, is what I'm trying to say. But here their writing is a all loopy and and curvey. I think it's really beautiful.
The picture at the end was taken while we were in route from Singapore to Myanmar...I think we're doing pretty well for the 13 hour time change:) except I almost fell asleep in in church last night. I've only even felt more tired two other times, in my life. And they were both while traveling and extremely jet lagged, once in Africa and the other in China. Nate actually did fall asleep in church. He was just sitting up and all of the sudden he started to lean over and jerked then he jerked his head up. It was so funny, the girls and I almost bust out laughing.
Well I plan to write more and post more pictures, but I only have my iPod and not the best Internet, so I might not write a lot till I'm state side again. Oh and more thing I have to say, the US is home to four of world's worst airports and one this trip we got to go to two of the top four, Seoul and Singapore. Crazy right? America needs to get its act together in more ways than one:)

a quick update and single digits...

Life's been going well the last few weeks. We have finally settled down after two and a half months of rather intense travel. And I am quite happy. We are now home for a full 32 days. whoot-whoot! And then were off again for another two months, but let's not dwell on that shall we?:) I'm just going to enjoy my time here, because I knew it'll be gone before I know it.

Lately is has also been very cold. Like single digits cold. Even when the sun's shining. Yesterday I went to the barn to check on my bunny Oliver. His water had been thawed that morning, and I went out at lunchtime. I walk into the stall where his hutch is and, yep, both the bottle and dish of water were frozen solid again. So I go up to the milk room for hot water because there isn't any in the barn. And just during the ten second walk up the hill, my hands literally were hurting as from the cold as typed in the code to unlock the door.....

This oh so interesting story will continue, but now Mariah is bugging to come get ready because we are heading out soon for a fun and freezing day of skiing and snowboarding at Snö Mountain!:)

So I got into the milk room and wait a minute until my fingers are able to move then I begin to thaw the water bottle. When I finish I head back to the barn. I reach for the barn doorknob. Stick. Like a tongue to an ice cube. My hands were still wet, which made them even colder, and the bitter wind didn't help anything. I pulled my hand away as soon as I felt it start to stick, and tried again, but faster this time. I went back to Oliver and as I unlocked the latch on his cage, once again my fingers stuck to the frozen metal. It was a beautiful sunny and blue skied day, but that didn't do much against the nine degree weather. And who knows how cold it was with the windchill.

The night before was Velocity. Mom was debating whether or not I should go because I kinda had a cold. "Abby, are you sure you feel up to going?"
"Yes, I'm really fine."
"I don't know why I even ask. I don't trust you, because you'd never say you weren't okay. You'd go even if you were dying."
Which is probably true. But hey, being homeschooled, it's not like I see my friends everyday. So Alezah drove me and we went to Panera Bread for dinner, and then she dropped me off. A bunch of people were outside around a couple of  fires and as I walked around the building, I slipped on a patch of ice. My arms went flying and my legs tried to, too. I didn't totally wipe out and I got my feet under control before they took off, thank goodness, but it was definitely noticeable. Yeah, leave it to me to make a graceful entrance haha.
     As we were leaving the parking lot, the truck's thermometer read 10 degrees. As we neared home, it dropped to 9. Then 8. Then 5. Then 3. Alezah and I wondered if it would hit zero or drop to the negatives. Then it hit 1. My eyes didn't leave the thermometer. And then, 0. I didn't think it would go any lower, but not a minute later it dropped to -2. I was so happy. Don't ask me why, because I'm not even sure why. I guess I just love cold nights, and find something fun about ones that drop to the negatives. And it was only like 9 o'clock. It probably got even colder as the night went on.

Oh, and btw, we had a blast at Snö. It was just Alezah, Mi, Kate, and me. Alezah snowboards, so Kate and I decided this would be a good time to learn. Neither of us had ever been before. Mariah just stuck to skiing though. And I was horrible. But I loved it. I think I still like skiing better, though. But I think that's just because I've been skiing since I was little. If I could actually get down the bunny hill without falling ten billion times, I think I'd like it just as much as skiing, if not more. I snowboarded most of the day, but I also brought my skis with me just in case I wanted to switch. So at the end of the day I decided to do the couple run on skis.

The first couple runs were a little rough...

this mornings happenings...

 This morning Em and I rode Dad's moped to The Over Easy Cafe to pick up some of their awesome sticky buns and bring them back to everyone at the house. While we were all enjoying them, I hear Hallie in the other room, "Sorry."
-Tristan, "I am not going to say it's okay." And he comes walking into the kitchen with his hands on his chest like he's covering a battle wound. "Mommy, Hallie kicked me."
-Mariah, "Tristan you punched her."
"Yeah, but she slammed my finger in her DS first."
Sarah, "I'm sure it was an accident."
Tristan, "It was not."
"Okay, well I think you're okay."
"Yeah but I'm still gonna get her." And running from the kitchen yells, "HALLIEEEEE!"

Ah, ya gotta love little kids:)