TCK Teens spending Time Together

The group, with ugly I-just-woke-up-why-are-you-taking-my-picture-Mom faces.😎

  I feel as if a lot of my posts begin with car trips. It seems that every time I get excited about one of my blogs, I have to start with a road trip. This was actually a pretty fun road trip, though. It was our second car adventure with Aunt Danna and Jackson, and they always spice up our lives😊  On this escapade, we were driving up country to see another MK that lives about seven to eight hours away from us. None of us had ever met him. All we knew was that we were going to a river, eating dinner at their house, and playing X-box Kinnect. This trip was mostly for the teens. We have our original trio of Tristan, Jackson, and myself, but our family had the pleasure of bringing along Yilin (or Lin) with us. Welcome to the group, Yilin! I hope our craziness didn't scare you. 😛

After we sat in the car for 8 hours, we got pretty silly.

  By the end of the car trip at about 7:00 pm, we had actually descended to talking about everyone's favorite bird (I don't even remember whose idea it was), but we were having fun, so who can blame us? Once we arrived and everyone was settled in, we ate a West African style dinner of rice, spicy peanut sauce, and chicken (no comment on the chicken). Everyone was tired and hungry and we all retired as soon as sleeping arrangements were organized.

  I expected the worst when it came to housing situations, but was pleasantly surprised. We actually had air conditioning! In the end, only Yilin and I used ours. The boys' air didn't work (we were told this several times) and Mom and Aunt Danna said it was too cold. The weather there was so much cooler than back home. But it was also very, very dry, and I actually missed humidity (good times, good times). At night we would close our windows to block out sound and that made the room stuffy to me.  Air conditioning: luxury of luxuries! 

  We ate outside because it was so cool. There was a glorious breeze blowing in and Mom read us a devotion while we had our mouths full. 

Second Breakfast!

Aidan is happy to be alive this morning....

  It appears we were meant to be Hobbits that morning. After everyone had finished eating breakfast and we were waiting for our new friend to show up, a lady from the guest house staff came and told me our meal was ready. I knew we had already eaten what we had brought along with us, so I told her there was a mistake and we hadn't ordered anything. Mom sorted everything out later and we ate Second Breakfast. No one was complaining!

From left to right: Yilin, Aidan, Aunt Danna hiding, Owen by the window, Tristan, Joshua, and Jackson

  Joshua and his mom showed up while we were eating and we got to meet a fellow TCK. We learned that he had eaten donkey, horse, cow tongue, dog, cat, skunk, snail, frog, worm, cobra, bee (yes, the insect), and a lot of other things I forgot, maybe for good reason. That conversation took up a whole car ride.

 I'm sure it amazes most people how much TCK's and MK's actually have in common. Within minutes we were engaged in a heated discussion of Algebra, reading, third culture life, and Minecraft. The boys had a long talk about something called Halo, but that left me and Yilin in the dust (they told me later it's some sort of first-person shooter game I had never heard of).  Soon Aunt Danna and all of us silly teenagers were on our way to a seriously cool place. 

  You have to be there to get the full awesomeness of the view. I can't really describe it, and pictures can't express the full beauty of it, but try to imagine how cool this place is. 

I don't know why, but I really love this picture. Maybe it just expresses how strangely funny things happen in life. Piggy-back while Daddy pushes the car one-handed? Why not?!😜

  The van did get stuck, but it was just a matter of shoving it out of the small ditch. Soon we were facing a breathtaking view. I don't know how this was formed and I can only imagine how beautiful it must look in the rainy season. It is a serious testament to God's handiwork and creativity. 

  Joshua called it 'the river' but it was really is so much more than just a river. There were huge holes in the rock that our whole group could have fitted inside it. After looking at everything, we thought that the holes were connected under the rocks and when the area is underwater, it would flow everywhere. 

We explored for a long time and soon had the brilliant, genius idea to somehow catch minnows in Tristan's hat with clam meat we smashed off of rocks ...it didn't work, but that was mostly because we couldn't pull the hat up fast enough. It was really fun, actually. 

Our first attempt.

  Afterwards the boys and I ran down a little grown over creek bed. On the way back I slipped on the wet rock and fell in. The boys' faces were priceless! I didn't mind, though. The sun was getting hot.

 We stopped at the guesthouse for lunch and then went to the big hotel downtown to go swimming. The water was unbelievably cold. Tristan put his foot in, didn't believe me (I was the first one in), and took the jump. He screamed like a girl!

   Joshua's mom invited the teens to spend the evening at their house. We were dropped off, but the younger kids managed to come inside and take over the slack line (I'm not really sure what it's called) in the front yard. They didn't want to leave but they got to eat a restaurant and didn't complain in the least. 

 Joshua seemed to think that all girls are afraid of snakes and told Yilin and me that we probably shouldn't meet his pet sand snake (I don't know what he's talking about; I've held royal pythons and scorpions before). The thing was only about foot and half long, anyway.

  We also met his pet lizard, but Yilin and I were bored. We went in the house to help with dinner. Their house was beautiful! What I loved most was their African Grey-Parrot, Pima. She would twitter, sing, and if you called, "Hey, babe?" from the kitchen she would answer, "What!" I died laughing. 

Pima on her perch

  For dinner we got to eat burritos with mock sour cream (you can't get sour cream where they live). The cheese was rationed per person and we had a choice between water and guava juice. The food was amazing.  After dinner and a bit of debating, we found a game to play. I don't even remember the name, but it was like a serious knock-off of dominoes with shapes and colors. Tristan won. 

 There was the X-box after dinner, but both of us girls were really tired and Mom took us back to the guesthouse. It was better anyway since the power went out several times after dark and Joshua's family had no generator. Lucky for us, the guesthouse did. 

 We were up early the next morning, running in and out of everyone's separate rooms to eat, pack, and wake up before we had to get back in the car.  Everyone stalled several minutes before getting back in the van.  No one wanted to be the first person inside. But we finally did get in to begin our journey home. 

On the road again...

  The drive home was a little less exhausting because we left early in the morning, and this time we got to stop in an iconic site.

An excuse to stand in the road!!!

And play Chicken! No? Awww.😝 (We really didn't, GranAnnie)

No broken bones, no fever-inducing illnesses, and no deaths. Success!