Pet Beetles - A Post from Milly

In Taiwan we have noticed that there are pet beetles in the pet store. Well we went to our Chinese friends house and they have a pet beetle! Everyone held it even me, Levi,and Mom. It tickled when it crawled up your arm. It even crawled up Wade's neck! The beetle was very well-behaved. Now Wade wants a pet beetle for his birthday, but we will see about that.........

Shake, rattle and roll

Taiwan typically has many small earthquakes throughout the year. In fact, we have had several since we have been here but have never felt any tremors. Today, however, as the boys were playing in what is known as "Tom Dragon" -- a huge indoor playground -- and as I (Keith) was once again studying my Chinese, I actually felt my first eartquake! As the ground underneath me began to sway I realized what was happening and instinctively looked to the locals to see what I should do. I learned by observation that what you do is grab your table or chair (or whatever you are close to) and wait for it to end. The one I experienced today lasted for about 10 to 15 seconds, and then everything was back to normal. By the way, Page and Milly were back-to-school shopping on the third floor of Carrefour (similar to Wal-Mart) and did not feel anything. The boys were busy playing hard and did not feel anything either. By reading about it on the internet when we were back at the apartment, I learned the actual earthquake hit around 90 miles off the east coast of Taiwan causing much of Taipei to experience the tremor affects. Thankfully, it looks like there was no damage to speak of.

Elephant Mountain

Yesterday, we had a family adventure. We always try to go on some kind of outing on Saturdays. This week, Dad decided we are going to climb Elephant Mountain! The kids responded with a resounding, "Daaaad!" Hiking in 95 degree weather with 100% humidity didn't really appeal to the kids, but they reluctantly came along. Page and the older kids had been before and remembered you take bus #1. All six of us got on the bus with no problem. Getting off at the right spot is the tricky part...we got off a little too early. Anyway, we had to ask four different people in our broken Chinese and their broken English (we call it "Chinglish") how to get to Elephant Mountain. After about half an hour we finally got to the entrance of the hiking trail. By this point we were already drenched in sweat, and we were not following Philippians 2:14 which says "Do everything without complaining or arguing."

We have discovered typically when you hike in Taiwan, you don't have dirt trails to walk on. Instead you have thousands of stone steps, like a huge stairway that twists and turns and goes up the mountain. Some steps are very shallow so you have to take two or three at a time to move at a somewhat normal pace. Other portions are very steep, and your legs burn so much you think they will fall off by the time you get to the next level. It is great exercise, and the trails are very shaded and cool. Sometimes you even get to experience a nice breeze.

Back to our story...we eventually made it about half way up the mountain, and then we decided we needed to turn around and go back down for the sake of our family harmony. Looking back we decided we did pretty well for our first time with the whole family. As you can see from the pictures, we were able to look out over Taipei and pray for this great city where we have been sent to serve. Keith says just the two of us will go back in a few weeks and go all the way to the top. Wade says he may come with us. We will see...The other three say they will be glad to stay home and watch a movie in our air-conditioned apartment.

Thank you! Thank you!

We just wanted to thank all of you who have been so faithful to send care packages to us. They really brighten the day when we receive them. This picture is of Levi enjoying a package we received this week from his preschool class back in High Point, NC. When a package comes in, we all gather around, and Page gets to cut the tape since she is always at least as excited as the kids are! We have been blessed so much by having things shipped that are hard to find here or are very expensive. You don't realize what muffin mix or a fruit snack or a pack of your favorite flavor of gum means to you until it is not easy to find or too expensive to purchase!! So we Curlees want to say THANK YOU so much for remembering us way over here on the other side of the world. We love you and appreciate you!

Tuesday Night Hoops

As I (Keith) was warming up for my regular Tuesday night basketball game, I suddenly realized that this was not the normal Tuesday open gym night. As I looked around I started to see a lot of American looking faces that were quite a bit taller than my Chinese friends and me. As it turns out, these guys were college basketball players that were playing with Athletes in Action. Some of these guys play for big time college programs such as Kansas, Notre Dame, Texas A & M, and New Mexico. They were in Taiwan playing in the Jones Cup (a huge basketball tourney here). They just had won the championship!!! We divided up into several teams and we all had a fun night playing with these gifted players. I even hit a winning shot in one game. I won't go into detail about the other shots I took. After we finished playing, the coach gave a short gospel presentation to the guys. Wade was with me and was excited to get serveral autographs. It was a pretty cool night.

Our First Typhoon

We survived our first typhoon last week. Well, it actually never made it to Typhoon status when it hit Taiwan, but we are calling it our first. August begins Typhoon season and we will probably have several of them hit in the fall. We were well taken care of as many locals warned us what to do -- stay indoors!!! One good thing about a typhoon as it tends to cool the weather and we certainly needed that.

TMF Conference

Last week, our family went to the annual TMF (Taiwan Mission Fellowship) conference. It was held in Taichung, a city in the middle part of the island. There we met many missionary families, some with the IMB and many from other organizations. We stayed on the Morrison Academy campus in the dorms. The topic of the conference was, "Experiencing God in Suffering." The kids were in a Bible school type program while we had our sessions. Then we had free time in the afternoons, which meant swimming everyday!!! We had a blessed time here. This picture is of Hunter and his teachers.

Levi turns 4 on July 10th!!!

Happy birthday to Levi! He turned 4 on July 10th. He had a little Buzz Lightyear party with a few friends. He is very proud to be such a big boy now - no more blanket, either! Mom is a little sad her baby is growing up so fast...

Milly turns 11 on June 26!!!

Happy 11th birthday to Milly! She had a few girls over for a sleep over, and they had such fun! I was noticing how girls are the same all over the world. This group giggled all night! This photo is of Milly receiving a Chinese dress called a chipao from her friend, Cynthia. The other is of all four girls watching a movie on one air mattress!

Another Communication Tool

Welcome to our blog! This is a new way we decided to share our journey with our friends and family.