Christmas Day

A view of our city of Pune looking from the South side to the North


Christmas lunch with friends at a local church gathering

Want to know more? E-mail Merrilea and ask her!

Christmas night...oh what fun!

The Week Before Christmas

Nafisa's feet prints and hand prints make her into a nice angel...

Hip-hoppin at Adlabs Mall, Kalyaninagar, Pune


Hide and Seek in the kitchen...

Nafisa and Santa

My birthday last week...

Joseph at a Christmas party

For Nafisa's first 30 mins around Santa, she was very scared and cried...as most kids might who see Santa for the first time. Then, about an hour later, she gave him a hug. She saw him before in 2005 but didn't have a clue.

What we didn't expect

Red ants showed up just before Merrilea's parents arrived. So, like a good son-in-law, I called the exterminator who has a one year contract with us. He came and sprayed.... Oops.

What a smell! That shut down things in the house for about 3 hours. Everyone left. I was alone in the house, closed up in the office.

The kids didn't mind so much because they had to stop their school work and play outside! Merrilea's mom and I then washed the counter tops and floor so we could use them again. No more ants (for now). Glad the smell is gone!

For our Thanksgiving get-together, friends made this.... the closest thing to a Turkey this side of the Ganges River.

Last week...

Dad and Mom Schrack have been keeping busy - from helping around the house to planning trainings.... Adrian, a friend of ours, came over with his family on Saturday and is working with Dad Schrack, planning trips for January. Joseph enjoyed building the tallest tower he's built with Legos.

A Day in the Life of....

Maria Ann van den Akker

Here's the best way to describe it...from Friday night!

This Week

I've traveled back and forth to Aurangabad, some 5 hours north east of us while Merrilea, the kids and Merrilea's mom enjoyed time at home ... homeschooling, sorting old stuff we need to get rid of, etc.

Merrilea's dad went south 5 hours to a town called Miraj and visited a leper colony among other things.

Danielle and Maria went to a 'Princess Party' on Monday night and came back with facials and less eyebrows!

Most of our Christmas decorations are up! For the first time in 16 years of marriage (Dec 28) I have not had to put up our decorations! Maria, Joseph and Danielle did it all! I'm very grateful, guys!

I am also finalizing a lease agreement for a new guy from Oklahoma who will join us in January!

It's around 7o degrees right now and around 60 at night. For the first time since last Christmas I wore sox to bed last night!

Arrived!

Merrilea's mom and dad arrived safely from Pennsylvania via Mumbai. Merrilea and Maria picked them up in Mumbai and traveled by road to Pune, arriving around 3:30AM on Saturday.

Above is Merrilea with one of the many homeschool books Emma and Harold brought with them.
Below...doing family devotions tonight.

More family pics to come in the days ahead!

Thanksgiving

That which I am thankful for:

• Our Great and Wonderful Lord
• A wife who loves me
• Merrilea - a beautiful, good support
• 4 incredible kids
• Maria - a spry teen who never ceases to amaze me
  
• Joseph - a responsible teen who supervises plumbers well
  
• Danielle - a hospitable pre-teen
  
• Nafisa - keeping the comic relief coming
• A place to be in Pune as family
  
• A motorbike to cruise around on and any one of my kids to do it with
  
• A car for those rainy days (months)
• People in our company who help me be better than I am
  
• Friends and colleagues local and not local who are invaluable
• Our church
• Parents and In-laws who support Merrilea and I
• A brother and sister I love dearly
  
• A Godly heritage and upbringing
• Winning Spades with Alan 3 times in a row against Merrilea and Beth
• Good relationships with in-laws
  
• Homemade apple sauce
  
• Coffee
• Appy Fizz (carbonated apple juice)
• Our freedoms guaranteed by the United states Constitution upheld by our legal system
• 1620 when Plymouth was founded (place my folks now live)
  
• 1640 when Braintree was founded (place I grew up)
• Red Sox, Boston College and Patriots are doing so well! It's good to be from "up Nawth!"
  
• Lindt Chocolate
• Music of all kinds (but for bluegrass)
• For Shiloh and the memories and maturity brought on in the late 80's
  
• NPR programming available via the net
• K-Love Internet radio
• Ability to order things online and have them brought over by friends new and old
  
• Eggnog
  
• Lincoln Logs
• Legos
• Soap
• Usually consistent 24-hour broadband internet
• Hot water
• Burger King Whoppers with onion rings
• Dr. Pepper
• Turkey, though I can't remember the taste
  
• And the list goes on . . .
  

Smokey

This time of year in our city of Pune, people burn lots of trash and leaves. (uhm, when doesn't this happen?)
We tried a year ago to move away from this type of thing but we just can't hide from it! At night and at 5am peoples' home fires cause lots of smoke which stays around for hours.

This picture was taken off our bedroom balcony last month. It was a continuation of a fire that was started in the middle of the night. The smoke woke me up and I went out at 2:30 am with a few buckets of water to put it out. The smoke was coming in all our windows facing that area. Since we don't have water from midnight till 4:30AM I couldn't do much.

Goin to Goa

For Danielle's birthday on October 31, we usually try to head to the beach. This year we again went to Goa on an overnight train ride. We stayed on a southern beach (Benaulim Beach) full of waves, sun and sand.



We all rented bikes for under $7 per day. What a blast!



Maria lost her glasses to the waves. Thankfully, her stylish backups were there to save her day.
Joseph was not so lucky. No backups. His glasses were lost to the waves and he was able to get a new pair in 2 days for just over $50!

Maria's hair got wonderfully lightened by the sun!

Pics from Merrilea and Maria's trip to Delhi and Agra

Maria, Merrilea and Waheyda went to Delhi by train from Pune. Actually, their train was canceled out of Pune due to some other train hitting two buffalo. So, they hopped on a bus to Mumbai and then a train.

They went to a wedding in Delhi and then headed to Agra to the Taj Mahal and back. It was fun and exhausting. The train ride alone to Delhi is over 24 hours (one way)!

Day in the Life of .....

JOSEPH

Joseph gets up between 7 to 9 AM daily. Currently he's sick, so he sometimes wakes up real early...or real late. He lays in bed for an hour so, gets up and immediately starts school work (though he may not finish it before dark!). We've been depending on him to do 3 loads of laundry in the mornings as we loose water from 2-4pm. Currently, our Whirlpool washing machine is needing to be serviced. We called on a Monday. The service man came on Thursday and will hopefully return on Friday with the replacement parts (all on our service contract). Joseph usually handles these visits, too.

He loves to take breaks from school work to listen to Down Gilead's Lane and Adventures in Odyssey. Sometimes he's grounded from using the computer based on the status of his homework, so if you're interested in chatting with him on Yahoo Messenger (ID: usontheflipside5 ) and he doesn't, it may mean he can't!

Joseph enjoys earning money and making Coffee Jar deliveries (best coffee shop this side of the Ganges River!) The shop doesn't pay him to do it but friends of our do!

He's got a low-watt green night-light in his room. We catch him often reading pretty late. For his birthday a friend gave him the Eragon novels. They are great! He's got a trunk-load of Legos he's saved through the years or bought off other friends. Thanks to Oma (Bill's mom), Joseph will soon be getting a bike as his old one was stolen 2 months ago.

We've really grown the depend on Joseph for loads of stuff around here. He does lots of local purchasing (household needs from toilet paper to butter, cheese to laundry detergent) and when the fix-it man shoes up, Joseph becomes the supervisor. I enjoy hearing him speak in Hinglish with the local shop keepers and vendors!!! He also does his share in taking care of Nafisa. Some nights, she even sleeps in his room. I think he does more than most 13 year olds his age here. We are grateful for his help!!!

Day in the Life of . . .

Nafisa

She usually sleeps with Danielle and Maria in their bedroom. Maria's got the top bunk, Danielle and Nafisa share the bottom, though it was not always that way. Nafisa usually wakes up after the other girls. Maria tries to get up early to do her devotions with Brio Magazine. By the time most everyone else is up K-Love Radio is and we are eating breakfast.

Since Nafisa is allergic to wheat and dairy products, she usually has yogurt, oatmeal or rice and yogurt which is one of her favorites. Once a week Maria takes her to 'Toddler Time' which is a bunch of moms and toddlers giving a creative play time to kids Nafisa's age. We host it from time to time at our house. Nafisa usually has the reign of the house while home school is going on. One of us will usually take her outside for a walk in the park or to the grocery store. She LOVES getting out. When she sees one of us putting our shoes on, she says "You going out? I go out, too?"

When guests come over, she'll have fun walking around the house in their shoes. She loves to dress up and to get her finger and toe nails painted by Maria and Danielle. She loves getting her hard in pony tails. She'll daily watch a sign-language video called Sign-A-Lot and ancient VHS Sesame Street episodes about the alphabet and counting.

Hopefully she'll take a nap at some point and then regain enough stamina for the rest of the day. Can you believe she rarely falls asleep before 10pm!

She still keeps us smiling and laughing with her eager and happy demeanor. She's got her days, though. Sometimes I wonder who can whine louder, her or Danielle... :-)

Have you ever had a Gola?

This week we went to an annual home-show in our city with our friends, Mark and Aimee. I never did find a few items we needed but we sure had fun! There, we saw the "Gola walla" ('Gola man') quickly spotted with his big ice grinder and colorful syrup bottles. It's one of Merrilea's and Maria's favorite Indian cold snacks. It's basically ground ice on a stick, drenched with a sweet, flavored syrup! Below's Maria eating a Mango Gola.

I found a great article written by an Indian about the Golas. I think you'd enjoy reading it:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/966094

Life at the House

We’ve just said ‘goodbye’ to 2 college students who were staying in our home. They left on Friday the 14^th of Sept. for an apartment of their own. We are meeting with them regularly as they continue working in community, teaching ESL classes and learning language and culture. That means Maria and Danielle have their room back to themselves...with Nafisa of course.

Merrilea has been sick for a few days so missed a few language classes this week. Joseph took Danielle to class so she wouldn’t miss them. The class is only 10 minutes away and they both enjoy getting out of the house.

This is the time in India when festivals are all over the place. Muslims are fasting during the day and have special stalls set up at night for varying good foods. Hindus are currently celebrating a 10 day festival for their god Ganesh along with a mixture of other festivals around this time. Lights and colors are everywhere.

On top of that, we are in the tail end of the monsoon season. Yesterday it rained the whole day. Lots of water accumulated on the streets around our apartment. I’m very glad we have a car. 2 years ago, we simply got wet! This evening I can hear the frogs chirping out the window in the park.

Dance Class

Two to three days a week for the last few months Danielle and Maria have been attending a dance class. Recently they’ve taken up tap dance as well…and for homework they had to review some of the dance steps from “Singing in the Rain.” What's ironic is the class had to change locations as the place they were meeting at got flooded due to rains!

Nafisa enjoys spending some time with them as well! It’s quite a sight to see Nafisa do a split!

I’ve just come off of a long training time and am exhausted. Regretfully, I missed a friend’s birthday last night as I went to bed early. I’m feeling a bit better now, though.

In other news, our 2 college girls, Sarah and Chassidy, are hitting it hard, learning language and teaching English as a second language to several local women. They are keeping very busy.