We wish you a merry Christmas!

Time sure does fly when you are busy! We just came from America and already preparation started for Christmas which came speeding upon us before we even were able to become fully settled back home. Cookies went into the oven and the tree came up. Just before Christmas holiday we got the best present anyone could give us, Heather was coming home for Christmas! She arrived the 20th and soon was pulled into the Christmas chaos. We had two guests, Mei Mei and Maria, come for a visit over Christmas. They were very nice and even helped with the stringing of popcorn for the tree. After all our rushing about we did calm down and have a very relaxing christmas day with a full asian dinner lasting seven hours! There was wonderful tasty food and we all had a go at eating with chop sticks. I was sad to see Mei Mei and Maria leave the next day. It has been a different Christmas then usual this year but that is what makes it more special and it will stand out in my memory: the fun, friends, and laughter. Merry Christmas to you all! And a happy New Year!

Mis Schwiiz!!!!

A tear shed, a hug given, the bags marked and on their way, and so are we. This happened after our first panic when, while unloading our luggage, we discovered to my dad's dismay and my amusement, that we had packed Heather's allotment of luggage. Eight, nine, ten, we count again and sure enough there are ten bags sitting their on the ground in front of the airport. We are only allowed eight pieces (two per person). Dad nervously picks two unlucky victims (suitcases) to be sent back with grandma to go into boxes and into the mail. Hopefully he chose the bags with things we can do without for a few weeks.

Now we are sitting in the Harrisburg airport, gate B2, on the fourth December. We wait .... and wait ... and wait a bit more ... a long time later we are still waiting. The good-looking ticket man announces into the speaker that our flight has been "delayed" due to "mechanical difficulties." The time for our connecting flight to Zürich was drawing closer, would we still make it? Tick tock tick tock, forty minutes till that flight! It seems to tight. Finally the ticket man called us forward, he talked with Dad and sorted out different possibilities. Dad returned with tickets for a new flight plan starting from gate B3.

Finally on the plane and on our way to Washington-Dulles! It was a very small plane and took only about half an hour till we landed safely in Washington. As we walked wearied out of the plane we saw, to our joy, that we didn't need to go through any customs! Relieved, we waited for our flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

The minutes turned  into hours as the large plane slowly inched across the atlantic. A movie was playing on my screen and my journal was in my hand. Food was on my table, and turbulence was shaking the plane. Six hours, Seven hours, "Please take your seats, we are now landing in Frankfurt" said the pleasant stewardess. How can she be so happy? I haven't gotten a wink of sleep on this flight and I do not feel very happy.

Exhaustedly I stumbled off the plane, what did I pack in my carry-on! things are a lot lighter when I feel it in my comfortable living room. To my chagrin I saw in front of me .... the dreaded customs! They were strict! I was passed through but mom was scanned with the hand held metal detector. We sat down to await the incoming flight that would finally take us home. I slept on mom's lap. I don't know why I can sleep in airport chairs but not in planes. I woke up enough to drag myself onto the airplane and as soon as I sat down I began to drift off. We went higher and higher. I opened my eyes to watch the scenery slowly drift by below. Maybe I would recognize something, look a forest, is that a town?, the back of my eyelids. I was asleep again till a sudden jerk made me sit bolt upright. I heard afterwards that was one of the bumpiest landings my parents had experienced.

Finally in Zürich! A language I recognize! An airport I recognize! Now the part we have been worried about, did our luggage make it as well? One, two, .... seven, eight, yep all eight pieces. As we exit the doors we are met cheerily by cowbells and Mr. Brent with Amy (our neighbors/dad's coworker). My sleepiness left me somewhat with the excited chatter of Amy and the excitement of being home sweet home.

I know this town, it is Oensingen, I turn down that road for my judo. Balsthal! It hasn't changed much! I see it up ahead! I recognize that landmark! There is the castle ruins on the hill, it must be around the next bend! And there it is! Mis clynes Holderbank! What a relief to be home! The car comes to a slow stop in front of a white house with brown shudders, I know it well. That is the small place I call home.

Stuffing Ourselves with Stuffing!

Mashed potatoes, stuffing, a reduction in the turkey population, and increase in your own weight, hmm, that sounds familiar. Happy Thanksgiving! A time to be thankful and be with family and friends as well as have an excuse to eat as much as you want! 

My first thanksgiving was on thanksgiving day with my Shirey family. Twenty-four, soon to be twenty-five, of us gathered together at hershey farms for a family style thanksgiving meal. Anne Manduka became a Shirey for the day and joined us :) From a bowl full of stuffing to mouth watering turkey, we ate our fill, then ate our fill again when the pumpkin pie came around followed closely by the apple pie and a container of ice cream! We all were as stuffed as that turkey used to be. That is all part of the fun of thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving wasn't over yet! My Bollinger family came over on Saturday for a homemade  thanksgiving meal. I made a very large bowl of stuffing with grandma, making a slight mess with an egg in the process. Did you know that if you squeeze an egg just right it will squirt towards you instead of into the bowl? Thanksgiving was ended with games and laughter.

A "Real" Teenager

Amidst the excitement of Heather's return and the stress of the nearness of our return to Switzerland as well as the approach of Thanksgiving there was Rebecca's birthday. She turned fourteen which some people call the real beginning of being a teenager. She chose a special breakfast and  lunch as well as an ice cream cake from dairy queen for supper. Her birthday was spread out over a few days making it possible to involve both grandparents and prolonging all the celebrations. There can never be to many parties :) It was days full of celebration and many presents, including her sister's return for a week. Happy Fourteenth Birthday, Rebecca! And many more.

Guess Who Was Back!?!

Tuesday, last week, was a very exciting day. Besides being the last day of visiting, another event was marked for the end of that day. More accurately, it would occur the next day, early morning. After cleaning the whole house, we waited in anticipation. My parents left. I sat next to my bed counting down the minutes, 1:30...1:31...1:32...zzzzz. Upon waking up there she was! Heather was sleeping soundly in her bed as if she had never left. The next few days flew by so fast full of shopping and chatting constantly about everything possible to talk about. For Wednesday and Thursday I had a third sister join in the fun, Anne Manduka. Heather returned to university this Monday a little past six in the morning amid much weeping and hugs. I will have to somehow manage to survive one and a half years without seeing her but then will come two years of being on the same campus.

Happy Birthday Dad!

On the twenty first of October was a very special day, my dad's birthday. For the whole day Rebecca and I took a holiday from school so that as a family we could go out and celebrate. We began our day with a tour of Wolfgang Chocolate factory. The tour guide didn't allow us to snitch any chocolate from the conveyer belts :( but at least at the end of the tour we all received a small bag of chocolate samples. Of course we couldn't of gone through the entire tour without ending by buying chocolate for ourselves :) We still haven't finished it all off!

After the tour we drove over to the Millennium  theater in Lancaster. At the theater, Sight & Sound preformed an amazing production called "In the Beginning," about creation and the fall of man. It was a very dramatic, overwhelming production that filled the entire theater with stars in the heavens and angles flying up the aisles as well as real animals running across the stage. I have never seen a production that large in my life!

To end the day we headed over to Park City, a mall, and visited the newly opened Apple store. After playing on some ipods and computers, Rebecca and I looked around the rest of the mall as my dad continued looking in the Apple store. After finishing our shopping we went home and unwrapped presents, by then it was late and we went to bed very tired but happy.

Me, One Day, and the City of Washington D.C

From the Washington Monument to the actual White house! I got to see the capitol building and the Lincoln memorial. A small look at parts of the Smithsonian was enough to impress me greatly. I was able to go to Washington D.C. for a day with my family along with a few other missionaries and that was one of my dreams come true, to see my nation's capitol. 

The reason for the trip was that it was a missionary conference at my sending church and as a special treat for the missionaries, we all went to Washington D.C.. The conference was a week long but the highlight of the whole week was this trip and I had been looking forward to it the whole week. The day arrived and I woke up at six in the morning and was fully equipped for the trip with my camera and energy to last the whole day, though the energy didn't quite show up till after my nap in the car on the way. After a long drive we all got on a fast underground train that took us into the center of the city. On the train my family kept expecting to hear cow bells like the similar train in the Zürich airport, but none came. We began with seeing each of the grand monuments and buildings throughout the city starting with the Washington monument. What I was looking forward to the most was seeing the White House though the security people didn't allow any people to get close to the White house yet still it was really exciting. We were hoping the president would invite us to dinner :) maybe if we called first we might of been able to. There were many different war memorials such as the long wall of names of the soldiers who died in vietnam and there was the large circle for the world war two memorial. I thought the capitol building was really beautiful, especially with the lake out front and the perfectly blue sky with occasional wisps of cloud making it picturesque. The Lincoln memorial was definitely bigger then any of the pictures had portrayed it, I thought. I was able to get a picture with the statue of Lincoln and me and I label that picture "Abraham and Sarah" :)

The afternoon we spent in the Smithsonian. It is such a large place it would take a few days to get through it but still I was able to see parts. We started in the animal museum (I don't remember its official name). The museum looked as if it came out of the movie "Night in the Museum," (except in the Smithsonian the animal on the center stand was an elephant not a T-rex) it was full of life sized stuffed animals that literally were jumping right at you. After quickly going through the animal section my dad and I went on to the art and were able to see Rembrandt and other great artists.

It was such a fun day, maybe one day I will be able to return to Washington D.C. and see all that I wasn't able to, even if I don't I will have the memory, a hundred pictures, and a singing snow globe from a patriotic shop, now I will for sure not forget the trip. Still, if anyone is planning on going to Washington and need the company I will be willing to go :)

Mainly about Maine

The windy harbor was filled with every type of boat imaginable, I raised my camera for another picturesque shot. West Rockport Maine was beautiful and I will not forget the beautiful scenery of the breakwater lighthouse sitting on the end of a half mile long rock levy. My family left for Maine early on Friday morning, and after a long tiring ten hour drive we arrived at some friends's house. The family had four daughters that we had known from our last deputation when we visited Maine. After an evening of reacquainting ourselves, we all went to bed. 

We began Saturday with a hike including us, the family we were staying with, and a few other people from their church. It was a short walk up to a rustic stone house where we played games and picked blueberries, and of course we ate the blueberries :) Lunch came and we all sat around and ate our packed lunches while we talked. After the hike was over and everyone left for their separate ways; my family went touring to the breakwater lighthouse. It was a beautiful day, at least I believe so, but it is hard to see clearly with the wind constantly blowing my hair in my face.

Evening arrived and my family went to a church meal, the church is the reason for the visit to Maine. I got to do my first speaking in sixteen years as part of my dad's presentation, even if it was only about three sentences. The food was great and the people were friendly, the evening as a whole was really enjoyable and a nice end to a very fun filled day.

Sunday arrived so then we made our way once again to the church where my dad preached for sunday school and got to just sit and enjoy the sermon. For lunch my parents ate with missions people while Rebecca and I got to go to pizza hut with the family we were staying with. I really wish there was a pizza hut back in Switzerland! In the evening Dad had to speak again and present our work along with a short message. Afterwards I left earlier then my parents to spend one last evening with the four girls, we got along very well and I will miss them all!

Six forty-five on Monday morning I woke up to say goodbye to the girls before they left for school then I got packed up and ready to leave on the long trip "home." We stopped by LLBean for a few hours before continuing our journey to York. By the time we finally arrived back in York it was 4:45 on Tuesday morning! I was a bit tired to say the least. I slept in Tuesday morning, what was left of it, and then completed a whole day of school. Now I am back into the routine with only a slight cold to hinder me. 

Weekend at a Church

This passed weekend my family stayed at a church's missionary house where we could easily visit the church throughout the weekend. Though the church is located in Pennsylvania, we still stayed over night because it was over an hour drive across some mountains. We arrived on Saturday and had an ice cream evening with some of the church people as they talked about a recent missions trip they had. On Sunday we went to the church and afterwards joined them for a fellowship dinner with good food and a long table of desserts! I got to try a shoe fly pie for the first time and I decided that I really like it despite it's not so appetizing name. On Monday Rebecca and I had to do school, which wasn't to bad since I got to be on a sofa chair next to a large window, of course I also did some school between the twirling and rocking on the chair as well as staring out of the window. For lunch we visited friends who had been to Switzerland before, I became homesick seeing all the pictures they had. On Tuesday morning we left for our home in York.

Fair Time!

In York county Pennsylvania, every year the York fair comes to town for two weeks about. I was able to go two times last week, once with my aunt and uncle and once with my family, which gave me the opportunity to see just about the entire fair. I got to go on different rides and end the day with the fares wheel at night and see the fair filled with different colored lights, it was beautiful! I got to eat American food such as blooming onions, funnel cake, and cotton candy! I am allowed to eat all that junk food because I only do it every three years :) yum, it sure was nice though! Other things I got to see was the amazing pig races! I know it sounds very exciting, the pigs even had creative names such as Lindsay Loham and Britany Squeals :) Also there was a singing group called vocal trash that sang using trash. They had trash cans for drums and strummed on washboards as well as many other creative methods as they sang popular songs. In the very late evening there was a laser light show where the colorful laser lights pierced the night sky forming creative patterns in beat with back ground music. The whole time was very tiring yet very fun, I love fairs!

Five Minus One Equals Four

School has started up for me and Rebecca this past Monday, the reason for the late start is the leaving of my sister, Heather. She is not leaving the family, at least not yet, she just left for college down in South Carolina at Bob Jones University. At the end of August, beginning of September my family of five left all excited and happy down to Bob Jones, we arrived and stayed at the house of very nice people. We dropped off Heather at school on Saturday, after having a tour of the campus, and cried a lot. We recovered, left South Carolina as a family of four and visited friends in North Carolina (the Jarretts, for those who know them). We spent a day with them then continued on our way. We are starting to see the good in leaving Heather behind, such as the fact that most things in this world come in even numbers, whether seats at a restaurant or food packaged at the store, now we don't have to fight over the last schoki gipfli anymore. We really do miss Heather. (check out Heathers blog for more information about her life as a "wise" college student) Now me and Rebecca are starting school, nothing as interesting as Heather is going through. We are kept busy with learning, now at least I have seen the campus of Bob Jones and know what I am learning for ... a campus full of other teenagers for four years! Don't panic Mom and Dad, that was a joke. Heather, if you read this, we all miss you and love you and say hi!

Sweet Sixteen!!!

I am Sweet Sixteen finally, and loving it! I turned sixteen over our missionary refresher that went from 5-14 August. We left on Sunday the 3rd and drove two days out to missouri with an overnight at a hotel (with a very nice heated indoor pool :) and arrived Monday evening at CEF headquarters in Warrenton, Missouri. I shared a hotel room in Warrenton with both my sisters, in the room was a TV and phone and many other nice things, i didn't mind staying there for two weeks :) While my parents took classes on missionary things, my sisters and I spent our time with such activities as swimming, watching TV, playing in the rec room, doing our email (free internet connection :), and exploring the grounds which were big enough to take some time to explore (only if it wasn't to hot out). One evening my sisters and I were taken to an out door theater to see the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." A few evenings we visited friends and had fun talking and playing games. 

On the seventh of August, a very important date, I turned sixteen! I had a spread out party that started on the sixth of August when the International Ministried people threw a surprise party at lunch with a very tasty cake. The party continued on my actual birthday with my sisters and I doing a full make over, then in the evening my family went out to Dairy Queen for a blizzard. In the even more evening I got all my presents and my parents came into my sisters  and my room and we watched a movie together, they even surprised me with balloons everywhere, I really like balloons :)

After we arrived back from Missouri, again a two day drive, my party continued. My parents surprised me again by inviting a Mary Kay lady to come and do a make up demonstration. The reason for all the make up is I am finally allowed to wear make up now that I am sixteen. By the end of the day all the Shirey girls were fully makeuped. Then in the evening, another surprise (I am thinking it is not very hard to hide things from me, I get surprised very easily) my family on my mom's side came and we had birthday cake and games that went till late. I think I had a very nice sixteenth birthday and I am so glad I was able to celebrate it with my extended family.

The first picture is a view out of the window of my room in Warrenton, the light is not a Missouri sunset, it is a Nikon sunset (otherwise known as my flash). The second picture is of our "home" while we are here in Pennsylvania, the two windows on the second floor are the bedroom widows of the room that me and my sisters share.

From Camper to Counselor

A few days after teen camp, with only enough time to unpack, do laundry, and repack, I went to a kids camp but this time not as a camper but as a day camp counselor. Me and eight other day camp counselors were in charge of about twenty-four day campers. It is hard to say who had the most fun, the campers or the counselors, for both enjoyed the activities just as much. I really liked the chance to meet even more people and make many more friends even though most of them are under seven years old. The movie above shows about everything we did from crafts to swimming, we even once had a movie night! By the end of the week I was really tired, my bed never felt so comfortable!

Fun at Camp!

From the 23 of June till the 28 of June, both my sisters and I went to a teen camp at Alpine Bible camp in West Virginia. The theme of the week was Medieval so we had fun games such as knight sword fights or knight challenges all focusing on working together. We had a great speaker who taught us about true courage and faith. I went to two extra activities which were white water rafting and high ropes course. On high ropes course I fell once but the rope tied to me held me yet still it was very scary despite the short distance I fell before it stopped me. I learned from high ropes that I am afraid of heights but I still enjoyed all the challenges and I had a very nice partner. I like white water rafter better, it was an all day outing along a long and rapidyish river (rapidyish: adj meaning full of rapids). I never fell out of the raft but I did fall of my seat and into the raft a few times. We got to swim in some parts of the river and a few times we got to swim down some rapids which is very fun though not recommended without adult supervision. Part way through the rafting trip it started to rain then thunder and lightening but it didn't last the whole time so we did not get to wet :) Another thing at camp I really liked was the very last night, it was raining outside so the leaders made an inside camp fire and all the campers sat around and shared their testimonies and songs, by the end of the evening almost every girl was in tears and yes even some of the boys moistened up a bit. I left with many friends, many stories to share, and many lessons learned. 

America! America!

I have spent my first week in America with a big adventure in coming here. On last Tuesday, the 10 of June, we left Switzerland, first on an eight and a half hour flight from Zürich airport to Washington-Dulles. At Dulles we switched to a flight to Harrisburg but because of thunderstorms we had to get off the plane then it cleared for a moment so we got back on but again the storms started and we had to get off and the flight was canceled. We got all of our luggage and spent the night in the airport. We got to eat at Wendy's for breakfast then took an eight thirty flight to Harrisburg with an entire day ahead of us. And so my time in America has began full of shopping trips to Walmart to stock up our temporary "home" and planning our time. It is very hot outside where I feel as if I will melt and it is freezing inside because of the air conditioning, hopefully I will adjust and soon! The first Sunday in America I got to be at two different services, one in the morning and one in the evening, though BCF is still my favorite church :) Coming up events is two week long camps beginning next Monday with only a few days in between. It is not very busy now for me but I know things will start to pick up a bit over the next few weeks.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen!

This past weekend was my church's Sunday School camp, from the 30th May to the 1 June, with the theme of the Romans. I was a helper in the camp and got to do various tasks such as teach a memory verse or song to just supervise to make sure the children behave.
The reason why everyone in the pictures is wearing bed sheets and other not very normal outfits is because on Saturday night everyone dressed up as Romans and ate a Roman meal by sitting on the floor and eating with our fingers which was especially challenging for the dessert... chocolate fondue! On Sunday for lunch the rest of church joined for a grill, and the children preformed a short play they had learned over the weekend. Everyone had fun and I am excited for next years camp!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! My main reason for starting this blog is because I am going to America on deputation for six months and my blog will help keep you all informed of what I am doing but when I return from America, yes that is right I am returning, I am planning on still keeping up my blog. I will be leaving next week on the 10 June and will not be back till 4 December. I really hope you come back to my blog often and post many comments every time!