So thankful...

...to have our computers up and running and hooked up to the internet! That may sound crazy to you all, but it's HUGE to me. Here's my long story on that. We decided that we could use another computer in the house since the boys now have a lot more of their homework online and it seems that most school evenings they are arguing over who gets the computer first and often need it when I want to check my emails or work on my digital scrapbooking stuff. It was become harder and harder to get everyone's time in during the few hours in evening we have before bedtime on school nights. So, for our family Christmas present this year we decided to get a new computer. We have had two Dell computers in the past 8 years and have had good luck with them so that's what we decided to go with again. The same week we bought the computer, the router we had been using for Greg's school laptop (when he would bring it home from school) and our older computer, decided to cease functioning. Greg went out and bought another one, but despite following the directions to the letter, we just could NOT get the thing to work for us. I spent hours scouring help websites, and trying different things, but to no avail. Then a couple of weeks ago, the monitor on the new computer decides to stop working...ugh. It was under warranty so we knew we wouldn't have to pay anything for a new one, but we had all the hassle that goes with getting the problem diagnosed (which included scheduling a technician to come to our house) and then getting the monitor changed out (which the tech did not bring with him but instead we had to wait two days for one to be shipped to us). I won't go into too much detail, but we had several other little "issues" come up due to this monitor problem. They delivered the new monitor on Wednesday and everything was fine with it, but suddenly we were getting a message saying the computer had no audio output device installed on the it (even though it was supposed to come with one)! That was not a problem before the monitor died! And only being able to get on the internet with one computer (plugged directly into the modem), I was at my whit's end! I had spent sooo much time trying to figure out all the problems (including being on the phone with Dell trying to diagnose the problems over the phone), I broke down (literally)and went to the computer expert at our school and begged for some help in solving my problems. I was not going to ask him to come over, but was going to ask him for the phone number of anyone he might know who could help us out (we had called one outside service two times and they said someone would come over, but no one ever did and they never called us back). In the end this wonderful guy from school offered to come over and take a look at things. Bless his heart! Of course I invited him to stay for dinner for all his trouble (the problem was I didn't have anything to fix for supper so I ran out to the grocery store and grabbed the things I needed to fix our favorite "company" meal- creamy Italian chicken and a salad. Then I baked a batch of brownies and a batch of cookies -so I would have something to send home with him as well). It's amazing how quickly a person can solve all your problems when they know what they are doing! I don't really know what he did to get the router working, but he had it going in about five minutes (something with the settings in the modem not working with the router or something like that)! Then it was on to the sound device "problem" with the new computer...you know what that was? The speakers weren't plugged in all the way (the light was on when the speakers were turned on so I figured they were plugged in fine, but one or the other of the speaker wires was loose)! With Vista, apparently, if you don't have your speakers plugged in tightly the computer will act like there is no output audio device on it (you would think the Dell tech help line would ask you about this the first thing since it was such an obvious answer, instead they had me unistall and then reinstall the driver for the sound device!!)! The only reason they weren't plugged in correctly in the first place is because the Dell technician, who came to our house, had unplugged them when he was diagnosing the monitor problem and had not plugged them back in all the way! So two problems solved in less than 20 minutes! He also took time to look at our older computer because we had not been able to use our mic to talk to anyone on skype or MSN chat for almost a year and a half. With just a few clicks here and there he discovered that the built in mic on the webcam is functioning fine, and although the other ports weren't working, we could at least use the webcam properly again! Yay, three issues resolved!! We went on to have a great dinner and a nice visit. We should have him over for supper again sometime, when we don't have a computer problem to solve! lol! I am just SO thankful for his willingness to come and help us out. We know he gets pleas like ours on a regular basis so we really were hoping not to have to resort to asking him, but I really didn't know where else to turn.

On another electronics note, the boys' Xbox 360 is working again!! It had died from the "red ring of death" in September and the boys have been quite bummed since. I did some research online and discovered a guy who came up with this fix you can do on your own...for $30. Even though this may not be the best way for everyone, due to us being overseas and having used the Xbox on a transformer for over a year, we figured any warranty we may have had would probably be void anyway. So, I read many reviews from several other independent sites and people who had used this method to fix their Xb0xes and we decided to take the plunge and buy the downloadable video. Once we had done that, we discovered we were not able to get some of the items we needed here in Malaysia, so we ordered what we needed off Amazon and had a friend, who was in the States for Christmas, bring the items back with her. Greg was able to get everything else he needed at a hardware store downtown, thankfully. He and the boys spent four hours the night before last following the steps, only to have it not work when they were finished. However, Greg was pretty sure he knew what the problem was so he came up with a solution and was able to get it going last night after the computer guy left. Even though the boys were bummed that it wasn't fixed over the Christmas break, they are so excited to have it running again (Mom isn't as sure yet! lol!).

So, we had two great things happen yesterday. However, there was a little damper on my day when KJ came hurrying down the stairs last night crying her eyes out, only to show me a braid of hair lying in her hand! She had climbed up and gotten the scissors from the top of the computer desk, and proceeded to cut the front braid/twist of her hair off! If I were to estimate, I would say she cut off two years worth of growth...right in the front! It makes me very sad to think about that. I had to cut off the other front braid to match, of course, and she went to bed with two inch bangs sticking straight up (due to the texture of her hair...I forgot to take a picture of that). She told me she wanted to look like KR and that's why she cut it off. I think she is very sorry as she took one look in the mirror and said "I don't want to go to school." In other words, I thinks she's afraid the kids are going to laugh at her. Because she doesn't like the way it looks, I am really hoping that means she will think twice before she is ever tempted to do something like this again.

This morning I was able to take out the box twist behind the two that were cut off and combined them and put a rubber band around hair from both boxes at the base. I then made two strands (divided so I had some long hair in each one) and made two twists going towards the front. The longer hair sort of hides the shorter hair that way. I don't think the average person is going to notice anything wrong with it the way I have it now, but that means I will be having to disguise it for months to come like this and it's certainly not ideal. If it didn't take her hair so long to grow it wouldn't be so bad, but as it is, it's just depressing to think she will be 7 before it's grown out again! ****************
On a positive note, we just finished up our first week of school, which went well. KB had 6 new students join his class this semester, which is the most of any class on campus. His class is already VERY heavy on the boy side and four of the new students were boys! He was hoping there might be more girls! lol! Due to Chinese (lunar) New Year, which is Monday, we are already taking a four day weekend. I guess it's kind of fun to start the semester off with four days last week and then three this coming week before actually getting "serious" about things:-)

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My friend, Athy, is having her birthday this weekend and she has invited several of us to go to KL with her to spend the night tomorrow night since it's a long weekend (she has a seven passenger van so space is limited). I haven't been there for three years, I think, so it will be nice to go. She has many friends and I feel honored to be one of the few asked to go. I'm sure we will have a great time. We will be leaving right after church tomorrow (it's my last Sunday of pre-school Sunday school for the semester as well. Yay!) and returning late Monday night. I guess Greg can hold down the fort while I am gone:-)

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Last week we also had to let the school know whether or not we would be returning for another year of ministry here. It was an agonizing decision, but we have decided we need to stay one more year for sure. The reason this decision was so difficult was because, as I may (or may not) have shared here before, I have had the desire to become a nurse for many years, and we were trying to decide if the timing is right to pursue that now or not. In the end we decided this was not the year to leave, but right now we are saying next year will be our final year here, unless God shows us clearly otherwise. In the past God has been faithful to close doors in situations where we have stepped out, but then asked Him to close doors if that's not His plan for us. We can name several times where He has clearly done that for us and we are trusting Him to do the same this time. In the meantime, I keep looking at my online options (to at least get started) and we will see what happens. I do know that the school will be needing to hire a number of positions and if you, or anyone you know is interested in serving at a wonderful Christian international school feel free to visit the school's website here and find the Employment link under the "Dalat" tab at the top left of the page. The positions needed to be filled should be posted there shortly.

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Finally, here are some cute pics of KL and our cats, Hector and Max. He didn't realize I took this first one through the screen.

Have a great weekend!