oh goodie.

check it out. we got spoiled.

jen and brandon gave us all we need and more in supplying us with...

yep. twenty four hours of travel to our new home. pretty sure we will never get bored. for my sweet tooth and my side of the goodie bag:

[oh yes. ultra fine point sharpies.]

and as for scott... his sister knew exactly what he loves. any guesses?

yep. math and candy.

thank you jen for the ::keep scott busy:: books. that's what we'll call them. 

but our favorite goes to these:

there's something so special about handwritten cards. they are colorful and full of life. we love it.

infectious

i overheard a conversation with my mom and her friend talking about strawberries. as they were cutting them up, they talked about how the bad parts can spread pretty rapidly and rub off on the other ones, so you have to cut the gross parts off to keep them fresh.

side note: mom loves to make things connect, so when there's spiritual symbolism to something, it's a super great day for mom. 

so, connecting strawberries and life: they said it's also crucial to cut out the yucky stuff in us [even if it's just one rotten strawberry] or it will continue to spread into other areas of our life. 

just in that way i want to be infectious,  like those little strawberries. i want for what is in us to rapidly spread among the people of hong kong. in a good way.

meet mimi and papa

i want everyone to have a mimi and papa. sarah and i [and now scott] get to have these people as grandparents. do you ever feel like that title just doesn't fit for your mom's parents? me too. they're a lively pair, even coming to visit us in hong kong. and now that... is special.

details

i love them. it's the tiniest things that are so fun to find out.

kind of like blueberry muffins and straighteners. 

different people have different "oh yay, good to know" moments. throughout scott's time in hong kong [when he went to sign leases], i had that "... and what else?" disease. instead of him explaining big picture things like visas and resident cards, i'd rather him get down to the tinies such as the location of yummy pastry places and great straighteners. i love a detail.

what's our

spending time with people until our departure from atlanta next sunday morning. it's so hard to explain our excitement. let's just say the moments of scott being still are becoming more and more rare.

memory

why is this a face that i often make?

oh i remember, because i don't write anything down. scott is usually my reminder of everything, but when he isn't around i forget things like, oh i don't know... picking up two little vietnamese kids for their LAST swimming lesson. what in the world, catherine.

"s"

is for Sarah Ashley.

we took our three [and a half] year old friend swimming yesterday. she has learned her ABC's. so of course, she always tells us S stands for Sarah Ashley and for Scott, C is for Catherine, and J for Jesus. i meant to bring my camera, but since i forgot, the cartoon version will have to suffice. 

meet Sarah Ashley:

                                           

she loves to dance and shake her hips to "1,2,3!" when jumping off the side of the pool. much to the dismay of her father, she sings "i love rock and roll" at the top of her lungs whenever asked.

::on a serious note: this sweet girl soaks up every ounce of love her parents give to her and pours it out freely. she already has the gift of hospitality. come to her house and she almost automatically asks if you want to come upstairs to see her dress up room and book shelves. we're grateful for her parents and how they've modeled what it looks like to raise kids with the knowledge of the Lord. 

"hey boss"

this is a phrase i have been hearing a lot lately. what a joy it is to see this on the face on my husband when saying such words. planning and working out details is his forte. he gets excited about adding numbers and talking with insurance people. this is something i completely do not understand. i just receive it as such a gift. he is a behind the scene kind of guy, and i love that. 

although i do notice when he's in the room because his joyful self sounds a little like this...

sometimes scott literally cannot contain his excitement about who knows what just bundled up inside of him. so you often hear clapping, or snapping.

psalm 65:8

You make the going out of the morning...

and the evening shout for joy.

that was the psalm i read for today. so neat because we saw God's abundant beauty in our weekend beach trip with Nana. 

mom finished a book. yay mom!!

usually we are driving her crazy with questions and errands. she is quite the multi tasker,

so the completion of the book thing was great.

looky, looky

my "going away" present.

i love how mom puts a title on it. as if it's totally normal that she gave me this.

notice anything else that's new? i got a new 'do.

malorie: i dare you. and you better do it so i won't see you be-bopping around with those gorgeous locks in HK. 

my first picture: scott the morning after shipping day.

shipping day

because scott and i didn't have our personal one of these this morning:

we found that borrowing this is the definitely the way to go.

::the perks to our little helper::

*it carries so many boxes at a time

*we don't have arguments looking like this: "cat, if you could just shove 5 more boxes in your arms, then we could carry these 14 down in only one trip." [i know, so appealing right?] 

*and it makes the boxes feel like we do when we're floating in the pool. weightless and wonderful.

after our morning fun with Dolly, we headed to the Dean's to load our stuff on the back of an 18 wheeler. the 40 foot container will drive to California and hop on a boat headed to China. needless to say, we're exhausted [let's be serious, we=scott] and we're excited. this was shipping day. 18 more days is moving day.

neutro:nightmare

so i thought i'd try it. what harm would it do, right? fresh foaming? sounds pretty good. i'm pretty loyal to certain products. my usual face cleanser was out so i decided to buy the cute little blue bottle that even said it was also makeup remover in tiny print at the bottom. 

well, that was wednesday night. come thursday morning, i was [of course!] expecting to find this in the mirror:

but this sleeping beauty opened her puffy eyes to find this:

it was one of those rare times where i could see white all the way around my eyes.

poor scott. he kept saying "it really doesn't look that bad". isn't he sweet. and i've been in a slight itching frenzy ever since.

 

our little ballerina

these colorful hands are leaving soon and venturing out to California.

my sister has always been independent and usually all over the place [kind of like her color pallet of paint shown above]. never a dull moment. love seeps out of her.

 even at the age of four she saw all the candy in her stocking and immediately exclaimed:

i got lots of chocolate for my lots of friends

. 

her giving has been like this ever since. she is flowing with mercy. and you always have that feeling of home when you're around her. it's as if she is just waiting with open arms for people who need to be heard. i'm joyful for the people who get to meet this little ballerina. 

well. color me happy.

 and look who showed up right in the middle of the film that i got developed:

attitude adjustment

i know. you're automatically assuming that i have to be talking about scott. so for a second, let's just pretend that this is about me. ever since this whole packing thing has started up, i have taken on some kind of awful attitude. you know the one... where everything is revolved around me? let me draw you a little picture of what that has been like:

     big Dowe used to say "the Queen has arrived". [i can still hear the sarcasm in my dad's voice]. and let me tell you, this title has been quite fitting.

             and this is the way i have been picturing scott [or even better: expecting scott to be.]

the problem?

well yes, there are many of them in this picture. but how does my attitude get so messed up to where i think that it is me who is the main character of everything. i need an attitude adjustment. 

                          and why is it so hard to do the very thing that brings perspective?

my little rebel

well scott decided to break his own rule [not starting this thing until we get to HK] by posting a few here and theres. so i thought i'd do my own little tid bit with an oh so grateful shout out to the Tyers.

while you were probably doing this last week:

scott has been:

we appreciate you so much.