Our time in the US Part 2...finally

So I have actually been putting this off since I would have so much time to recount, but I just can't get myself to do another post without going over the rest of our time in the US. So, here it goes...

December 26-January 5
We left bright and early the day after Christmas and flew down to Florida. JoAnn and I were going to spend a few days with my parents and my sister and then meet up with Daniel and some of his family at the condo in Boca Grande (which has quickly become one of my favorite places in the States). We were all looking forward to the warmer weather and I was looking forward to seeing my sister and her son, Tyus, for the first time in a year. I wasn't sure how Ty would handle "Baby Joie" since she has gotten big enough to be able to steal his toys, but he did great and we had a great couple days in Tampa with them. Then it was off to the condos, where Daniel enjoyed playing golf with his dad and JoAnn and I took advantage of the pool/beach with Daniel's mom, sisters and soon to be brother-in-law. It was amazing how as soon as we hit the warmer weather all three of us seemed to instantly feel more relaxed. I guess the warmer weather really does make us feel a little more at home now. One more little side note...the new Indianapolis airport has a section when you are going through security that I have decided should be mandatory in every airport in the world. As you get up to the entrance to the line if you have kids, they motion you over to the side where a couple tables, a security guy and a cart are waiting for you. You then have all the time you need to take off shoes, take out bottles, laptops and fold up the stroller. They put it on a cart and go to the nearest metal detector and motion you to go through as they are the ones to put everything through the machine for you. It really was absolutely wonderful and to top it all off, we were traveling with Kristen's fiance and we got through security at least 20 minutes before he did. Okay, so I guess you can't really appreciate it until you have to travel with children, but seriously it was a huge help. So here are a few pictures from our time in FL...

JoAnn and Tyus. Trying to get both of them to look at the camera at the same time was pretty much impossible.

My parents with both of their grandkids.

JoAnn loved going out on the boat in Boca Grande.


JoAnn loved the pool, but the mid to high 70's temperature wasn't quite as warm as the 80+ weather we are used to in the Philippines, so she got a little cold. Actually, really cold. She couldn't stop shaking for about 15 minutes even wrapped up like a burrito and sitting in the sun.


It got a little cold at night too when we would take the golf cart to dinner. So, Daniel was kind enough to share his sweatshirt with JoAnn.




January 5-23
After our time in Florida and the warm weather seemed like it went by way too fast, we flew back to Indiana and experienced some of the coldest weather we have ever experienced. Alright, maybe not ever, but it sure has been many years at least. I can remember a few days where it got well below zero and the windchill was hovering around -30. Those were the days that you had to force me out of the house and it made me all the more anxious to get back to Manila. Despite the weather, this was a fun part of the trip home. Since the holidays were over, it wasn't quite as busy but we were still able to spend some quality time with both of Daniel's sisters, his brothers that live in Indy and his mom was back from Florida for a few days also. I can't remember when, but sometime after we got back to Indiana Daniel was offered a consulting job for a couple weeks. So for about three weeks, we got to see what it was like having Daniel have a 9 to 5 type job. At one point, I remember asking Daniel if it made him miss working in the US or anxious to get back to the Philippines and we both agreed, it made us even more thankful for the job God has given us in the Philippines. One of my favorite things about being a missionary is the fact that family is expected to come first and our schedules are much more flexible. We were also able to see our friends Matt and Britt and their new baby Addison. We had seen them right before Christmas when Britt was pregnant and I was seriously bummed that we were not able to actually see the baby, so when we found out they were going to be back in Indiana for a few days while we were home I was extremely excited.

January 23-26
We had originally planned on returning to Manila in the beginning of January, so I had thought I wouldn't get another chance to go back to Ohio. As it turned out we hadn't really gotten any answers to what was going on with the crazy rash I had and definitely had no answers on how to treat it long term, so we stayed for an extra month, which gave me the chance to go back to Ohio for another weekend at my parents. Daniel stayed in Indiana since he was still working at the time, but it was a great trip for JoAnn and I. We were able to spend a few extra days with my parents and I was able to see a few people I had missed before Christmas. I even was able to stop and see one of our college friends on the drive from Indianapolis to Columbus. They have a cute daughter that had just turned two, so JoAnn had fun playing with her while I was able to catch up with Tanya. On Saturday I was also able to go to a birthday party for the son of a girl I grew up with. Actually, I sort of grew up with her husband too, but only in the sense that I bought all of my soccer gear from him growing up. Anyway here are a couple pictures of the kids...(of course they aren't really my pictures, but ones I stole off of facebook since I forgot to take pictures myself.)

This is JoAnn and Izzy.

And JoAnn playing with Tanner's new toys at his birthday party.


January 26-February 5
Now for the last couple weeks in the US. There really wasn't much happening other than running around getting last minute things that I wanted to bring back and packing. I used to wait until the day before we left to pack anything. I hated packing in parts and forgetting where I put stuff. Plus, I have to admitt that I can pack a suitcase completely to the brim and still manage to get it under weight almost ever time, so it never really stresses me out. Well, as JoAnn gets older, there is way more to pack and this year they cut our weight limit on the bags, so it was going to be a much harder job than before. By the time February 4 (the day before we left) came around I had three and a half bags packed...I was so proud of myself. Anyway this was a chance to spend some more time with family and friends and say goodbye until June, which is the next time we will be coming back since Daniel's sister is getting married. The goodbyes were as hard as ever even though we will be seeing them much sooner than normal. The best part of the goodbyes though, was Daniel's dad who we hadn't seen since we left Florida surprised us by flying in the day before we left so we could say goodbye in person. Then we flew out on the 5th and was given the chance to take advantage of that wonderful special place for families as we went through the security in Indianapolis.

Finding our Routine Again

So today marks 1 week and 2 days after we landed back here in Manila. I would say it has taken me about 1 week and 1 day to finally feel like I am back to normal. This is the first time that jet lag has taken a pretty good toll on me. I am usually over it in at least three days, but this time I didn't have the luxury of doing things my way and had to go along with JoAnn's schedule. That meant a few more days of 8 PM bed times and waking up the next morning around 4:30 or 5 AM. This whole 13 hour difference makes things a little interesting for a while. Once that was not as much of an issue, the next thing was trying to get our house back to normal after being gone for over 2 months. I have to say though, it's good to be back. I love being with friends and family in the US, but it is times when I come across passages like 1 John 3:16-18, that I am reminded of why I love what we do. It says,

"We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."

Not that it couldn't be done in the US, but there is a definite need that God has put before us here. Which brings me to the whole point of this post...Thank you for all of you who help us provide for the needs of those around us. I know Valentines Day was yesterday, but the day that celebrates love reminded me of all those who help us show God's love to those in need in the Philippines and I just had to say thank you.

Leaving on a jet plane...

Well, I had every intention of finishing my summary of our time at home in the last day or so, but time got the better of me and now we leave in the morning to fly back to Manila. I will finish the summary, but it will be another couple days before I will have the time to do it. It has been a wonderful time at home and we are so thankful that we had the chance to spend time with those we saw and to those we didn't see, hopefully we will see you when we are in the States next time. Thinking back through all that has happened since November, I am sad to leave. I always have so much fun with family and friends during our time here and although we have some really good friends in Manila, nothing can ever replace those here. Looking forward, I can't wait to get back into our ministry and friends in the Philippines. There really isn't a better feeling than knowing you are doing exactly what God wants you to do with your life. So, once again I feel caught in that strange place where I am caught between two great places. (This is when Daniel without ever really saying it would probably tell me I am a little too sentimental, but hey I am female.) Please pray for us, for our safety, for being crazy enough to fly with an 18 month old, for patience from those seated around us and for everything to go smoothly with immigration/customs in the Philippines.

Our time in the US

Ok, so I have been absolutely AWFUL at getting new stuff up during our time in the States. That is mainly due to not wanting to give up our time with friends and family in order to sit down and write about what has been happening. So here is a long (sorry) summary of what we did.

Nov. 19 (or maybe 20, I can't really remember)-
We started off by flying into Indianapolis, where we were able to see some of Daniel's family and I was able to start my MANY doctor appointments. (Which by the way, I am doing much better now. It turned out to just be a terrible eczema flair and after almost two months of steroids and some other treatments it seems to be in much better control.) We had such a great time catching up with some of our family/friends that we were able to see during the first week we were in Indy. I am so annoyed with myself looking back because we have no pictures since the batteries in our camera died on the trip over and I was too lazy to dig out the charger for them.

Nov. 27 Thanksgiving Day-
We made our trip over to Columbus to see my side of the family for a few weeks. Thanksgiving Day has always been one of my favorite days at my parents house. Ever since I can remember, my parents have gotten their moms and all their brothers and their families to come over to our house for lunch on Thanksgiving. Now that everyone is getting older it is harder for all my cousins to make it, but there are still a ton of people that come and I just have so much fun seeing everyone. This was the first year since I have been married that I have been able to be there, so I had a blast seeing everyone.

We did a bunch of random things during our time in Ohio, including a weekend where Daniel, his brothers, and his dad went on a weekend trip. JoAnn loved getting to see her grandparents for the first time since last Christmas when we were home. At first she was afraid of my dad, but warmed up to him quickly. I don't have many pictures from this time either, but I do have a few since I finally broke down and decided to charge the batteries for the camera.

While Daniel was gone, my mom and I went to Sam's Club (a novelty we do not get in the PI) and picked up a bunch of stuff to bring back with us to the PI and I think JoAnn was just as excited to play with the boxes as I was to go shopping in the States.


This picture is priceless to me. This is an old chair that my parents were given from my Grandma and it spins in circles, so JoAnn and Daniel started a new game of putting JoAnn in the chair and spinning it. It was so funny to watch her try to walk afterwards.


This is one of my oldest and best friends. She and I have known each other since we were babies and were totally inseperable growing up. Ever since starting college it has become more and more dificult to see each other on a regular basis, but I always try to catch up with Kristin while I am home for Christmas.


These are my parents. Got to love 'em.

Dec. 19-
Although my time in Ohio went by way too fast, I was excited to drive down to Charolette next and spent a weekend with a couple of our best friends from college. Matt and Britt are one of my favorite couples to hang out with because Daniel and Matt get along great and so do Britt and I. I also don't think anything is more entertaining than having the four of us play a game of cards. Daniel and Matt are always on a team together and trash talk/cheat the whole time, which always brings out the competitive side of Brittney and me. It makes for a fun time. JoAnn had a fun time although she was afraid of Matt. I think she started her "I am afraid of all men" stage while we have been home. I once again had the batteries in my camera die, so I don't have any pictures from this weekend either. Which makes me frustrated since Brittney was 9 months pregnant with their first baby and I don't have any pictures of her with her pregnant belly.

Dec. 15-
We drove back to Indianapolis and on the way stopped to have dinner with Daniel's sister Katy who goes to college at UK. It was nice to have a short break from the driving and it was good to meet a few of her friends. Going back to Indy was a lot of fun, but at the same time it was kind of dificult for me because this was my first ever Christmas that I wasn't going to spend with my family. Usually Daniel and I spend Christmas Eve and the morning of Christmas with my family and then drive over to Indy and spend the afternoon and evening with his family. This year we decided we didn't want to drive on Christmas day with JoAnn. So we ended up at the Bucher house which was full of family and helped distract me from the fact that I was not with mine. Both of Daniel's sisters came home from college and his brother came in from California. So on Christmas day all six kids along with the spouses/fiancee and childern were together at Daniel's parents house. I love that Daniel comes from a big family and there is never a dull moment when they get together. In total there are 17 of us now. Here are some pictures from that time at the Bucher's.

Four out of the five Bucher grandkids...

Each year the 6 kids and their spouses do a scavenger hunt on Christmas day that Daniel's parents put together. This year our family had gotten too big to fit into a car, so they got a limo to drive us around. How great is that! It is always my favorite part of the day.


Ok, there is much more, but I am tired of writing and it is time for JoAnn to get up from her nap, so I will talk about after Christmas later.

Bucher Family Fun

The other night Daniel, JoAnn and I went over to Daniel's brother's house and JoAnn got to play with some of her cousins. It was so fun to see JoAnn playing with them and to see how they enjoyed playing with her. These are a few pictures I took of Eli and JoAnn. Eli was born 8 days after JoAnn. This first picture made me laugh because it looks like JoAnn is towering over Eli. In reality she was standing on something.


This is their actual height differnce. Ryan was trying to make them smile and Eli totally started laughing right away and JoAnn was a little more shy. They both seem to be daddy kids.


Doesn't he have beautiful blue eyes.

So long, where to start?

It has been a very long time since I have put anything up, mainly because I have been so busy and haven't really had much time to sit down and write. I hardly know where to start, but I will give it a shot...

Well, when I took JoAnn in for her 15 month check up, her allergies had been really bad and it had bothered her asthma. So for the second time the doctor wanted to put her on steroids to clear up her lungs. That sort of shocked me into being more diligent about her allergies and breathing. To be put on steroids for the second time and only be 15 months old is actually quite a lot. The good thing was that only one dose of the steriods cleared it all up and I have been able to keep her from getting bad again. Hopefully, I can keep this up and not forget as much to give her allergy medicine every morning and every night. Which you would think wouldn't be hard to remember since I have to take mine at the same time too. Go figure.

Not long after I had JoAnn back to being healthy, my mysterious rash started to come back pretty strong. I never seem to get rid of it, but it does seem to get really bad every so often, then I get put on a new medicine to try to help and it starts to get a little better for a few weeks until it gets totally out of control again. I don't know if I am just really getting sick of it and can't handle it as well, or if the totally out of control stage gets worse everytime but it is really starting to make me miserable. Anyway, after a couple days of being completely miserable I talked to one of my doctors again, who mentioned to Daniel and I that maybe we should consider coming back to the US a few weeks early and try to get into a dermatologist there. (I had been to a few different dermatologists in the Philippines since moving there and have thought none of them were worth the $6 appointment. They just didn't seem to know much about eczema or if they did they refused to write a perscription for something they didn't sell in their office.) Daniel and I talked about it and decided that we would go ahead and get some of the blood tests that had been suggested, we would also try one more dermatologist in the Philippines and at the same time we would change our tickets to come home two weeks earlier. So that meant I had one week to get everything I was going to do in 3 weeks done and add to that a couple doctor appoinments. But on the up side of things, it also means we will be home for Thanksgiving as well as Christmas.

Anyway, I went to see a new doctor who thought it was all my eczema that had flared and gotten a bacterial infection. So, I went in for all my tests and then started a semi-strong antibiotic. The antibiotic ended up being just like everything else I tried. It helped a little, mainly because I did have some secondary infections, but then stopped way short of actually clearing up the rash. I have to say though, until it started to help a little I had told Daniel I wasn't sure I was going to be able to travel half way around the world feeling like I did, so I was very glad it helped even if it didn't clear it all up.

A few days after I saw the dermatologist, I took one of my Filipino friends to Divisoria to do some Christmas shopping. Divisoria is one of my favorite places to go shopping in the Philippines. There is absolutely nothing like it in the US. It is a gigantic outdoor/indoor market. They have seriously anything I could think of and it is much cheaper than anywhere else I go, even when they give me the "rich" white person price. Since it was getting closer to Christmas it was pretty crowded and I tried to get a picture to help discribe what it is like there, but my camera battery was dead. This is a picture I found on the internet of where we went. This is an alley near Tutuban (the pink building in the background), which is one of the indoor markets we went to. I seriously could walk all day along the streets without doing any shopping and not even see all of Divisoria. It is huge and everywhere you go is about as crowded as this alley.

After doing my Christmas shopping, I went back to get my lab tests results and so far all of the tests say I am completely normal except I had a high score on a test that was for a non-specific inflamation or infection...that helps a lot. Then a couple days later, Daniel, JoAnn and I boarded a plane to head back to the States.

We got to Indiana on Thursday afternoon and let me just tell you the trip seemed ETERNAL. We all got up and got ready to leave for the airport at 2:30 AM Manila time and arrived at Daniel's parents' house at 2:30 PM EST. That means we were traveling for 23 hours and only arrived 12 hours after we left.

JoAnn did wonderful on the trip, except she did exactly what she did last year on the trip over, which is not sleep. I think she slept somewhere between 2 and 3 hours the entire trip. Daniel and I were exhausted from trying to keep her entertained the entire time. Although, the big winners that kept her attention the most were the headphones they pass out to watch the movies with and her sippy cup. I don't know why I even try to bring toys.

These two pictures were taken in the Manila airport while we were waiting for our first flight. I had wanted to take more pictures of the trip, but the truth is I was just too tired to even think about trying to find my camera in the what seemed like huge carry-on bag.


Notice the way too short pants that JoAnn has on...that is because she is so stinkin' skinny and tall. If the pants fit at the waist, they are about 3 inches too short and if they are long enough, they literally fall off her. We definitely felt out of place with her running around the Detroit airport without a coat and in what looked like capris.

Last night after we got back we were able to see all of our neices and our nephew on Daniel's side of the family. I was a little out of it at that point so I didn't get any pictures of the kids playing together, but I will hopefully get some in the next few days. I can't believe how old they are all getting and it is so fun to watch JoAnn have some kids to play with. I am really looking forward to the next few weeks we have in the States.

Another check up

Alright, I just had to share this bit of information. Yesterday, I took JoAnn to the doctor for her 15 month check-up and I knew that she had grown a lot since her first birthday, but no clue she grew nearly as much as she did. In three months she had grown 8 cm (or about 2 1/3 inches) and 1 kg (or 2.2 lbs). That brings her up to 33 inches tall and 19 lbs. The doctor said that is the average height of a 2 year old and the weight of a 9 month old. No wonder she only wears 6-9 month clothes!