The love letter that changes lives.
The only truth that matters.
You've got to read it to believe it

http://fathersloveletter.com/flltextenglish.html

Father's Love Letter used by permission Father Heart Communications Copyright 1999-2006 www.FathersLoveLetter.com

Some more...
This is another view of our living/dining room. The red wall ends and the white begins...









Our open kitchen. I love this about our house. This way I get to be a part of everything while cooking. It's wonderbar!!! That's Tiara pealing potatoes for me. Part of the benefits of homeschooling is that the mummy gets free kitchen help. Well, not totally free she earns anything between $ 2 - 10 for the help she gives us :) Things like painting the house, watering the garden, transplanting, weeding, cooking etc. all get done in the name of homeschool (extra curricular) out here and well, it's incredible because Tiara is actually leanrning some great stuff. She's around us a lot more, she feels important, confident and a significant part of the 3 of us, it's fun and we have extra help for very little pocket money. It's great I tell ya!!! so many birds with one stone. :)




So this is the entrance to our place. The swing chair is what you see when you stand in front of our gate. We picked that up in India for like cheap cheap and then Ed made the funky stand and voila! we have this awesome garden swing chair. That's another fish tank that you can't really see on the side. This one actually has fish in it. :)




This is the main door that takes you into our home.







Okay, that was fun. Sorry, these are bad pics cause I'm still using my phone camera.
We finished our bedroom yesterday and it's like soooooooooo nice. Will post more pics soon. Byeeeee!!

Finally, I have half an hour to blog again. Hello blog site, I missed you.
So here are the pics. Sorry they are so blurry and bad but our camera is broken and so I used my phone camera. Ah! what would life be like without a camera on my phone ?!?! :)

this first pic is the corner of our living/dining room. Notice that one wall has been painted a deep red (it's a maroon, wine sort of colour and it looks really funky). The pic doesn't do this masterpiece of ours any justice actually. :( oh! well! :)

This is the other corner. That fish tank (which you can't really see - it's up on that brick stand, has tadpoles in it). :) Yes, you guessed it, it was Tiara and Ed's idea and I don't mind them at all (definitely better than spiders). In fact they're really interesting to watch as they grow and turn into frogs. A couple of the bigger guys are making their front legs now and it's so cool.

This is my favourite room. Again we've done one wall a different

colour and this one is pink. It's a bright room although very tiny

but it looks out into our lil garden and we've made it like a little

prayer/work room. It's a lovely and peaceful 'read the bible', hang out with God kinda place.

That's the doggies competing for Ed's attention. This is the other side of the same room.

Well, that's all we've done for now. We've still got our bedroom and Tiara's room to do and then the bathroom and I'll put up more pics when that is done. :)

So, have we done a great job or have we done a great job? :)

Upstairs we've got our office, Tiara's class room and a guest room, where you will stay when you visit. :)

It looks like a different life doesn't it? It is in many ways. But that's the beauty of HK. It's one place where we really have it all. We've got the busy city life with all it's light, excitement, technology and glitter and we have this quiet, peaceful life as well, with the hills, ocean and countryside. Aren't we HKers blessed? :)

Have you ever had so much going on, your blog can't keep up? Well, I have decided to just leave a bunch of stuff unsaid as the thought of catching up to the present, is stressing me out too much. =)
Okay, one of the things that's been keeping me from blogging is that we're painting our home and we're doing it ourselves. It's taking up all our free time but it's lot's of fun. You know, not being able to pay for stuff and as a result doing things yourself is a marvellous thing. Jesus did say to gain, you need to lose right? Well, again I can testify that He knew what He was talking about. :)
Tiara, Ed and I have had a blast playing handyman and Tiara most of all loved it. She feels so important. Actually I do too. There is a unique satisfaction that comes from doing this kind of stuff yourself. It's like cooking at home as opposed to eating out. Nothing wrong with eating out at all. In fact, it's great, but a home made meal with that extra special dash of love thrown in, is just something else, don't you think? Linnet http://cookingpad.blogspot.com/ should know, she does a fair bit of both :) . Similarly, I think there's nothing wrong with hiring someone to paint your home at all. If you can afford it - why not? but doing this paint job ourselves, has given us moments and memories as a family that money can't buy. We're quite pleased with what we've done and I'll post pictures next time.

If you like music videos then this is a cool site to visit, http://www.breathecast.com/media/mv_archives.htm. I found some great stuff there and was so thrilled with the video's for some of my fav Christian Songs. I tend to go for songs rather than the artists, and so it's cool to get a wide variety of them.
I saw the video's for "Legacy" by Nichole Nordeman. Wow! this is like my favourite song ever. I also got to see, 'Song of Love' by Rebecca St. James and was very excited to find that the video for 'Cry Holy' by Sonicflood was shot in India. I don't quite get what it's about but just the fact that it's in India kinda makes me happy.
I also found a new song (at least I haven't heard it before, by Jump 5 - they're like a teenage band that Tiara likes) and they have this amazing song called 'It's a beautiful world' that's like so so good. I LOVE the lyrics. There's a whole bunch of real cool video's there. SCC and all, very cool.

Okays, gotta go now and oh! if you've got other ways to get Christian music video's online, please tell me, I'd love to know.

Question: why the cow?
Answer: I don't know.

Tiara Facts:

Her name: I read it in a book when I was around 15 and was so taken with it, it's all I remember about the book :). This is her with Ebony and Ivory and she is 8 years old, Ebony is 4 and Ivory is probably 5.






Tiara in India getting her hands and feet henna'd for our friends
wedding.









Tiara was born 9 months after Ed and I were married :) and we have
all grown up together :), it has been crazy, fun and an awesome blessing.
She was a lovely baby who hardly cried, but when she did, she made sure that her grandparents both in the States and India heard her. Boy! she was loud. : )










Okay this is the most notable daddy quality that she has. In this picture
she is holding what is in fact, a snake. It's called the blind snake because it's got no eyes and it looks like an earth worm. She also loves frogs and so I guess, is not the typical girly girl, although she does not care too much for spiders. We've got one in our bath room named spidey face whom Ed refuses to get rid of because he's cute and eats the bugs and Tiara's not too fond of him. :)

Tiara's blessed with a very sharp mind and learns very easily and homeschooling her is fun, although the latest challenge is to make everything more fun and less academic and for someone who studied in India that's a super challenge. Tiara has many friends of various ages and currently she is enjoying the big friends she is making at the Vine.
Her favourites I believe are Mark (although I'm going to have to keep his puppy spanking habbit a secret). That'll just break her heart : (. She also likes Chris (I thinks it's his cart wheels) and Nate and before she found out Nate's name, she referred to him as the guy who looks like his head is on fire, hehe! that was so cute and funny. She's developed a new love for Carmen recently and likes squeezing her. She also likes Wolali very much and after I told her Tom called her a sweety she's developed a soft spot for him too. :)

She likes to draw and sing. Her favourite songs are 'in the belly of the whale' by the Newsboys and 'live out loud' by SCC.

Wow! so much to do, so little time...

I've been wanting to say so many things here and just haven't had a chance and I'm feeling like I'm about 5 blog posts behind. Then my photo thingy won't work, the link is broken and what? why? when? and how? are a some of the questions I have, with no answers to at the moment. Ah! my technical ignorance once again becomes apparant to me. Thank you Lord for Ed :)

So, I want to write about Tiara. I also want to tell you about our new friends from Togo and what a blast it is to play board games with them. I want to tell you about our new Sri Lankan friends who made the most spicy curry I have ever eaten, and I make some pretty spicy stuff myself. Yummy! I want to tell you about some of the teachings we have been listening to. My latest favourite is this guy called Larry Randolf. My gosh! he is awesome. I want to tell you about this amazing book I'm reading called 'The bait of Satan'. It's one of our Cleansing Streams' text books, so I don't know if it's available otherwise. This book is blowing me away and is certainly cleansing my streams.

So, what do I do, with so much to do and so little time?

Okay, let me just say for now, that you are beautiful, awesome and wonderful. I am not lying because I don't know who you are reading this right now : ), I am paraphrasing scripture : ). Ah! ha! you see ...so it's true. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and you are my brother, (that is if you are a guy :)) or my sister and this fact about our Christian life is more real for me today than ever before. So I love you :) and I hope you love me too :)