Excellent Icing

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Tina

Is it the little things that make a big difference.
One of our friends from home sent us a care package that had a tub of frosting around Christmas time and we saved it for a Valentines cookie party. It was sooooo good. Somethings are hard to duplicate.
Although I will not claim that this tip will make your frosting taste like Duncan Hines, I find it does make it better.

#1. Use real butter, or for a richer flavor cream cheese. Sometimes I will even use both, for a very nice result.

#2. Almond extract. Just a tad. This is the secret. I do not substitute it for the vanilla flavoring but use it in addition. Only a smidgen is needed. Half a capful of the little brown bottle, or maybe just a drop or two if you happen to have a large bottle and therefore a large cap. The frosting does not taste strongly like almond, and if you ask someone, they will probably not be able to identify the difference in flavor. But it makes a difference and the result is very tasty.

That is my nugget of psuedo-wisdom for the week. Thanks for stopping by! Remember, WFMW has moved to We Are That Family if you are searching for more useful hints.

Posted in Recipes/Food, wfmw | 4 Comments

March Madness

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Tina

How are we already in the third week of March?

One of our most important events of the last weeks was of course the birthday of my only son!
Zach is now 11 years old, which seems totally improbably since he was just a sweet baby. :)


Zach asked for a cookie cake this year instead of regular cake. I think Ema wants some!

He had a great birthday party last week, Greg took him and some friends paintballing at a field just down the ringroad from us. As surprising as it sounds, it was less expensive than taking him bowling like we did last year! Everyone had a blast and Zach had a great time connecting with his friends from Grace that he does not get to see as often now that we are homeschooling.
We love you very Zach and are so thankful for your 11 years, and pray that God will be your leading influence this year and every year as you grow into a man of God.

Last week both Ema and Zach played in futsal tournaments as well. Futsal was a new sport to us here in Thailand and it is very popular. It is somewhat like indoor soccer, but played on a basketball court with a smaller and harder ball.
Zach was goalie and did a great job. Goalie is not a position I would like to play, but he seems to enjoy it.

Ema is a defense player. She has not had as much experience as the other girls on her team, but she played her best and came away smiling, that is a good sign. :)


That is Ema with the bright blue socks, always easy to spot her!

Ema’s team did well in the tournament, and came away with third place, but only gave up two goals the whole day. Since they did so well, they were invited to go back last Saturday and play in the JV tournament as they needed one more team. That was a lot of futsal for us last week. (which translates to not too much school :) )

This past Saturday Leah and I were invited on an outing with the girl who sold ice at our neighborhood store. Since we buy a bag of ice every day, Leah saw this girl alot. She invited us to go to a waterfall and the temple with her. What I did not know was that she was sneaking off of work to go, and now does not work at the store anymore. Yikes! This young lady is only 17 years old and has clearly been on her own for a while. She seems interested in developing a relationship with us, and so we would ask your prayers as we interact with her and get to know her better.


Leah and A on the trail down to the waterfall

Whew! The month is not even half over. But something good is coming up for me at the end of this month, our anniversary! We have already conspired, er, I mean arranged to have the kids stay with some friends for the night. Definitely looking forward to that.

Posted in Ema, Family Events, kid stuff, Leah, News, Zachary | Leave a comment

WFMW Fun group game

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Tina

This past weekend I had the joy of attending our annual mission ladies’retreat. The weekend away with our fellow co-workers for a time of praising the Lord, prayer, teaching from the Word and fellowship is always refreshing and uplifting.
Hubby stayed home with our new co-workers and he and Dad O. watched all of the kids. Thanks honey!!!

I brought a couple of games to play with the group for the opening night. We just wanted a time of fun and relaxation/decompression and decided to just have a low-key night.

One of the other ladies there shared a game that is a twist on two old ones, but was a huge hit, hilariously funny and one I am sure to use again.

Telephone Pictionary

You know ‘Telephone’and you know ‘Pictionary’the two together are like,… well, like Oreos and milk. Made for each other.

Step one: everyone needs enough pieces of paper equal to number of people playing. We had 16, so we each needed 16 small pieces of paper. Number the pieces

Step two: Choose a topic: such as ‘what I want for my birthday’, a movie or song title, best Christmas present, where I want to go on vacation, ect. We used the first one.

Step three: One sheet #1, each person writes down their answer. Then pass to the left, the entire stack. You look at the top sheet, put it on the back of the stack and then draw what the first sheet said. Pass to left again. Allow 30-45 seconds for each successive stack.

Step four: You now have a picture to look at. Without peeking at any previous sheets, write what you think the drawing is of. Continue passing to the left. When your stack ends with you, you will recognize what you wrote originally, the game is over.

Step five: Read the progression aloud. Some of the transformations will be unbelievable!

I asked for dinner and movie for my birthday wish. What I ended up with was a new husband and a wedding. Sorry honey, I really was looking for a date with you!

Another lady said she wanted a nice dinner out, and ended up with a moving box from U-Haul.

And the one who asked for an i-Pod? She got decapitated. Now really, who would ask for decapitation for their birthday? The roommates of that participant were beginning to feel a bit uneasy about the sleeping arrangements! :)

I am always looking for new and fun games for groups of ladies and older kids, so I welcome your suggestions too! One time I was in charge of games for a Valentines party with 15+ couples. It was not as easy as I thought coming up with games for a group that size. All I will say is that group games and Valentines day are NOT good keywords for a Google search.
Sooo, if you know of any other games, icebreakers that have worked well for your groups, I would love to hear about them.

This is the first week for WFMW at it new location, We are That Family. Thanks for taking this on, we all are glad to see WFMW live on!

Posted in Ministry, Tina, wfmw | 1 Comment

Destination: Nan!

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Tina

We are pleased to report to you that we now have a definite destination and team that we will be joining at the end of our national language study.
Through a variety of ways, the Lord made clear the way for us to join the team working among the Thai Lue in the Northern province of Nan.


We currently in Chiang Mai province and will be moving to Nan. It is a distance of about 6 hours.

We will be working with a single lady and another family and are very excited to be welcomed into their team.


Say hello to our new teammates!

The Thai Lue are part of a larger group known as the Dai, originating from China. This people group is found in China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Our new co-workers have a couple of websites with pictures of their current village and descriptions of life among the Lue if you are interested in checking them out.

Lue Blog and Life in the Lue.

The team will be moving into a new village where there is no gospel witness in July/Aug, and we hope to be able to move in at that time as well. We have not yet been to see the village, but plan on making a trip sometime after the end of this month.
The kids are excited to see where their new home will be and we are too!

Ema in particular is jazzed about moving out of the city. She is definitely a country girl at heart and is looking forward to moving into a smaller city than Chiang Mai and is hoping that whatever houses are available for rent, we will be able to carve out a small portion of the yard (hope there is one!) for a garden for her.

We do not anticipate moving until July/August, as we still have some progress to attain in our Central Thai study.

After all the years of training, moving, waiting and uncertainty, it is a welcome feeling to have a definite destination, good teammates, and a timeline with the end in sight for a more permanent home.
Thanks for praying for this decision with us, we could certainly see God’s hand at work in the process!

Posted in Ministry, News | 4 Comments

Basic Logic Seems to Be Extinct As Well

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Tina

After reading this article on Yahoo News today, I could not help myself, I have to make a public comment on it.

The article claims that evidence has come to light that whales were once land mammals. Apparently a fossil has been discovered that shows s a momma whale with her unborn baby whale.
They claim this fossil shows that whales used to give birth on land and so therefore is evidence of evolution.
The ‘evidence’they are excited about is that this poor baby whale was positioned with the head first, instead of tail-first as they are normally born.
The conclusion these people are jumping to is that obviously a whale cannot be born head first in the water, as it would drown, therefore, whales used to give birth on land. The article also mentioned that head-first is the preferred method of birth for land mammals.

I guess whales are exempt from the unfortunate occurrence of breech births. Poor Momma Whale, who may have even died from this birth complication ( since we all know whales still have not developed thumbs or hands to aid in a breech birth), is now going to be hijacked into being a poster child, or poster mother if you will, for evolution.

That is insult to injury.

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