DL here. I just got back from Tae Kwon Do. Our family drove up in our minivan on the way to Tae Kwon Do class but I decided to walk down with my brother, Di. It turned out that both of us ran down the whole way. I heartily recommend that to anyone who just wants a bit of exercise. Run downhill a cool night just for a little bit. If you run really hard, then you get cramps. At least I do. If you have long hair, let it out behind you. I don’t know why but I like running downhill on a cool night with my hair flowing behind me. Thought that I’d recommend it for somebody else to try. It just feels good b/c it’s not too hot nor too cold outside and I like the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair. Interesting, huh? That’s all for now. Just a short and sweet post. Signing off. -DL

PART THREE:

I am ready to finish this series on the cows escaping. I’ll tell you about two of the cows first. They found two of the missing three cows the same day that they started looking for them but then scared them into running off our property into the Audubon Forest. I don’t exactly know what that is. You’d have to ask someone who’s lived in New Hampshire longer than I have and knows the area better than I do. So they were trying to chase the cows and I’m not exactly sure of the whole story but I think that they lost them for a little bit since this Audubon Forest is like 600-700 acres big. Our CEO alerted our neighbors and one of the neighbors called at like 10 o’ clock at night and said that they found two of our cows. Our Director of B&M (Building&Maintenence) went and walked the cows up to our property. He wasn’t leading the cows, the cows were leading him. He was just walking behind them, making sure that they kept on going all the way up to our property. He said that it took him about 30-45 minutes or so. The cows were worn out and tired so they just walked right into their pen. 

Now about the third cow. A bit of background first, a young adult group from Connecticut came up to His Mansion to serve for the weekend. Late on Saturday night (the 30th), a few of them decided to go to McD’s right in Hillsboro. They passed a police car which was baby-sitting a cow. The people from the Connecticut group called to let us know where the third cow was. So our CEO and Director of B&M came down and looked after the cow. They decided to put the cow in a pasture with a bunch of other cows. I think that our CEO knew the owner of the pasture, I’m not sure. But they just penned the cow in there for the night. The next day, they took the stock trailer in there and with bit of coaxing, the cow walked into the trailer and they hauled it back up to the property.

Now, these cows really went wandering around. People spotted them walking around on some of the nearby roads. Our CEO was really worried about them and as it grew later, he decided to put a bounty on their heads. He was going to shoot them, had a freezer ready to chill the meat and everything. But nothing of that sort happened. All three cows are safe and sound back at our barn. Everybody was glad and relieved that the whole thing was over. That’s the end of the this series. Hope you enjoyed it! Signing off now. -DL

P.S. There is never a dull moment around here! And if we still lived in Portland, we would never get to experience all of this. Cows are also not very smart animals.

P.P.S. You don’t have to be very smart to catch cows, you just have to be (do you know where I’m going with this?) smarter than the cows. I thought that that would be funny especially after my last P.S. So I hope that some of you thought that that was funny. If not, that’s okay. I’m not a comedian, honestly, I’m not.

PART TWO:

NEWS FLASH!

Dad came back from working in the Office and gave us a bit of news about the cows. He said that people found the cows but the cows won’t allow themselves to be herded back up to the pasture. Dad doesn’t know where the cows are but he said that our CEO is worried that someone might hit the cows and they’re thinking about maybe shooting the cows since they won’t come back up to the pasture. So they might be near the road or something. I think that someone is keeping an eye on the cows but I don’t know what’s going to happen. If anything else comes up, I’ll post it up. This is DL signing off.

PART ONE:

Just a quick post. This morning 3 brown and white cows got out of their pasture. We have 6 cows, I believe. At about 8:15 this morning, about 5-6 guys were out fairly deep in the woods behind our duplex looking for the missing cows. Those 5-6 guys looked diligently but they didn’t find them. Our family went up to breakfast at the dining hall this morning, our Director of Operations made an announcement at breakfast, “Here at the Mansion you learn to be flexible.” And he went on to explain that he was having everybody go out to look for the cows. The men and the women alike. He gave instructions on what to do and what to do if you found a cow. The danger is that the cows may have gotten down to the road and off our property. That was earlier this morning and we’ve been home since breakfast so I don’t know if they found the cows or not yet. But I sure hope so! Our Director of Operations also said, “That’s your steak this fall.” Everybody thought that was funny. At least, it’s sunny and some blue sky, not rainy or anything. That would be no fun. All the men and women went out looking for cows except for a few who stayed back to work in the kitchen and a couple other places. The cows unfortunately ran down the fields that border their pasture so now the fields have to be done again. That is a downside to the cows getting out other than the safety of the cows and having to take the time of chasing them. We’ll let you know if the cows are found. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back after these messages. Just kidding. That’s all for now. Signing off -DL

DL here again. I’ll catch up on some Mansion news. Everything is green again, the trees have their leaves back and it’s warm enough so there are dandelions popping up all over the place. People have been hoeing in the fields by our house. I don’t think that they’ve planted yet. There is a marked section for Long Term Staff gardens. There are 4 or 5 LTS women who are doing gardens. Mom started her garden, she hasn’t planted anything yet. We have a little space right in front of our house and Mom put in some dwarf sunflower seeds so that will be cool. I think that Mom is planting Chinese veggies, basil, tomatoes, snap peas and some other stuff. She’ll have to write her own post about her garden. Mom’s doing the garden work now but she says that we get to help her with weeding and harvesting. Harvesting is okay, you can see all of the bright colors of the vegetables and you get to eat them. I’m definitely not a fan of weeding. That’s just me. I’d like to meet someone who does enjoy weeding.  The weather has been nice although we have some rainy days inbetween. Mom recently put her plants into the ground, she said that she wanted to put them in before it rained. This isn’t the best post but I’m definitely not an expert on gardening. Hope spring is pleasant wherever you are! Bye for now. -DL

Sorry, I couldn’t think of a very creative title. If I think of something different, I’ll put it up. It’s Dog Lover, DL for short, posting. Well, we’re back in New Hampshire after two weeks in the Pacific Northwest. Us kids and Mom had a good time seeing friends, family, hanging out and playing. I think that Dad had it harder since he had to speak 5 times during those 2 weeks. He spoke 4 times over a weekend church retreat in Seattle. He preached at our home church on Sunday, 10th and did a few presentations about His Mansion here and there. Although the presentations are very easy. Dad has done them lots of times. We kids could almost do it for you! That’s b/c we’ve heard it so many times, which I guess isn’t a bad thing. If anybody ever asks us what His Mansion is about, we’ll definitely know what to say!

We came back and jumped right back into our routine. We got back to our house late at night on the 13th. The next day, Dad went back to work and Mom and us kids didn’t do school b/c we slept in late. So we did a bit of house cleaning, running errands and adjusting to the time change. The next day, we kids got back to doing school. It’s almost as if we never went to Seattle and Portland. One of my friends gave me this analogy, it’s like being at camp. That week is so fun. You’ve looked forward to it for a long time. You get to go and be with your friends. It’s a blast! No parents are around (although on this trip, there were parents of course). You’re sad to leave, you want to stay longer b/c it was such an awesome week. You enjoyed spending time with your friends and counselors. You say goodbye and you hope that you can come back next year for more great times. When you come back from that week, you get picked right back up into your routine. All you have left are the memories. The wonderful memories that you keep in your mind and reminisce over with your friends. 

We had a great time seeing people. In Seattle, we visited some friends and then went to the church retreat over the weekend. We visited my mom’s cousin and spent time with friends in Bellevue, Washington. In Portland, we stayed with a family from church. They kindly let us take over their basement for 5 days. I got to go to the jr. high youth group at our home church. We visited some of our favorite places. Dad visited the clinic where he used to work as a family physician. A few families had open houses during the week where people could come after dinner and hear about His Mansion and what we were doing there. Like I said before, Dad preached on Sunday at our home church and we saw lots of people then. t was great to see familiar faces and say hi. :) We spent time with our uncle, aunt and cousins on Mother’s Day. We stayed at an older couple’s house for a few days, the older couple are like grandparents to us kids. We spent a whole day with friends who were like family. That was a ton of fun! Yet, it’s all over. One of the nice things is that we know we’ll come back to Portland again in July. I’m not sure about the exact dates. My sister and I will be able to go to a summer camp that our church supports. We’ve gone to this camp in past years and it’s really cool. I love it! If you live in Portland and you’re looking for a week long Christian camp in the summer, contact us. We’d love to give you info. Anyway, it was wonderful seeing everyone in Portland. That’s all for now. Signing off. -DL

• you can see the grass again. The snow melted away, finally!
• the Mansion collected sap from maple trees. The sugar shack was up and running and making maple syrup. Delicious!
• kids start taking their bikes out of the shed under the house. And riding around with no helmets. Editor’s note: Take that back. Dad wants us to put our helmets on when we ride our bikes.
• you can have a bbq outside with your neighbors between 5 and 6 p.m. in 50 or so degree weather. You also don’t freeze, although our hands were cold after the bbq was over.
• the ice on the pond has melted, and the pond water is back to its normal greenish color.
• you can smell the manure pile down by our house if the wind is blowing right. We didn’t miss that during the winter.
• people start coming down to the fields again. Ready to plant little seedlings soon. Seeds are started in the greenhouse.
• we kids can go outside with just a sweatshirt on and a long-sleeve underneath and not be too cold. Mom doesn’t always think that that’s the best idea though. Sweatshirts instead of heavy winter coats.
• the leaves are supposed to grow back onto the trees although they haven’t yet. Still bare brown trees. Flowers haven’t grown yet or I haven’t seen any at least.
• Mom talks about pulling the weeds in our little yard strip with bushes, dandelions are growing. Mom also starts talking about helping out in the fields when they get the plants started. Mostly pulling weeds. Not very exciting. Sorry, I’m not huge into yardwork. =/
• you have an Easter egg hunt outside in the woods in our backyard. That was fun, our neighbor who hid the eggs put strawberries in some of the big ones. Fun idea for anyone who doesn’t want eggstra candy from eggs lying around their house. Strawberries are disposable and delicious. Fruit is also God’s candy! Someone said that we could eat as much of God’s candy as we wanted. YES!
• mud season is over and some people in our family are dreading black fly season which is mostly the month of May. Then summer comes and the mosquitoes and the humidity, so I’ve heard at least. =[ Fall is the best time around here, April isn't too bad but you're still waiting for warmer weather. We're supposed to get an April snow! Aah! But it hasn't happened yet so we're hoping that it won't come altogether.
• your siblings go out to the pond on campus with some friends and get some bread from the barn. They want to feed the catfish that live in the pond. The fish aren't more than 3-5 inches long. Someone said that the catfish only grow as big as the pond, so if the pond is so big then the catfish won't grow any bigger. I found that very interesting.
• your brother, Di, went and chased frogs around the pond.
• your two little brothers each bring home an orange that has been made into a bunny. A cotton ball tail, felt ears and feet all glued to the orange along with green whiskers and eyes for a face. G named his "bunny", Patrick. You named your orange "bunnies"??? I guess that I can't be too surprised. My sibs have named their golf balls and yeah. It's crazy.

These are the orange "bunnies". Cute, aren't they? In a sort of odd way. Patrick is the "bunny" on the left.

Picture of the bunnies sideways. See the little tails?

Those are all the signs of spring that I can think of right now. Enjoy spring wherever you are! -DL

XE here again. I was thinking about Tae Kwon Do. By the way, 5 people in our family tested for our red stripe on our white belts and passed. The youngest didn’t participate. All 5 of us broke a board with a side kick, 2 people broke two boards. Anyway, Tae Kwon Do, I was thinking about how when we did Tae Kwon Do, when our teacher asked us to do stuff, we just did it. We didn’t question it or whatever. Even when the exercises he does are sometimes killing. I don’t like ab work or holding up my arms after 10 drop push ups and circling them. Doing push-ups the long way across the gym is tiring too. Your muscles are just dying or it feels like it at least. Yet, we don’t give up, we do what he says when he says it, we don’t complain. Some people think that some things are harder than others. Like my sister doesn’t think that the drop push ups and hold your arms and circling them is that bad. So people have different opinions.

A couple of weeks ago, our instructor was on a trip so he said that our family could work out (do Tae Kwon Do) in the gym anyway if we wanted. So Mom and us 4 kids went up to the gym to work out. Mom was the temporary instructor. I must say that it didn’t feel the same having Mom teach us than our normal instructor. No offense, Mom since I know that you’ll read this post. When our instructor teaches us, we just do what he says, no questions asked or comments. We don’t complain because it’s hard or painful although sometimes it is. We try our best. If my mom told me to do some of those exercise things and it wasn’t for Tae Kwon Do, I have to say that I might question her or sigh at the least. I think that we kids need to have that same obedience for our parents sometimes. I’m sure that my parents would agree at certain times. For me, my parents have wanted me to take initiative and do stuff on my own like chores and helping out. It’s hard to obey someone right away especially it’s not pleasant or it’s going to be painful in some way. Well, maybe you do obey but not right away or it’s with a sigh or questioning. Kind of like the game we kids play sometimes, Simon Says. Instead, it’s Mr. Fritz says. Mr. Fritz says to do something and you do it regardless of whether it’s painful or whatever. Although, with Tae Kwon Do, he doesn’t make you sit out if you’re not doing whatever he asked.

So that was something that I realized from Tae Kwon Do. We listen and obey without question of why or “do we have to?” (that has been G’s favorite expression thing recently). We Tso kids need to work on that. I’ll say that just about everybody needs to work on obedience in one time or another. That’s all for now. Oh, 5 of our family (excluding G) have been working on our forms for our next testing. The next testing won’t be for a couple of months but we’re learning our forms and hopefully, if we pass our next test, we’ll be yellow belts! Now, if you told me a year ago that I would be doing Tae Kwon Do, breaking a board, testing and working out. I would’ve said no way Jose, you’ve got to be kidding me. But anything can happen. -DL (Dog Lover)

DL here. I was thinking about what I should write in my next post. There wasn’t anything very interesting going on lately. But then I thought of a few things.

I was sitting, listening to the sermon on Sunday, Feb. 15th, Todd was preaching on Psalm 6. It was written by David and he called it a psalm about David’s depression. I never would’ve thought of that if I had just read the psalm myself. He was talking about depression, the 3 Ds, disapproval, despair and desertion that David experienced. He was telling about clinical depression, what depression does to you, mentally, emotionally and such. I found it very interesting since I don’t know anything about depression except that it’s not good and it makes you sad and mopeyish. I don’t think that that’s a very good description of depression but that’s all I knew about it until I came to His Mansion. I just thought about how most kids wouldn’t get to hear a sermon like that, preached on something such as depression. It helped me learn some things and just made me realize how much that I could learn from living here if I wanted to and kept my eyes and ears open. I could learn many things that most kids my age wouldn’t get to know about. I don’t know very much about churches in general, but I don’t think that in general, preachers don’t preach about depression. But that’s what makes His Mansion unique among other things. :) 

Let’s see. What else have I been learning lately. My dad had a rough week, just with stuff that’s going on in the community. He can’t tell us everything since we would know who he’s talking about and some of it is personal stuff. My siblings ask, “What? What’s going on?” or “Who? Who is it?”. I want to ask too. But some things, my parents just can’t tell us. I think that it’s hard for my siblings to accept that sometimes. I think that all of us kids are learning how to be able to accept that we can’t know everything. Mom and Dad can’t tell us everything all the time. 

I’m also learning how to accept changes and people who leave, either by their own accord or they are asked to leave. I don’t normally like change, I like routine and the way that things are and will be. Obviously, moving to His Mansion was a huge change. I’ve been taking my time adjusting, fitting in and getting used to the different changes. It’s hard to see people leave around here. From my perspective, it seems like people are doing okay at least but they leave on their own accord. Dad has another perspective because he hears most of the inside stuff. That’s all for now. Signing off. -XE

XE here again. I just thought that I’d write a shortish post on our snow sports party thing last Saturday. Every week we have a Family Night on Saturday night, which is a fun activity for the residents and short term staff. Long Term Staff (which is our family) can join in if we want. So last week’s Family Activity was ice skating, sledding and snowboarding out by our pond. It wasn’t at night since it would be too dark but it was during the afternoon. All of us 3 older kids tried ice skating for the first time. All of us got the hang of it. It’s not too hard but it does take practice. Just trying to push off and glide and not fall over. There were 6-8 guys who were taking turns snowboarding over a snow jump that they had built. Most of them were first timers, only a couple of guys knew what they were doing but all of them enjoyed it a lot. We had a small bonfire going as well. We actually didn’t do a ton of sledding, we did do some, it was fun to watch people go down on sleds or snowboards. Kind of like watching live sports instead of on TV and none of these guys are professionals. When we got kind of cold from being out so long, we could head over to the nearby LTS home of Dave and Diane who graciously served hot chocolate, coffee and treats. It was lots of fun and I can’t wait to do it again!

On a totally different subject, our family is testing in Tae Kwon Do next week. We’re all white belts and if we pass the test, we’ll earn our red stripe for our white belts. I’m kind of nervous about it, we saw the last testing and you had to break a board. We’ll see how we do. We have to memorize two forms to pass and some info about the Korean flag and what it symbolizes. Mom said that she forgot one of the forms because she’s old. I don’t know about that but all of us are trying. That’s all for now. -XE

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