Why I Chose Your Father over Orlando Bloom: An open letter to my children

“[Viggo Mortensen, the actor who played Aragorn] used to call me 'elf boy,' and I'd call him 'filthy human.' As an elf, I never got a scratch on me, never got dirty. And Vig would come out with blood and sweat all over him. And he'd say to me, 'Oh, go manicure your nails.'” ~Orlando Bloom

"Legolas doesn't speak a lot - he prefers to let his actions speak for him. Legolas's moves are smooth and elegant, like a cat. You know how cats can jump and land steadily on their paws? That's what I'm trying to do. There's a strength in that, but it's very balletic. It's also [really] hard to do without falling over!" ~Orlando Bloom

Dear Ones,

I’m sorry.  I let myself get carried away.

I don’t even remember how it started exactly.  One thing just led to another.  In a brief moment of weakness I thought, It’s harmless … no one will get hurt.

And then, for better or for worse, I just said it.

“I thought Legolas was pretty hot.”

The looks on your faces were priceless.  Evan, trying to determine how serious I was and simultaneously rethinking his obsession with “Lord of the Rings.”  Andie trying to stifle an embarrassed grin and at the same time downright horrified that her mother would have, or at least would admit, such thoughts or feelings.

Even Daddy widened his eyes.  “Wow.  I don’t think you’ve ever said anything like that about anyone before.”

Because your reactions were so perfect, I couldn’t let it die.  Over the next few days I seized several additional opportunities to speak swooningly of Legolas ... to make your collective eyes bug out, to cause your faces to contort into those coincidentally wonderous and disturbed looks, to make Andie shrink back, aghast and suspicious, willing me to take it back for the love of all things right and noble.

Your father just rolled his eyes.  You see, he wasn’t worried.

Let me explain.

I admit, there was something about the character, Legolas, that was appealing to me.  He was the strong, silent type.  Tender, kind, brave, thoughtful.  Rescuer, hero, kick-some-Ork-butt, save-the-world.  He had a strong jaw and perfect hair, and was pretty good with a bow and arrow.  And don’t get me started on the pointy ears.

But, that’s all he is to me, really … a fantastical character.

He’s not real.

And I already explained to you that I really don’t have any feelings for Orlando Bloom himself.  I mean, I am sure he is a fine young man (I can say "young" because when I got married at 26, he was still in high school, or would have been if he had not dropped out), but I don’t know him at all – at least not as well as you might feel like you know a graceful, blonde elf after nine hours on the big screen.

You father, however, is very real.

I know we’ve had our issues – all marriages have conflict.  But, we would both tell you that those issues, and the way that God had brought us through them, only made us stronger in the end, made us love each other more.

Your father has always been there for me, even when I was at my most unlovable.  Thanks to untreated clinical depression that, fortunately, you don’t really remember, I was frequently quite nasty, angry, hateful … for years.  I almost certainly would have walked out on me, but Daddy never did.  I don’t hold out much hope that Orlando would have done the same.  It’s not really Hollywood’s way.

I’m sure our culture tried to sell Dad the idea that he deserved better.  I would guess that he had plenty of opportunities to buy the lie that if he left me and found someone else everything would be good again, easier, more fulfilling … that the pain of divorce and a broken family, and even the conflicts we had, would not follow him into another relationship (they always do no matter how good or bad the relationships are).

But your father chose the difficult path – he chose to honour me, his commitment, and his God.  He demonstrated faithfulness to me, just as he had pledged at the altar in 1995, but, as it turned out, far far beyond what I actually deserved.  He did not always like me, that he will admit, but he chose to continue loving me, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

I didn’t make it easy, and sometimes I still don’t.  I spent far more time suffocating in the Darkness than I have as a medicated, counseled, reasonably healthy adult, and there are still bad habits that need to be expelled from our relationship.  And despite all my flattering talk, Daddy’s not perfect either.  We’d both acknowledge that.  But we’ve come a long way thanks to Mercy.  Thanks to Grace.

Besides, he’s a pretty good cook.

I love your Daddy very much, and I would still choose him over Legolas.

I just wanted you to know.

With love,

 

Mom

Happy Half-Christmas

“Christmas, children, is not a date.  It is a state of mind.” ~Mary Ellen Chase

“Christmas makes me happy no matter what time of year it comes around.”  ~Bryan White

Half-Christmas has arrived.

Two days ago, the kids and I finished the puzzle below, complete with eighteen hidden wolves.  As we did so we talked about how my parents had sent the puzzle to us for Christmas of 2011 (doing a puzzle over the Christmas break is a tradition we have started, and that year they were kind enough to support the habit).  Because the package actually arrived after Christmas, and we were already trying to pack up and get ready for furlough, we never even opened the puzzle.  Until now.

Maybe it was the snow depicted on the puzzle, or the talk of the holidays, but the kids wanted to know how much longer until Christmas.  Andie pulled out the calendar and tried to figure out how many days had transpired since the last one. 

“What’s 31 plus 28 plus 31?”

Seriously?  You just finished Algebra, right?

“And then add 30 …”

Don’t forget the, uh, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 … six days after Christmas in December.

Short story, she figured out that the very next day, Tuesday, was exactly half a year out from Christmas Eve, which means today, Wednesday, is half a year out from Christmas.

Happy Half-Christmas!

We joked for a few minutes about how a half-Christmas celebration should look and sound.

… On the fourth day of half-Christmas my true love gave to me, two calling birds, one-and-a-half French hens, one turtle dove, and a partridge--.

At that point the kids had been out of school for a full six days, which apparently is long enough for full boredom to set in.

“We should decorate!  Mom, can we decorate?”

What?

“We should put up half a Christmas tree … and bake Christmas cookies …”

Then they asked if we could invite our close family friends – who happened to be leaving for a year furlough the very next day, today - on half-Christmas, thank you very much - to come over and celebrate with us … since we were unable to spend last Christmas with them because of our furlough, and we wouldn’t get to spend this next Christmas with them because of their furlough.

Plus we needed their signatures on our holiday table cloth.

And thus the planning began.  Tuesday we spent the better part of the day decorating (lights around half of the front door, half a wreath, half a tree with half a paper star on top, half-boxes (open on one side) wrapped in holiday paper, half a nativity scene.  Then we baked cut-out sugar cookies … stars, trees, angels, gingerbread men, stockings … all cut in half prior to baking, of course.

We even made faux snow in a bowl.  Decorations courtesy of Andie.  

"So no one thinks it's coconut."  :)

Our friends came over after dinner and we served homemade eggnog – half a glass per person.  As the Christmas music played in the background, we signed the tablecloth, frosted and sprinkled half-sugar-cookies and chatted, trying to ignore the fact that we wouldn’t see each other again for nearly 400 days. 

These are the same friends who have become “aunt” and “uncle” to our kids, and to whose kids we have become the same.  They cared for Evan when Paul and I were in Thailand in 2011.  And as if that wasn’t enough to prove their loyalty and friendship, they looked after our goofball dog for much longer than they bargained for while we were on furlough.

And they didn’t even remind us of our extreme indebtedness … at least not very often.

After an hour or so of cookies and ‘nog, their just-graduated 18-year-old son who affectionately treats my children like a younger brother and sister and even cuddles on the dog (when he’s not painting her, that is) stood to leave.  His mother had been told to expect that each evening during Cry Week the graduates would have a party of some kind or other, “with whoever is left,” hence the 8pm departure from our chronologically displaced holiday festivities. 

I don’t blame him.  I've been to more exciting parties, and I'm old.

But as I watched him walk out the door, knowing that it would likely be much longer than 400 days before we would see him again, I felt a wave of sadness.

Seeing as I don’t do goodbyes well, I sent him off with a “take care” and “keep us posted on how you’re doing - Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.”  He smiled at the reference to one of his recent status updates.

This may have been our last “holiday” with him, but I’d sure be appreciative if he would, someday, plan his wedding around our furlough schedule.

And if you do, ‘Siah, I’ll promise to make you a batch of homemade eggnog, and to let it chill longer than seven hours.

And you can even have a full glass.  :)

Drosophila Melonogaster, and other Tropical Curiosities

“You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart.”  ~ Fred Allen

“What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?” ~ Emile M. Cioran

“All insects with wings are unclean, so don’t eat them.” ~ Deuteronomy 14:19 (ERV)

The insects in PNG are amazing. While we were at our orientation course in 2009, I took countless photographs of all kinds of fantastical bugs.  Moths larger than your hand, beetles of all shapes, sizes, and colours, enormous gangly spiders (OK, I know those are not actually insects), creatures that mimic sticks and leaves … I am ever enthralled by the seemingly endless variety. 

Now that we live in the highlands, the species are more limited, presumably because of the cooler weather.  But we still have our share of moths and beetles, including the infamous rhinoceros beetle.  These in particular can be fun companions – knock them over on their backs and you can remain entertained for hours watching them try to right themselves.  Also, if you grab them by the “horn” there is not much they can do except wave their little legs about and attempt to scare you off with their ferocious hissing.

Also a result of the cooler weather at this elevation, the mozzies are not too much of a problem.  I’m not saying we don’t have mosquitoes – where there is standing water (which is everywhere here for about 5 months of the year), they shall breed.  But, they are not as likely to carry or spread malaria.  It is possible to get malaria here in the highlands, and people do, but it is rarer.  We faithfully took prophylactic regimens while we lived at the coast, but a few months after arriving at 5500 feet, we ran out of meds and decided to throw caution to the wind.

So far, so good.

Now, I recognize that this next confession may strip us of our missionary status, but I suppose I have to be willing to risk it in the name of honest journalism: we have never been offered any entomological delicacies at a meal.  Before we came to PNG, I expected that insects would be a plentiful, and therefore popular, part of the nationals’ diet, but we have not found it to be so. Many Papua New Guineans do eat insects, but it does not seem to be as common as in some other areas of the world.  I found a possible explanation in this article: “Orsak (1993a) laments that New Guineans, to their economic and nutritional disadvantage, are coming to believe that eating insects is "bush behavior" and something to be discarded in their progress toward development.  But it is obvious from the writings of researchers and educators who are familiar with the country that insects are an important part of the diet of Papua New Guineans.”

Interesting theory.

An exception to this diminishing insect interest is the sago grub.  In marshy areas of the country where sago palms abound, this plentiful, squishy grub is still a very common source of nutrition. Paul, having been privileged to ingest such a creature, would surely attest to its “slightly nutty flavor”… if he’d bothered to taste it.  But, I am pretty sure he swallowed it like a pill.

If only I had been so wise.

Last March, just before we went on furlough, the primary campus had its annual book festival.  Theme: “Don’t bug me; I’m reading” (aka, insects).  By way of incentive for the classes to each meet their reading goals, the principal promised that if they did just that, he would “eat bugs.”

That’s why I’m not the principal.  Just sayin'.

There is a certain beetle in this area that the people especially enjoy.  In the dry season, they emerge from the ground and swarm into the trees.  To collect them, the people put a sheet of sorts on the ground and wildly shake one of these trees, evicting hundreds of the little critters at a time from their lofty perches. 

But, March is not quite dry season.  And the beetles are not yet, well, beetles.  While definitely edible, the nationals don’t often eat the larvae because they have to dig them up out of the ground, a painstaking task compared to merely dislodging more mature (and crunchy) insects from their elevated colonies.  But, because book festival takes place in March, what choice did we have, really?  Our school custodian graciously agreed to unearth some of these creatures and prepare them for the big event. 

Boiled and fried, they were certainly well cooked, and Phil popped one in his mouth and swallowed like a pro.  Then he ate a couple more for good measure.

Can’t be that bad, I thought from the sidelines.

Then the chanting started.   Nevermind that I am a woman with delicate sensibilities, the students began asking for me to eat some, too.  And, looking back, wasn’t it nice of Dimeko to prepare not two or three, but a dozen or so of the creatures?  In the moment that the chorus began, it crossed my mind that by eating “a bug,” by engaging in “bush behavior,” I would somehow be inaugurated deeper into the missionary club; that surely our partners back home would be more impressed and touched by my global experiences if said experiences included ingesting something more exotic than fresh pineapple.

Considering I already had a clothespin on my nose as part of my Junie B. Jones (and the Stinky Smelly Bus) costume, and the fact that they had met their goal, how could I not do this for them?  Besides, the kids were just so darn cute.

The problem was, I tried to chew.

As fun as that experience was, my more typical daily insect exposure involves those who frequent my home: sugar ants (who aren’t picky and like many different varieties of food), roaches (yes, American cockroaches, which I assume came over 20 or 30 years ago in someone’s sea freight shipment), and fruit flies (which I learned in high school science do not actually emerge from rotting fruit, but which regularly give me cause to second-guess that conclusion.)

Now, I am certain you are slack-jawed in awe of the exotic life I am leading here.

Perhaps familiarity truly does breed contempt, because I detest them all.  The ants are just a nuisance, appearing in droves almost as soon as something capsizes onto the counter.  My favourite method to eliminate these is to systematically snuff out their little lives with my fingertips.

Die, die, die, die, die … die, die, die …

Maybe it is the sugar, but they tend to stick, and it is not unusual to have seven or eight, or twenty-two, smooshed little guys on each finger by the time I am done.

As for the roaches, I get all creeped out if I so much as hear them crunch, especially if I have to do it myself.  I am not afraid of much, and I suppose I am not truly “afraid” of cockroaches, but when I do see them (which is rare, since Paul made a batch of homemade “roach balls” and placed them strategically around the house), I much prefer to call out to my dear husband with a quivering “Paaauuuullll …. Will you please come be my hero?!”  With a grunt and a roll of the eyes, he appeases me.  Usually.

Fruit flies may not emerge from rotting fruit, but come to find out they don’t actually even need rotting fruit.  I never knew that.  No, all they need is ripe fruit.

Let me just say that I keep no fruit, ripe, rotting, or otherwise, in our bathroom.  So, why I had a fruit fly zipping around while I was curling my hair this morning, I may never know. 

I discovered something about fruit flies, though, that I never knew, or frankly cared about.

Fruit flies bleed when you smoosh ‘em.

My friend said, “are you sure it wasn’t some kind of fruit juice or something?”

Um … this was in the bathroom, remember?

The blood gave me cause to stop and consider … God created these pesky little flies (and ants, and cockroaches too, but we’ll have to have a chat about that when I see him next) … not just with wings and legs and fermentation-sniffers, but with respiratory systems and circulatory systems and excretory systems.  (Yes, all that fruit alcohol has to go somewhere.)  I am amazed to find intricate diagrams of fruit fly internal anatomy on the internet, meaning that someone somewhere (likely with university tenure and tens of thousands of dollars in grant funding) has done detailed research on these critters who at about 3mm long only live about two weeks.

I wonder how much time God put into creating the fruit fly?  Only for me to smoosh his teeny weeny brains out.

Not trying to be sacrilegious here, but it kind of made me wonder if part of Job 38 might have been edited out …

“Where were you when I gave flight to the Drosophila?  Who assigned 28 degrees Celsius as its optimum growing temperature?  Can you number the hundreds of embryos each female deposits in your aging fruit bowl?  Who wrote the male’s courtship song on his wings?  Tell me if you understand.”

I don’t.  I certainly don’t.

But after watching that poor fly bleed on my counter, I think God should have left that passage in there.

That would have given me something to chew on.

An Amazing Race

(or, “Fun in the Remote Highlands of New Guinea,” Vol. 5)

My tube of muscle rub has expired.  I don’t mean simply that the date imprinted on the crimp has passed, I mean, like really expired.  Like it’s completely ineffective.

That is the most important realization I had after last Saturday’s “fun.”  Actually, it may be the only realization I had, considering that my brain was as tired and as sore as my body.

“The Amazing Race: Ukaurmpa Edition” had been a dream of Toni’s for two years.  Saturday saw that dream realized.  Events like this are rare enough that we jumped on the chance to do something fun as a family.  We prepared ourselves for the toll that stressful puzzles, decisions, and challenges would take on our pre-existing relationships.

Twenty teams showed up at 8:30AM for preliminaries.  Teams (including memorable combinations such as “Elmo’s Biggest Fans” (four high school senior girls wearing Elmo t-shirts, “Café con Leche” (two expats from Spanish speaking nations and two Americans who speak Spanish with them) the “DoReMi’s” (a music teacher and his family), “Smoking Hues” (two fathers and their sixth grade sons, the team name created from their two last names), “SMACK 1” and “SMACK 2” (two teams of four women each – all of their names starting with S, M, A, C, or K) and “SMACKED” (four of their husbands)) signed in and had team pictures taken.  Rules, route markers, detour and roadblock signs were displayed and explained.  And the first wave of ten teams departed with their initial clue envelopes at the 9:00 start time.

Fifteen minutes later, after a just-in-case bathroom break, the second wave (which included “The PEAS”), took off.  We rushed into the shade of a tree to tear open our envelope.

The clue referred to “going bald” or “needing a new do” and “Milky white” who was “mooing at you.”  That was a tad bit obscure, and we weren’t really sure what hair had to do with a cow, but rather than asking for help from spectators (which was allowed), we, the independent, self-reliant team, tore off down the road toward the cow from whom we get fresh milk twice a week.  As we approached (not seeing any sign of a route marker), Paul reminded us that there are actually two cows on center, and the other one is located at the home of one of the other ladies who cuts hair. 

That made sense, so we turned around and made our way quickly (we’d stopped running as soon as we got away from the cameras – ha!) to these people’s home which lies at the bottom of a long hill.  They were hosting their Saturday morning café (the subject of a future “Fun in the Remote Highlands of PNG” post), but no route marker.  Knowing we had the huge hill to climb, I decided to inquire rather than continue our failed self-sufficiency test.  We were informed that we were not the first to try their house (turns out, about eight teams came to their house that day), and that “Milky White” was the name of a paper-mache’ cow in a high school play a few years back.

Yeah, like how were we supposed to know that?

So, we trudged back to the high school.

Yes, I said BACK to the high school … to the prop room that stands just a few yards from the starting line we had jogged away from so energetically fifteen minutes earlier.

It had been a long fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately, we did not successfully complete the challenge at that stop (finding a marked black ribbon hidden among the rows of costumes inside of a 12 minute time limit) and, in addition to the 15 minutes of confused roaming, the 10 minutes waiting for the team ahead of us to finish the challenge, and the intense ribbon search, we absorbed a 5 minute penalty.  We had now used up 42 minutes of our allotted four hours.  We’d used 18% of our time on the first 8% of our race.

Fortunately, the other eleven pit stops were not as difficult for us.  The only other one we did not complete had to do with bean counting (literal bean counting), and no one else accomplished it either.  Using sampling theory, we did come up with the closest answer of all the teams that attempted it, but alas, not close enough to avoid another 5 minute penalty.

The location clue we received at the prop room was a photograph of someone’s front door.  This led us to a roadblock where we had to choose someone who was “really hungry” to attempt the challenge.  “I mean really really hungry.  I really mean really really really really really really really really hungry.”

Well, on any given day that describes our son exactly, so, thinking he would be downing a dozen bananas, he agreed to take the challenge.

He wouldn’t let us talk him into any more challenges for the rest of the day.

Before he even unwrapped the foil-covered plate, we caught a glimpse of the hand-made poster-board “menu.”  It included such delicacies as “squid snack,” white jelly fungus, sardines, sago, lychees, jellyfish, and sago grubs.  Yes, grubs.

Our team took the three minute penalty for changing participants.

And Paul took one for the team.

The lychees turned out to be a fruit, sweet and rather tasty (I took his word for it) but having come out of a can, slimy and unrecognizable prior to being ingested.  The sago tasted like cardboard; no surprise there.  The grub (beheaded and fried just that morning by a brave 15-year old girl) he popped like a pill and downed with half a glass of water.

I didn’t ask for any more descriptions.

He said he didn’t feel sick, so we trudged on.

Our clue led us to a home where strains of “Eye of the Tiger” were wafting from the closed curtains of the living room.  When it was our turn, we entered to find that we had ten minutes to learn a dance, and then we would be judged on how well we performed it.  Suffice to say, we passed the test and did not receive a penalty, but two pit stops later, when given a Detour choice of “Assembly required” or “Performance inspired,” we chose to assemble.  (A good choice from what I hear because, among other things, we didn’t have to try to pantomime “Argentina.”)

The clue for Pit Stop #4 was a photo that took us back to the high school.  Paul had to sink 10 baskets from somewhere beyond the top of the key in a certain time limit.  He just made it, and then retrieved our next clue from a plan full of whipping cream … using only his face.

The kids were jealous and insisted on cleaning off the zipper baggie before it went in the trash.

It took a couple of minutes to figure out that the bold words in the otherwise very bizarre clue were an anagram for the name of one of the youth hostels.  It was at this location that we chose “Assembly required” and after finding twenty-four plastic eggs that had nails inside, I built a box using some wood and every one of those nails.

Pit Stop #6 required that we sink a plastic golf ball in a makeshift “hole” (made from half a margarine container) in eight or fewer swings of a club.  Everyone had to hit at least one time. On the eighth hit, a four inch putt, the putter caused the ball to go airborne and bounce off the top of the butter tub.  (I won’t say who that was, but considering that that person had ingested jellyfish, fungus, and a grub on our behalf, we didn’t hold it against him.)

We had to start over three times, with hitting the ball out of the fence, and into a flower bed being the other two no-no’s that sent us back to the tee.  We narrowly avoided a penalty as we sank the putt just seconds before the time limit was up.

Our next clue sent us to a home where our roadblock card said (sorry in advance for any offense that may be taken here), I quote, “Choose the one person on your team who really sucks!”

I ended up having to draw a huge bowlful of jello through a straw.  About half way through, I noticed that the rules didn’t say anything about having to swallow the jello, so when I asked, I was escorted into the house (so other teams wouldn’t get wise) and given a spittoon.  Yay for spittoons.

At pit stop #8, we found 100 plastic knives sticking blade-first into the ground in a space that measured, by my best guess, 800 square feet.  Again, a time limit was imposed for us to find the one knife with a painted blade.  Only one knife (per person) could be out of the ground at any time. I don’t know which was worse … crawling around on hands and knees or bending over repeatedly.  I did both. 

They both hurt.  :)

Once the embellished piece of cutlery was located (I think it was the 98^th knife we pulled), we were given our next clue.  When we arrived, we again had a choice to make … either a 2- or 3-person challenge.  The route to this pit stop had been all uphill and the kids were worn out (oh yeah … waah, waah, waah) so it was up to the aging, but ever faithful parental units to choose the “two” option.  I was blindfolded and Paul directed me, using only verbal instructions, through an elaborate obstacle course while the kids sat back and casually enjoyed cups of lemonade.  (Had one child been willing to make it “three,” then two blindfolded team members would have been required to erect a tent based on the verbal clues of the third person.)

Pit Stop #10 was where we encountered the beans.  We figured, being “peas” we should be able to conquer some lowly “beans,” but, as described above, they conquered us.  We should have chosen the “paper caper,” whatever that was.

Pit stop #11 found Paul and I volunteering to be the participants again.  I told Paul I would be the one blindfolded because he did such a great job of leading me around the obstacle course earlier.  (I meant it, too!)  Turns out, the obstacle course this time was his face.  The lipstick broke in my hand, so I smeared it on with my fingers … between his lower lip and his chin. 

Oops.

I won’t describe where the rest of the cosmetics landed; you can look at the picture.  At least the wig ended up perched on the top of his head.

With Paul’s face so bedecked, we hurried to our final pit stop.  “Cemetery Hill” is, as you might guess, a hill.  With a cemetery.  Beside the cemetery is a steep foot path that takes those fit enough to scale it from one section of housing to another.  (I’m pretty sure I made my parents climb it, as part of their introduction to life here.)

The rules were that all team members had to climb up the hill … on hands and knees.

Which brings me back to the expired muscle rub crisis.

I focused on the ground as I plodded my way up the steeply-graded slope.  My family had reached the finish line and was cheering me on when I decided I had to stop and rest for a minute.  I looked up to see that I was in exactly the same place that I, when I first started climbing the hill (on foot), had to stop and rest: about 2/3 of the way up.  I laughed out loud at the coincidence, and then forced myself to finish, all the while staring at the grass.

Having completed all twelve pit stops, it was time to return to the high school and jump on the mat indicating our team’s arrival.  Instead of the Amazing Race logo, the plastic mat bore a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh.

But, hey … whatever works, right?

With our penalties added in, our final official time was four hours and one minute … good enough for an 8^th place finish and the t-shirt prize that came with it.

Not bad, I say.

I have to give some kudos to two of my students, Andie’s classmates, who tagged along with us … for the entire race!  They were our own personal cheering squad, even going so far as to make and wear a sign that said “Go PEAS!”  E and V, you rock!

My twelve year old described Saturday as “one of the best days of [her] entire life!” 

And as for the toll of stress on our family?  I’d say there was little to none.  The four of us worked together surprisingly well and, thanks to the hard work of many people here, enjoyed a day of “fun in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea.”