My mother recently gave me a good idea.  She suggested that we do a monthly family goal; something that the family can work on together for a month at a time.  The goal can be anything.  Something spiritual like saying a prayer together at night as a family, something practical like making sure the lights are turned out around the house, something to improve our manners like trying to say “please” and “thank you”.  Just something that would make our family better.  One month.  One goal.  And then the next month, move on to the next goal.

So as a family, we took my mom’s advice.  Last month we planned our first family goal.  The goal was no yelling.  So … we tried.  That’s what matters, right?  We may have to revisit that goal in coming months.  We probably could have done the no yelling thing for another month, but I decided that I didn’t want to beat a dead horse, so we moved to another goal for January.

So, our January goal is making sure our beds are made every morning before we leave the house.  I have to admit that this isn’t a difficult one for me, because I am a regular bed maker.  I can’t stand to get into an unmade bed, so I’ve been making my bed everyday since forever.  However, for my kids, it has been a bit more problematic.  The 16 and 14 year-olds leave the house so early in the morning that in the past I haven’t really demanded that they make their beds.  Most of the time, the 12 year-old sneaks out of the house somewhere between me telling him to make his bed and me checking and realizing that he hasn’t made his bed.  The 8 year-old sleeps on top of her covers so that she never has to make the bed.  She’s obviously the more practical of the Hale kids.  So, as you can see, there was definitely room for improvement.

Since last month’s goal was a bit of a bust, we decided that this month we needed an incentive.  So, since I’m the one paying for the cell phones, I’m the one who gets to make the cell phone rules.  Hence, the incentive for the kids making their beds is that if they leave the house without them made, I get their cell phones for 24 hours.  And since they don’t pay for my cell phone and thus don’t really have the right to take my phone away, my punishment for not making my bed before leaving the house is that I have to eat human excriment.  Fair enough!

So far, one cell phone has been taken away for one 24 hour period and I have not yet had to eat anything unseemly.  The January monthly family goal is going quite well.  Better than the December “no yelling” goal.  Maybe if we had included cell phones and excriment …

***Warning!!!  This posts contains pictures of me after 4 days of not having taken a shower.    If the sight of my body filth causes you permanent eye damage, don’t say I didn’t warn you! At least you didn’t have to smell me.***

For Christmas this year, our SixAbroad family took a vacation to Indonesia and Singapore.  We had a great time!  I’m sure my husband will be making a video of our adventures, so you can look forward to that (or not.)

One leg of our trip was on the Indonesian island of Borneo.  We spent five days on a house boat, with no running water, on an alligator infested river in the rainforest.  Hence no showers, not even dips in the river.  But it was all worth it for the great time we had playing with orangutans.  However, this post isn’t about orangutans, it’s about my family’s new best friend.

On the fourth day of our Borneo adventure, we left the river and went to an island in the ocean where we released baby sea turtles.  While we were on the island, we were trying to set up what would eventually become this picture:

 

However, after Cecily had written “Indonesia 2012/2013” in the sand, but before we could snap the photo, a local woman approached us, walked across Cecily’s sand-writing, grabbed Ben and insisted that we take a picture of the two of them.  So, of course we did!  Honestly, who wouldn’t?

(Notice how she’s resting her head on Ben’s shoulder.  Yes, he loved that!  What 14 year-old boy wouldn’t?)

Then, because one photo isn’t nearly enough, she yanked Cecily up out of the sand and insisted that we take a picture of the three of them together.

 

(She’s holding pretty tight onto Cecily’s waist in case Cecily is considering trying to sneak away before the snap of the shutter.)

Then, she yanked me out of my perched position in the sand and insisted on a picture with the mother of this group.

 

(Ben is behind us with his stick ready, in case he has to defend me from the local–or it may be the other way around.)

Now keep in mind that she didn’t want us to take these photos with HER camera.  She wanted us to take these pictures of her with OUR camera.  She didn’t even have a camera with her.

At this point, she left us alone and we were finally able to take our “Indonesia 2012/2013” photo.

But then about 1/2 hour later, to our surprise and delight, just as we were about to let our baby sea turtles swim to freedom in the ocean, look who popped back up:

 

(In order to be seen in the photo, just as I pointed the camera at Ben and his sea turtle, our new best friend stood on her tippy-toes and craned her neck sharply to the left.)

Honestly, just before I snapped that picture, I considered telling Ben to move so that she wouldn’t be in the photo, but then I decided that she really made the picture.  Of course, I waited until after I took the picture to tell Ben that our local friend was creeping in his photo.  I think that it may be my favorite photo of the trip.

And now, just because they were too cute for words, here is a photo of our sea turtles (affectionately named Swift, Charlie, Saran and Mayonnaise) heading toward freedom:

 

I’m guessing that they are all probably swimming in the belly of a shark by now.

I am shocked and sickened by the shooting at a school on Friday in Connecticut.  It is beyond sad and tragic on so many levels.  Though it will anger many friends of mine back in the U.S., I cannot stay silent on my opinion on gun control at a time like this.

In the two years I have lived here, I have not heard of a single shooting homicide in Taiwan.  I’m not saying that they haven’t happened, but I personally have not heard of a single one.  However, on almost a weekly basis I read of shootings in the U.S.  I’m convinced that the reason for the difference is that Taiwan has very strict gun control laws.  And the Taiwanese consider Americans barbaric for our loose gun control laws.  I have to agree.  I am embarrassed by and ashamed of my nations loose gun control laws.

According to gunpolicy.org, in 2008, Taiwan had a total of 128 gun related homicides.  That same year, the UK had 32. In 2008, the U.S. had 9,484 gun related homicides.

As my friend Ryan said this evening, “When does your right to bare arms supercede my children’s right to go to school?” (and I might add, to a mall or to a movie.)

The pro-gun people like to say, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  But in yesterday’s violence, it was a person with a gun that killed people.  If that person had not had a gun in his hand, he would not have shot 26 people in an elementary school.  He may have chosen to do something else crazy, but it would not have included a gun.

Although it is a very unpopular stance to take in my home state of Utah, let it be known that this proud Republican is for much, much tighter gun control laws in the U.S.

So, I’m wondering, do all white people look alike?  I ask this, because I have been mistaken for various caucasian women on a number of occasions since moving to Taiwan.

Twice now, Asian people have confused me for my friend Matina.  Although we are about the same height, Matina is about 10 years younger, much thinner and a lot cuter than me.  Her hair is darker and shorter.  And, if I have to be honest, though it pains me to say it, I’m a lot frumpier than Matina.

Also, on two different occasions, teachers at my kids school have confused me for my friend Brandie–also younger and cuter than me.

And it’s not just younger women.  I had a male teacher at the school recently confuse me for another female teacher–a collegue of his nonetheless.  And this female teacher is older than me.  And blonder.

I’ve heard Asians say that all white people have big noses.  Do all of our big noses blend together so that the rest of our features go unnoticed?  And white people are always accused of being fat.  (Maybe not all white people, but certainly Americans.)  After living in Asia for two years, I have to agree with that one.  Americans are fat.  And my husband and I both agree that, as a whole, Asians are better looking than westerners.  The term “Ugly American” isn’t just the title of a book.

So I ask, are white people, (or maybe I should limit it to Americans) just a bunch of big nosed, fat, ugly people who all look alike?

Since moving to Taipei, my kids have had to stick up for their religious beliefs a few times.  They have been asked questions about Mormonism and been the brunt of a few fairly harmless jokes.  They have had a few incidents that have been a little dicey, but nothing too serious.  However, today my 16 year-old had to stand up to a teacher at Taipei American School; a teacher who was sadly misinformed.

Today in one of her core classes (surprisingly, not American history where, not unexpectedly,  Mormonism has come up before) a teacher brought up the subject of Mormonism and then jumped right into polygamy.  He told the class that Mormons practice polygamy.  My daughter raised her hand and said that wasn’t true.  The teacher then said that there are Mormons in Utah that practice polygamy.  My daughter said that she is from Utah and that Mormons in Utah do not practice polygamy and that anyone who does practice polygamy is not Mormon.  The teacher then said that there are sects that are Mormon that practice polygamy.

Now let me get on my soapbox for a moment here.  There are small fundamentalist groups in Utah, and in various parts of the United States and Canada, that practice polygamy.  However, calling these groups “Mormon” is akin to calling a Baptist part of a “Catholic sect.”  Any group that calls itself a “Mormon Fundamentalist” group is not, and I repeat, IS NOT, Mormon any more that a Baptist (or any other Protestant religion for that matter) is a Catholic.  And anyone that practices polygamy is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is therefore not a Mormon.

Now, back to my daughter.  She then told her teacher that a Mormon sect is not Mormon  and reiterated that Mormons do not practice polygamy.  He then got online and then mistakenly said that Mormons stopped practicing polygamy sometime in the early 1900’s.  Not sure what website he was pulling his information from, but it couldn’t have been very credible, because it had wrong information.

Regardless, I’m proud of my daughter for sticking up for her religion.  I know it wasn’t easy for a 16 year-old to stand up to a teacher like that, but I’m glad she did.  She’s stronger for it.  I admire her courage.

I find it shocking that in this day and age, there is so much misinformation about Mormons.  But for anyone out there in blogosphere who wants to know a good website for credible information on Mormons, www.lds.org is a great place to start.

Now I’ll get off my soapbox.