Fun & Games

Hey everyone! We hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Here's a little of what we've been up to this week!

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Photo #32--Human Skeleton: Last year, I lived with a Korean family that goes to the international fellowship here. A few times a week, I would teach the two children English, science, math and Bble. The mom asked me to still teach some after I got married, but I haven't had a lot of free time. Recently we worked out our schedules so I can come to their house once a week for dinner and teaching, while Pedro is teaching late. The mom always sends dinner home with me for Pedro :)

This is John. Right now we're studying the body systems.

Photos #33, 34--Our first Thanksgiving!: Though Pedro & I also spent Thanksgiving together last year, this was our first Thanksgiving as a family :) We had a great time celebrating with our friends and family in Vietnam.

Photo #35--Turkey Pot Pie: The day after Thanksgiving we went to the Western restaurant, Bread of Life, for their Thanksgiving leftover special, Turkey Pot Pie. It was delicious!

Photo #36--Bananagrams!: Friday night Pedro got home from work and was telling me that he played Bananagrams with some students at work. He didn't know we had the game at home (we'd never played it together before), so I told him, and we played a game after dinner. It came down to 1 tile each at the end, and Pedro won.

Photo #37--Dentist: Saturday morning we went to the dentist for check-ups/cleanings. It's $5-$10 for a cleaning!! My sensitive little teeth had a few cavities (yuck), but I got them filled then & there, and we walked away paying a total of $40! A great investment if you ask me.

Photos #38, 39, 40--UCSI Picnic: On Saturday afternoon, UCSI (the English center where Pedro works) had a picnic to celebrate the end of the term. There were games, snacks and cake! We had a fun time seeing Pedro's students and the UCSI staff. Yummy cake too!

Photo #41--Amazing Art: One of Pedro's students is in university, studying interior design. We knew she was a good artist by the drawing assignments we've seen her post on Facebook. We were surprised and very touched this week when she presented us with this drawing she made for us. She is a sweet girl, and we are very blessed by this thoughtful gift.

Photo #42--Home for Christmas: Though we're not "home" where our families are for Christmas this year, we're making our home here feel Christmassy nonetheless. (Use your imagination with the TV in the photo...we had the movie Elf playing!)

Have a wonderful week! Please let us know how you're doing and what you've been up to!

theborgeses@gmail.com

Home is Where the Heart is

Hello friends! We hope you're enjoying this Thanksgiving week! We're thankful this week for our meetings with friends & students, Christmas music, singing & nesting. :)

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Photos #23, 24, 25, 26, 27--Nesting: Since we received our wedding photos last week, I printed some off and found some nice frames (not an easy task), and started nesting a bit more!

We also found some nice scripture wall hangings, in Vietnamese and English:

This one in Vietnamese is Joshua 24:15b--"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

When I went to print some wedding photos, I forgot that photo measurements here are in centimeters not inches. So when I asked for 6x8, I got 6cm x 8cm...smaller than expected! So I made this with the "oops" photos.

Photo #28--Orange Juice: Pedro & I have both been sniffling and sneezing a little this week, so I bought a kilo of oranges to make orange juice. Prayer + Vitamin C = Healthy Borgeses!

Photo #29--Joining the Choir: If you followed our separate blogs in March of this year, you know that Pedro & I both participated in singing at the Vietnamese church for the 100 year celebration of the church in Vietnam. We sang one night with the Vietnamese church choir (in Vietnamese) and another night singing "Prince of Peace" in English with the International Fellowship. The VN church invited the international church to sing again at their Christmas Eve service. This Sunday we had our first choir practice. We've broken up to sing a 4 part harmony, and it sounds great! Here's Pedro singing with the bass section:

Photos #30 & 31--Happy Teacher's Day!: November 20th was Teacher's day, which is another greatly celebrated holiday in Vietnam. Like on Women's Day, the streets are lined with people selling flower arrangements. Pedro came home from teaching with a flower basket and homemade cake! The next day some of his students came over for dinner and brought a basket as well!

Bless you this week as you reflect on the many provisions and blessings you experience in your life. Give thanks to Him!!

Welcome to our home!

We wanted to show you where we live, so we made a little video tour of our house. Enjoy!

Video tour

If the link above doesn't work, copy & paste the link below into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_BcgaKXESM

Unpredictable (but great) weather

Happy Mid-November! We can't believe how quickly time is flying by...next week is Thanksgiving, and soon December will be here! We're thankful for each day and each week we enjoy here. Here's what's been happening in our lives lately:

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Photo #18--Jackets: It's finally cold enough that we're wearing jackets and drinking hot coffee!!

Photo #19--Pizza Wonderland: We had a spontaneous date night in Hoi An this week. Usually we plan date nights a few days in advance, but this was on a whim! On our last date night we went to a movie, and on the back of our ticket stub there was a 40% discount for pizza at one of our favorite restaurants, Al Fresco's! We enjoyed this yummy pizza on the patio of a beautiful, dry evening.

Photo #20--Quiche-erole: I made this for dinner...I'm not sure if it's a casserole or a quiche, but it tastes good! In an attempt to save money, I've been trying to utilize everything we have in in the fridge for meals. This is made of eggs, potato, flour, baking soda, green onion, cheese, salt & pepper. I'm having a lot of fun experimenting and making up my own recipes! :)

Photo #21--Neighborly Visits: Lately, out little neighbor Bi Do (Pumpkin) has been coming into our house on her own. She sees that our gate is open, and makes her way in. She's somewhere between 18 months-2 years old, but she can get into our house on her own, and even kicks off her little sandals before entering. The other day, Pedro was in the kitchen, and I was coming down the stairs when I saw Bi Do coming in through the curtain. I called out to her and she looked up with a smile. She walked straight for the kitchen, so I followed her in there and gave her a piece of chocolate chip cookie. She ate it, but made a face. I think she liked it though, because she accepted another bite before she left. Isn't she precious??

Photo #22--Laundry: After MANY days of hard rain, the sun has come out :) Everyone on our block (and I'm sure everywhere else) took advantage of the nice weather to do some laundry. The backs of most houses are up against the backs of other houses, so optimal sunshine for drying clothes is in the driveway, on the front gate, or sometimes even in the road! Whatever works :)

So there's a little piece of our life this week! We hope you're enjoying the many blessings of the Fall-iday season. Love to you and your families!

Baby it's cold inside...

Hi everyone! We hope you're having a nice weekend, we sure are! We're currently enjoying a slow Sunday afternoon, using wifi at our house for the first time in over 2 months :) Now we can stay in on these rainy days to work on our newsletter, emails, blogs, etc., rather than heading into the elements to use the internet at a coffee shop. We're drinking hot tea, listening to Christmas music, with the AC on (Pedro's idea...to make it more "Christmassy" in here). Needless to say, I am wearing my winter clothing, and he is in shorts.

Here's what we've been up to this week!

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Photo #11--Coffee with Students: Some student's from one of Pedro's classes showed us a beautiful coffee shop in town. Everything was made of wood, and it smelled wonderfully of wood also! There was a huge pond with big gold fish also. We had great conversations and laughs. It was a great evening together.

Photo #12--Small group snack: Every week we meet with a small group to learn, sing, share, and lift things up together. This group has Americans, Canadians, Vietnamese, French, and a Puerto Rican :) One of the girls brought this snack from her home town in Ha Noi. It's "baby" rice, which is green, young rice, and small bananas. We dipped the bananas into the baby rice and then ate it. It was good, and a fun activity!

Photo #13--Farkle: Last night we went to another game night with some friends. We played the dice game Farkle, which we've really come to enjoy! If you haven't played before, I really suggest you check it out here and play with some friends or family!

So last night, I set my cup of tea on the ground so it wouldn't get in the way of rolling the dice on the table. One person rolled the (6) dice, and one fell to the floor, and bounced into my cup of tea!! It was incredible. What was even more incredible, was that later in the game, the same guy rolled again, and AGAIN one die fell, and bounced into my cup!! BOTH times, inside my cup, the die "landed" on 3.

Photos #14, 15, 16, 17--Danang International Fellowship: This past February, our fellowship outgrew the front room of the house we'd been meeting in, so we were able to acquire a new space. For several weeks, many of the men (including Pedro) worked to build this beautiful meeting room for us to use for our Sunday services and other functions.

We set up the chairs ever Sunday morning, without knowing how many will attend that day. Sometimes there is standing room only. Sometimes we barely fill a third of the chairs.

This morning, I sang in an impromptu choir for a song at the end of the sermon. We got the group together last night, to sing the song "I Won't Go Back" by William McDowell, to tie into the sermon series that will continue for the next couple weeks.

It is a great song, and the congregation really seemed to enjoy singing along.

So that's been our week! We're thankful for all that the Father is allowing us to share and experience here. Please let us know what you've been up to in your neck of the woods!

Have a GREAT week!

<3