Updates...

If you've been reading, you know my apartment in ZJG has had some interesting issues. Here's an update....

• Remember the toothpaste and brush under the toilet? They've been joined by a hacksaw blade. I am really starting to get worried!
• I now have all the hot water a person can dream of in my bathroom. Ron, on the other hand, has a little bit. The problem is that he never knows when he will have it, and sometimes the spurt comes through during the middle of a shower and he gets hit with scalding hot water. It makes life interesting.
• We have had quite a few leaks in the plumbing as the landlord has tried to provide hot water to the apartment. Last night we came home to find all the doors inside the apartment closed (we leave them open). After looking for all of the normal water leaks in the bathrooms, we noticed a note on the table. After the DC housing admin person came over, she informed us that the washer had quit working and had overflowed the apartment. New leak! Yeah for us!
• They have installed new hoses on my water heater in my bathroom to fix the leak issues I had in there. Great news....the hoses don't leak! Not so great news....now the valves under the sink they connect to do leak (they didn't before the new hoses were installed)!
• New food items for y'all to try: chicken bone and snake soup, deep-fried goat's knuckles with peanuts and red peppers, chicken intestines. Apparently they are all very good for your health, particularly the stomach...

Updates on everything else (stuff that matters)....

• Natalie and I are becoming quite busy with the youth. We both attend Sunday afternoon's program (180, it's kind of like JAM or Extreme). Natalie hangs with the kids and I teach once a month. We also co-lead Waypoint (DG groups) groups. She has 6th-7th grade girls, and I have 7th-8th grade boys.
• Natalie also co-leads a Beth Moore women's study on Tuesday's, takes a cooking class, Mandarin lessons, shops for stuff we need at the house (an all day job), and tries to keep everyone's schedules in order.....
• Elise is extremely busy with play practice and school. She also is in a Waypoint and seems to be fairly preoccupied with everyday life. Then again, I guess she has managed to work her way into the 7th season of "Friends" and kept track of "Ugly Betty" and "Grey's Anatomy".
• Jacob is trying to keep up a busy life of texting, emailing, Live chat, Skype chat, phone calls....Okay, you get the picture, he is like his mother and is the social one of the bunch!
• Levi is taking pride (although with a certain humbleness to it) that he is schooling his sister in their Mandarin class! He also has the usual homework and hangs with the neighbor kids.
• Noah has the best grades of all the kid's in school. He seems to actually enjoy it once he gets done complaining that it is there. Of course, it would be impossible for him to get these grades if he didn't have Levi to remind him.
• The boys are all in Waypoint groups.
• Matt Schroering: he's the neighbor kid that lives below/with us. We finally have him to the point where he no longer knocks to come in, so that we don't have to get up to go and answer the door and let him in. He will now carefully walk into the apartment, stop about 5 feet in the door, and then look around to see where everyone is at. If he doesn't find anyone, he goes to the boy's rooms or back to the TV room to find them. Even though the kitchen isn't on the path to either of these places, somehow he manages to find that also. He's a great kid, and we are blessed to have him and his brother Ryan living beneath us.

That's it for now. Hope you had a Happy Halloween! Can you believe it's November already? Mark