Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today we celebrate the birthday of a very special person - Mom! We are so grateful to the Lord for allowing her to be born :-), and that she grew up to marry Dad and now is our wonderful mother.





WE LOVE YOU, MOM!!!

More House Pictures

Yesterday Dad went for the house inspection, and so we have more pictures! We will, of course, post pictures after we have our own things in there, but here are some pictures to give you an idea of what the inside looks like.

The living room.

The dining room, soon-to-be piano room.

The kitchen.

The family room.

The office/craft room, which opens out to...

The greenhouse (sorry, the picture is a little dark).

Tara's & my room.

Master bedroom.

And a few more outside pictures:

View from the deck.

One of the 2 gardens, with a little "garden house" behind it.

Another view of the pond.

The little fountain/pond in back of the house.

The back yard.

Everything went well with the house inspection, so, Lord willing, now we just wait (and pack!).

Our New Home - We Hope!

There's been a *little* excitement here at the Yen house today. We just found out that we will be moving to Bull Valley in February!!!

A few weeks ago we went to look at a house, and Mom basically fell in love with it. So we made an offer, which was flatly rejected. But then, after much (frustrating) negotiating, we received a call this morning that we got the house! We will be closing in early February! We are excited!

Pictures of our lovely new home:

The view from above.

The front of the house.

The back of the house.

The path leading around the back of the house.

The pond!

We are thankful to the Lord for how He worked this all out in His timing. Please pray for us as we continue this process!

Dolphins & Daufuskie

Yesterday we took a day trip to Daufuskie Island, which is a small island off Hilton Head. We took an hour-long ferry ride to get there, during which we had a good laugh. Apparently the motor from the ferry stirs up the fish, and so we had what looked like the whole seagull population following us! It started out being just a few, and then more and more joined the party. They followed us almost the whole way to Daufuskie!



We also saw some larger birds that were flying low over the surface of the water. We have seen them around the island a lot, and they must be some sort of fishing bird. They fly high in the air, and then when they spot a fish, they dive - literally - into the water. Then they some right back up and continue flying!


After arriving at Daufuskie, we took a bus to the one resort on the island - a beautiful, and obviously expensive, place. :-)

The resort hotel.

There were tons of butterflies on the flowers edging the walkway!

From there we planned to rent a golf cart to drive around the island, but found out that we were not allowed to go outside of the resort's grounds if we rented from them. So we walked the beach, which was very peaceful. And then we sort of forgot that it was peaceful when we spotted a dolphin! He (I will call it a "He" just so he won't have to be an "it") swam very close to the shore, and it was like he knew we were following him. After a while he swam further out, but there was another one who was playing close to the shore too! It was very neat. We weren't able to get a really good picture of him, but you can see his fin.









After lunch, we headed out to where we could get a golf cart that we could use to drive anywhere on the island. On Daufuskie there are mostly dirt/clay/sand roads, except in the slightly wealthier areas, where there are some paved roads. Dad let me drive the cart for part of the time, which was a lot of fun. :-) We went to some of the historical sights, including an old winery and a church, which is still used today.

The pulpit of the church.

The Praise House adjacent to the church.

After this we just drove around because we had a couple hours left till we had to return the cart and catch the ferry back to Hilton Head. On the ferry back, we had more than one dolphine encounter, and actually saw two of them jumping! Unfortunately they were too far away to get a picture, but it was such a great experience.

Today we drive back to Nini and Yeh Yeh's house, and then we'll be HOME tomorrow! I can't wait!

Vacation on Hilton Head Island

Here we are in Hilton Head Island, SC. We flew into Raleigh-Durham Friday morning and stayed one night with Nini and Yeh Yeh (grandma & grandpa in Chinese) before driving to Hilton Head where we have a timeshare. Sunday afternoon we had a "picnic" on the beach, meaning we ate under cover of the Dunes House, away from the wind. After lunch we took a walk with the breeze full in our faces! The waves, foaming and dashing themselves on the beach, were magnificent. Ever present reminders of God's wonderful creation!
Pictures from the beach:

Tara & I running on the beach.

Here's the view from one of the balconies of our condo, looking over the creek. First is low tide, and then high tide.

Low tide.

This is the same view, only at high tide.

This is from the same balcony, in the opposite direction.

Once again, same view as above at high tide.

On Monday we walked on the beach again (it was a little warmer and less windy!) and found tons of sand dollars and two conch shells! Very neat! (And yes, we are bringing them home!).



We will be sure to post more pictures as we take them! :-)

Riddle of the Month - November

All right, let's see if any of you can get this one!

What starts with a "P" and ends with an "E", with thousands of letters in between?

Post a comment with your answer!