Two weeks have passed already!

Wow! I didn't really feel like posting today, but after noticing that the last time I did was two weeks ago, I feel compelled...I'm not even sure how many of you even read this! =)

Here are some tidbits of our life:

Today is Audriana's 7 month birthday! She celebrated by having a breakfast of waffle bits and mommy's milk, playing with her toys (which is an everyday event), doing a webcast for her Grandmother and Nano (that's my dad), licking my hat, ripping pages from my Sports Illustrated, and by taking several cat naps to help her get over her fever she started yesterday.

She at one point had a fever as high as 102.9, but has been just about as smily and cheerful as usual. We were supposed to go out to Skyline Drive today with some new Chinese friends of ours, Peng and Miaomiao, but had to cancel because of Audriana's fever.

The leaves are turning and falling already even though it's uncharacteristically warm for this time of year. It's been beautiful though, and I just love the Shenandoah Valley - the mountains, woodlands, landscape truly make living in Winchester a wonderful experience. We just praise God for his faithfulness and for having led us to be here and experience a part of his beautiful creation...

I guess the main reason that we haven't posted in so long is that we stay pretty busy during the week and we had visitors from Oregon to our house this past weekend. Chuck and Nelda Harle...were with us Saturday and Sunday. We actually went up to Gettysburg, PA on Saturday to tour the battlefield - which was a neat experience. I purchased the audio tour for anyone who would like to borrow it. =) They were in town to tell us about a really neat opportunity to work with some other friends of ours, Buster and Amy Canfield, whose blog you can catch at http://tonythered.com/canfields/...

I got in late last night after running up to Frederick, Maryland with my Chinese friend Paul...That's always a fun time.

We're getting ready for a pig roast this coming Saturday in which we should have a bunch of international students over at the home of another couple who are going to great lengths to set it up. I think they are building a pit for roasting the pig - should be a fun time.

Audriana went to Picture People (professional photo studio) in the mall here in Winchester and had a free 8x10 made of her in a sheep costume that her mother picked out for her before she was born. If anyone would like a wallet size copy of the (cute) picture, let me know and I'll rib Vikki into getting a sheet or two or however many we need to share with you. =) I actually would like to get some anyway, but it would be nice to know who to send them to.

...We worked on this some over this past week and have finished a position for 2 Corinthians 4:7. I've published our position on Google Docs if anyone is interested in reading it. Click the link below to take you there:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfpfp3d_0vctz6w

Our love to you!

Saturday...

Today Vikki and I went out for a 'date.' There's this really cool 'pollo a la brasa' restaurant in Winchester that's run by a native Bolivian. It's the closest thing to latino rotisserie chicken that I've had since our research trip to Peru in the summer of '02. We had authentic Inca Kola, and yuca (Audriana especially liked the yuca), to go along with the chicken. Wow it's great...the only thing I didn't like was that I tried to speak Spanish to the owner and he was totally unimpressed. I mean I'm getting pretty good at speaking Spanish, and it didn't mean much to him at all. I remarked to Vikki that maybe he gets a lot of people trying to practice their Spanish on him...but I think it's more than that. Something about speaking the native language of the people in their country is impressive to the people of the country, but speaking a foreign language in your native country to others who speak the foreign language as their native language isn't. (i.e. speaking Chinese in China is adored by Chinese people, but it doesn't mean as much to speak Chinese to someone in America) It's like there's an inner circle of native speakers and you're not allowed in that circle...something like that.

Weird.

Anyway, for those of you who were wondering what yuca is, here's the definition from Wikipedia: "The cassava, casava, yuca or manioc (Manihot esculenta) is an a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae (spurge family) native to South America that is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates. Indeed, cassava is the third largest source of carbohydrates for human food in the world, with Africa its largest center of production.[1]"

Audriana loved it. She's starting to pull up on furniture and other objects now. Her mother tells me that she maneuvered from her belly to sitting up on her bottom for the first time today!