Dear friends and family, 17 March 2008

Happy holidays! Thanksgiving hit us upside the head while in the middle of moving, Christmas came and went, then we had Windy’s and Elnorra’s birthdays, Valentine’s Day snuck by so we now have the joy of sending a Saint Patrick’s Day newsletter! How does life stay so busy and time fly by? Mostly by enjoying the days with small kids and counting it a victory if the house is half clean before collapsing into bed. What a busy and eventful time we have had since our last newsletter. First we will start with our updated contact information and then take you on a tour of our year.


The Shaffer Family
Ben, Windy, Elnorra and Cordelia
1091 West Beta Street #512zero
Green Valley, AZ 85614-4873
USA

Our new phone numbers are:
(520) 300-6823 home
(520) 203-2328 Ben’s cell
(928) 774-8442 Windy’s cell (anybody recognize this? *wink*)
(888) 77three-zero104 toll-free (rings to Windy’s cell)
We hope that Windy’s cell will be a permanent contact number

Our relatively new e-mail address is: BenandWindy at Gmail.com
All other e-mail accounts have ceased to function so please verify that you have the Gmail account in your records.
We have also updated and revamped our web log (www.shaffers1430.blogspot.com) and it now has “feeds” so that you can sign up and be contacted when we update our blog.

13 May 2007 Cordelia's baby blessing in Taipei, Taiwan. Jim, Mary, Benjamin, Cordelia, Daniel, Windy, Anni, and Elnorra Shaffer

 

14 August 2007 Beaver, Utah

 

16 March 2008 The Shaffer Family in Green Valley, Arizona

 

Cordelia Anne (11 mo)- was born in Taipei, Taiwan on the 3rd of April 2007. She was born on her due date and is a healthy baby with two modes, truly happy and truly miserable. Cordelia had a nickname just hours after she was born and we’ve called her “Dilly” ever since. She is hard to feed as she is sensitive to milk and eggs so the nursing mom is “a vegan who eats meat.” Everyone is much happier and less stressed when mom follows the vegan style diet!
Dilly had a passport when she was just a month and a half old and flew from Taiwan to America when she was just 2 months old. She loves attention and has always been a good sleeper and is finally sleeping through the night! We had a family bed from the time she was born until we had our apartment in AZ 7 months later and it is a real treat for mom and dad when the kids are actually in their own room.
As Dilly is a high maintenance personality (as were both her parents…) we are truly grateful for “The Miracle Bouncer” that was retrieved from a junk pile just as we were getting desperate. (The Taiwanese don’t do thrift stores because of potentially bad karma.) It is an old thing that would never pass American Safety ratings but it was free to us and worth bringing home in the luggage. We are also much saner because of the power of pacifiers.
She could sit up on her own just after 6 months cut her first tooth at 7 months and scoot-crawl at 8 months by 9 months she was cruising along furniture and loves to stand. At 11 months she can walk when one hand is held. She is very interactive and can even blow her nose when mom holds the tissue! She’s smiley and happy most of the time and loves to be tossed gently and she LOVES tickle kisses all over her head and neck. She gives GREAT hugs when you first pick her up.

24 February 2007 Windy, Elnorra (2 years), Cordelia (t-5 weeks)

 

18 March 2007 Ben on top of Jade Mountain, Taiwan

 

3 April 2007 Cordelia Anne Shaffer was born in Taipei, Taiwan

 

9 July 2007 The Miracle Bouncer

 

Elnorra (3)- Little Miss America who was so used to people telling her how cute she was and taking her picture (it is an Asian thing) has adjusted well. First she and Dilly were the only little ones at camp and now is just one of the other cute white kids here in Green Valley. She loves to “play other kids” and is becoming a better communicator everyday. She has always been a good communicator, but now her words and phrases are starting to catch up with her body language and signals. One day in December she called her Grandee (Windy’s mom- DD) and said (without prompting) “Grandee come my house, tea party right now” and Grandee said she’d come in 10 minutes and then Elnorra said “OK Grandee see soon.” We then proceeded to have a delightful tea party on the floor in the kitchen on the play table that came home from Taiwan, with the ceramic tea set from her Cousin Kelsey, and treats served on her great-grandma’s Christmas serving tray. After the tea party she told her Grandee the story of Pinocchio (somehow this word doesn’t get pronounced correctly, but it’s definitely her noun-“Noke-el-ly”) who is a “bad boy no school” and who “lost him baba” (Chinese for dad) and “finds him baba” and then his “fairy mommy” turns him into a real boy. Her catch phrase in February was “Actually it’s being difficult for me”. In March she said “no touch that is dangerous!” when mom went to use something out of the medicine cabinet. She does quite well with being polite with reminders and says “thanks” a lot. She has her temper tantrums when she doesn’t get an adult portion (or greater) of food, especially dessert, and says “don’t make it little for me.” She is a happy kid who loves to play and make as many friends as she can.

24 July 2007 Dilly loves being bundled up when it is cold!

 

14 August 2007 Beaver, UT Dilly loves to play at 4 months old

 

14 August 2007 Elnorra loves playing at the park in Beaver, UT at age 2 3/4

 

9 September 2007 Living with Grandee in Green Valley, AZ

 

Benjamin (27)-This past year has been both exciting and transformative. It started with my new favorite toy, a Nintendo WII, and saw another child born, another international move and a new career. I started the year with a stable contracted teaching position at a fine kindergarten school in Taiwan and ended several jobs and many adventures later developing curriculum and writing a book at a charter high school in Arizona. With all the changes and adventures this year none is as important as the birth of our second daughter, Cordelia Anne Shaffer.
Traveling Taiwan was great this year especially because we had so much good company. It started with one of the most magnificent hikes I have ever taken to the summit of Jade Mountain (the tallest mountain in Northeast Asia at 4000m/13,000 feet) with my father-in-law, Ken, and his wife, Lorie. Then my brother, Adam, and sister, Anni, visited and we had a great time in north and central Taiwan cities, my parents then arrived with my brother, Daniel, and we toured many temples, parks and museums in Taipei, and last but not least my sister-in-law, Emily, and niece, Kelsey, came and we went to the east coast of the island and took the famous cross island highway through the marble gorge and over the mountains. Hopefully a full account will appear soon on our blog for those who are curious.
When we did fly home to America our adventures had only just begun. First we visited southern Arizona and crossed the border into Mexico. Meaning we traveled to 3 countries on 2 continents in less than a week. We then took a few of our belongings and moved into a tent in the mountains of Utah to spend the summer at Boy Scout camp. I had been a counselor at the camp a few summers as a teen and wanted to share that special place with my family, so we soon found ourselves adjusting to that. Elnorra learned to speak a lot more English (it took her only a week or so to find out that Daddy and Baba were the same person.) After a few months there, a few more mountains climbed and some cool stories and new scars, we moved to Arizona. We planned to stay with my Mother-in-law for only a few weeks while I found a job and apartment but it took longer than expected. I found a job at Alta Vista High School where I was asked to teach World Religions and other electives of a more exotic nature than I expected. I was given no curriculum and so have compiled and written an annotated Tao Te Ching with English, Spanish, and Chinese versions in columns, which was fun to do, and compiled volumes of material on many other religions. Finally our lives slowed down a little and we enjoyed our holiday season with family traveling to us. We were blessed with many wonderful gifts beyond our modest expectations and are now progressing more in our daily pursuits.

November 2007 Elnorra

 

8 January 2008 Shopping! Dilly LOVES to stand!

 

19 January 2008 Daddy and Dilly

 

5 March 2008 Playing at home. Elnorra 3 years old, Dilly 11 months old

 

Windy (32)- Home Sweet Home. It has been a longer and more difficult journey than expected but here I am in my own little home in Green Valley, Arizona, in the United States of America. The year started out in Taiwan where many family members came to visit. I am so grateful for all the help packing and moving, especially the extra luggage space!
I had a wonderful birth experience in the Taipei Women and Children’s hospital. My doctor, Calvin Chiang, was wonderful and allowed me to have an all-natural birth with my husband in attendance (much to the shock and horror of the Taiwanese nurses and thanks to our neighbors, the Wheelers, for babysitting Elnorra overnight). Ben was handed our little one immediately after the cord was cut and said “hello…uh…Cordelia” We are so happy to have our “girls” even though I was convinced we were going to have a little boy, I wouldn’t trade our miss “Dilly” in for anything! I survived the birthing in a foreign county in large part due to dear friends, the Jolley sisters (Robin and Camille). Robin had a job with odd hours and came over often with food in hand just as I was about to collapse! Good thing Chinese take out was cheap and readily available (he he).
I am so grateful for the countless friends who touched our lives while we lived in Taiwan. I am so glad I was able to see another corner of the world and glimpse life in a different culture. The Taiwanese as a people are very friendly and honest and willing to help. It was sad not to learn much Chinese, but so much the better for a foreign mom to feel welcome rather than rejected. As I say... “Don’t worry if the vendor doesn’t speak English, the person behind you in line will.” And they will help before you ask, especially if you are stumbling over your Chinese. Taipei is relatively comfortable for us poor monoglots, but sad for the language acquisition. I discovered that there really are two universal languages: ******@****.com (E-mail addresses) and bad English! It was impressive to me to realize that all those folks who speak bad English can do at least two things I can’t. Speak a second language and communicate. After all that’s what language is really all about-communication!
We flew to the Tucson airport on the 4th of June and stayed in Arizona for just a few days until we drove (in our new to us “big car”-Thanks Emily and family) all the way to Beaver High Adventure Base, Boy Scout camp east of Beaver, UT. We spent the next two months living in an old army tent (a GP small) where you can stand properly and have a bit of furniture. The camp had a “population” of 25 staff members at 10,000 feet altitude and about 10% humidity. Talk about shock factor. We came from a sub-tropic city of 4 million and 80% humidity on a dry day. It was such a joy to finally be chilly again and need a jacket. Elnorra made the adjustment very well and loved the freedom of running around the lodge with all the big folks to play with and get attention from. Dilly didn’t adjust as easily, but I’m sure she was relived to be out of the heat. She hates being hot but loves being bundled up when it is cold! Oh yeah, she loves being held and there were plenty of other folks around to hold her while I was preparing dinner for the staff members.
We decided to come to Green Valley to be near my mom and my truly dear and sweet mother offered to let us stay in her guest room and use her garage for all our stuff for a few weeks while we settled in. The first week or two was nice and fun, quality grandmother (aka Grandee) granddaughter time, mom and daughter chats, travel logs and social calls. After much research we put in an application at the only apartment complex that was a viable option (there are only three “family” complexes in retirementville). Ben had finally received interviews and leads on jobs and the apartment was supposed to take just one week before moving day. Then came the biggest trial-five, count them 5, weeks passed where we expected moving day to be on Saturday and found out later than 4:30 pm on Friday, and in most cases on the day itself, that we still had to wait. Then once we were in the 800 square foot apartment then we had a long journey of unpacking before we have made it livable space. We had enough stuff in storage to furnish a 4-bedroom house and also brought some stuff home from Taiwan. Many months after the process started we have the apartment well lived in (we even have our pictures hung!) and mom’s garage is nicely sorted, organized and easy access to our long term storage stuff and a ¾ shop (no chem room) for me to work on instruments part time. I have had a steady stream of work in the repair shop and each new project gets me to unpack another box. The shop is nearly at capacity now and will settle into true efficiency in the next month or so.

Now it remains to be seen what our goals and adventures will be next year, perhaps graduate school, a new career, or more travel. We will let you know how it goes. Until then, remember we love you all and you are welcome to visit or call any time.