The Sticker that Was

Yesterday was interesting. If you follow on Instagram, then you already know this story. Yesterday was spent in the hospital. All day. Because of a sticker. Things started off normally, but took a turn around 6:30. Ethan had a shower then headed off to Abbey's room to get dressed. I assumed that he could handle that himself, so I went off to fix Abbey's hair. The next thing I know, Chris is coming in asking if I have tweezers because Ethan put a sticker in his ear. It seems that instead of getting dressed, he decided to explore Abbey's room and found a sticker. He is six and his sister's room is not a place that we normally let him hang out in alone. For reasons only know to God, he found a sticker and put it in his ear. No parenting manual prepares you for this.

Well, after determining that he could not remove it, Chris and I headed off to the hospital. We dropped Abbey off at the bus stop and dashed over to the local hospital. We thought that they would quickly pull out the sticker and we might still get him to school on time. A small bit of our hope was stolen when they said that we needed to head to the University hospital in our town because they had the doctor that was trained to use the "special tweezers for children's ears". We joked in the car on the way over that he must take them home with him at night because they were so special.

Our first moment of real seriousness came when the doctor, after looking in Ethan's ear, said that if it was too painful for Ethan that they might need to put him to sleep to get it out. We strongly encouraged Ethan to hold still and let the doctor get it out then. He, of course, screamed when the doctor tried to remove the sticker. They sent us down to wait in the ER. Well, the doctor thought that maybe they could just give him a sedative and that might be an easier route. Ethan took the sedative and then woke up fighting when the doctor tried once again to remove the sticker. Except that this time, because of the sedative, he didn't know where he was and why was so many people looking at him and why did his ear hurt. It honestly was a tiny bit funny, because after the doctor quickly determined that they would need to put him all the way under, Ethan still dealt with the sedatives effects for about 20 minutes. He would dose off and they wake up and ask me where he was at and why did he feel dizzy. I would explain and he would then discover the stickers for the heart monitor on his chest and ask about those. After explaining this, he would then tell me how Franklin in one of his books had the same thing. Then repeat 5 more times.



We then waited for three more hours for his stomach to clear out so they could give him a general anesthetic and get the sticker out, once and for all. Silly us fed him breakfast not expecting him to stick something in his ear. He headed in about 12:30 and I was getting nervous when he still wasn't out 30 minutes later. I mean, just pull the sticker out. When he was in recovery and they brought us the sticker, several things suddenly became clear. It wasn't really a sticker. It was a small rhinestone. A small, round, hard rhinestone. To a six year old boy, that is a "sticker". And he had pushed it quite far into his ear trying to get it out before letting us know about it.



We ask him over and over why he would stick something in his ear and he seems to have no idea. At one point, I ask him, "If you could go back, would you stick that in your ear?" His answer? "If I could go back, I would go back to breakfast and tell myself to just go brush my teeth!" That would have been a great idea!

Bee Stories

A friend of mine recently wrote a story about an encounter with a bee. You can read it here. It is a great story! And it jogged my memory about a great bee story that never made it on to this blog. As you have probably noticed, lots of stories about the kids make the blog, but ones about me, not so much. Most things that are blog worthy, I am actively trying to forget. But, here's a little story about how Thanksgiving 2011 went down.

All of the Brackens in Taiwan decided to have a little fun for Thanksgiving. Not the traditional turkey and lounging around the house Thanksgiving for us. We are missionaries. Adventurers. Conquistadors! We planned to head up to the mountains to "Bracken Hole" and BBQ beside the river. Since November is nice and toasty here in Taiwan, we also planned to swim in said river. Well, about two years ago, a typhoon came through and causes massive flooding in the mountains. Unbeknown to us, it wiped out part of Bracken Hole. So, when we realized that place wasn't going to work, we set off to find a new place to BBQ and swim. This actually should have been an easy mission. Except for the flat we got on our car. And the two lug nuts that broke when we were trying to change it. Chris and Dad Bracken set off for the nearest town to get it repaired and Mom B and I ended up setting up an picnic/BBQ area on the side of the road. I think we all thought that the guys would be gone for about 30 minutes. They ended up being gone for close to three hours. Finally, they returned and we attempted to recover the day. Chris grabbed a piece of BBQ chicken and headed over to where the kids were playing to watch them. I joined him to ask all the details concerning the car. Remember that piece of chicken. It comes into play in a moment. Well, while we were chatting I heard a bee buzzing. Not thinking, I casually swung my hand over my head. That was the last thing I did casually for about two minutes. I must have scared the bee, who was sitting on top of my head, because he stung me. Then he got stuck in my hair in an effort to escape. So, during our normal conversation, I suddenly screamed and started hitting the top of my head. Just as Chris was starting to ask me what I was doing, the bee flew out of my hair and straight at Chris. He threw his piece of chicken in surprise. Then he started yelling, "IT'S OUT! IT'S OUT!" in an effort to get me to stop beating myself to death. And that day I learned that bee stings to the head hurt. Really hurt. For three days hurt. And that quite an impression can be made on children if you will scream and beat your head. Also, sometimes God test our thankfulness on Thanksgiving.

Happy New Year!!

Let me begin by saying, "Happy Thanksgiving!", "Merry Christmas!", and "Happy New Year!". There. I think I covered all of the holidays that I missed. Once again, November and December flew into my life like Hank the Cowdog chasing Pete the barn cat and just created havoc to my schedule! I'm going to be doing an end-of-year update for you all soon.

I wanted to mention to all of you that I am on Instagram. If you happen to have that app, my user name is: tebracken. I would love to have you follow me and to even follow some of you! It is such a quick and easy way to post pictures! Tonight I posted a great picture of my homemade chicken alfredo pizza. It was truly great!

May God bless your new year and may your laundry learn to wash itself!

Vicksburg MS- 2010

As some of you may know, our home church is in Vicksburg, MS. Pastor Tipton is our pastor. Right now, I would just like to say that I have a great amount of sympathy for the rest of you who do not have Pastor Tipton as your pastor. I met pastor Tipton when I was a student at JCM. He was Chris' pastor prior to us getting married and became my pastor while we were dating. One of our favorite things to do is to just ask him a question and get him started talking. I always feel a hundred times smarter after wards. We also have some great friends in his son, Dathan, and his family. They have three lovely kids. Well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.



HEHE... Actually, we had all gone to a place called Gattytown (Maybe?) and convinced our kids to trade in their tickets for fake redneck teeth. The irony of this is that they all used the rest of their tickets to get suckers! I had some pictures of all of the kids, but they came out blurry! My kids adore these three kids of the younger Tiptons. My favorite part is that Ethan nor Abbey have ever referred to the twins as anything other than "Katelyn and Kaylee, the girls that look alike". Can you tell that these were the first twins they had ever seen? Here is a picture of all of them together.



We always have a lot of fun in Vicksburg, but we are still waiting for all of them to come over to Taiwan so we can play host. (*not so thinly veiled hint)

Next up: My dad's house

Time Travel... kinda

Do you all remember that last year about this time, we went back to the USA? And I was going to blog about every place we covered in three weeks and then, well, after Idaho, Lodi, and Fresno, I never covered the other stops? Guess what?! I too, remember all of that! And I am going to cover those last stops now. I know some people might be wondering why I would cover something that happened almost a year ago and this is the reason why. Those last stops were the pleasure, not business, stops of the trip. Actually, Lodi was pleasure also. In those last stops, we visited our home church in the States, went to see my dad and had an early Thanksgiving meal with my mom and step-dad and brothers and grandmas. Since this blog is also a way for me to keep memories and even keep a time line of our lives, I am going to blog old content. But it is totally new to you!! So, here we go!

The Long Awaited Rome Post

As many of you already know from a previous post, Chris and I were blessed with a trip to Rome for our 10th wedding anniversary. Dad and Mom Bracken gave us tickets and a hotel room using their frequent flier and hotel points. Another pastor blessed us with an offering that covered all the land cost. Like I said, it was a total blessing! I have been trying to get this post together for about 3 months now and I apologize to you that have been waiting. So, let's just dive right in, shall we?

Day 1: We slept in after an exhausting Sunday night flight and full day in Paris on Monday. When we did get up, we just grabbed a map and went walking. The map was to get back home with more than anything else. After first locating a sidewalk cafe and eating pizza and ravioli to our hearts content, we wandered down one street and up another. Somewhere we found this building that had been converted into a government building. We tried out a little artistic photography.


We stumbled upon an afternoon market and I got an the coolest watch. It is smooth and black and made from a coconut shell. Not exactly quality, but every time I wear it, I feel like I am back in Rome. There many have also been an awesome leather purse that came home with me. Then we crossed these bridges that were quite beautiful. Chris convinced me to pose and we also brought home this somewhat lame picture of me posing. Please focus on the bridge behind me.


Thinking that this was a pretty scenic street, we tried out a bit more artistic photography. It turns out that the building in the background is St. Peter's Basilica. We did not actually visit the Vatican City since with was already closed.

After a few more turns, we discovered a Piazza that was in full swing for the night. We watched a artist paint some beautiful paintings (a few which we bought for gifts because we could not believe how cheap they were) and met a Chinese man that was surprised that we could speak Chinese. He was kind enough to tell me that my husband's Chinese is better than mine. Just give me 20 more years! We then left the piazza heading south, but thinking that we were headed north. Our hotel was north. When we once again reached the river, we discovered our mistake. Since walking back would have been an hour trek and we were worn out from having already been walking for about 7 hours, we decided to figure out the bus system. Fortunately, it is very tourist friendly and since we were the only ones on the bus, the driver ask where we wanted to go and took us straight there! Awesome. I have to say that the Italian people were so friendly and eager to please.

Day 2: Today we have goals! We started with the Colosseum, then moved on the the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and Circus Maximus. On a map, these areas look relatively small. They are not. Do not be fooled. But first, the Colosseum. It was so much bigger than what I had envisioned. Look, the sun is in our faces!


In this picture, you can see where they have reconstructed a portion of flooring over the ruins. This is what the original would have looked like. To the spectators, the floor looked solid, but was actually constructed of moving parts. This way, things, people or animals could "magically" appear in the middle of the arena during performances. The Colosseum was mainly used for festivals and outrageous performances. And by Outrageous, I mean 50 bears at one time.


You can see here that under the floor was actually a network of rooms and hallways. They used pulleys to lift things up onto the arena floor. I have to tell you a little funny. Chris and I were listening to their audio guide and Chris nudged me and said, "Look! There is still a wild animal down in the ruins!" When I looked, there was a very calm, very domesticated cat strolling around like it owned the place!


Just a little view of the different ruins outside of the Colosseum. I was on the second floor when I took these pictures. Before the ruins crumbled, there was actually a third floor to the Colosseum. As I mentioned, it was quite large.


This is the Arch of Constantine. It is located just outside the Colosseum and was erected to declare Constantine's triumph in a certain battle. This was the purpose of Arches.


Just a little view of Palatine Hill. It was so lush and beautiful that it was easy to see why the Caesars chose this location. If you are unfamiliar with Roman history, Palatine Hill is the center most hill of the seven hills of Rome. It has the Roman Forum on one side and Circus Maximus on the other side. It was also the location of the residence of Caesars and affluent Romans. The Roman Forum was of course where all the government buildings were located.


In the Roman Forum, there was an arch that caught my eye. Actually, it was the menorah depicted that caught my eye. This arch was to commemorate a victory in the Parthian wars in 203 AD. It is call the Arch of Septimius Severus. I know that the battle was at Mesapotamia, but does anyone know more than wikipedia about this?


While resting at the arch, I took this picture to remind myself not to buy new shoes before a trip. Does anyone want these shoes? I can't even think about them without my feet hurting.


Circus Maximus was under some construction, so we only got to peek at it from the road. On the way back to our hotel, I captured a great street view. We were staying at the top of the Spanish steps.


Day 3: We started the day by once again navigating the bus system to go visit a catacomb. There are dozens of catacombs in Rome and we chose what is believed to be the oldest and largest, which is called "Catacomb of Priscilla". How it got this name is a little conflicting. The tour guide told us that it was named for a wealthy lady that donated the land to Christians for burial. Most accounts I have read in other placed say that it was named for this lady because she was probably the wife of the Consul Acilius who became a Christian and was killed on the orders of Domitian. It does have some of the oldest paintings of Mary with the baby Jesus. Interesting enough, there was no paintings or symbols of the cross in the catacombs because the early Christians did not focus on the death of Christ, but instead on his resurrection! They did not allow pictures down in the catacombs, but you see some online hereAfter leaving the Catacombs, we wandered around until we found a little restaurant. We were pretty far out of the tourist-y areas and enjoyed some down home cooking. No one spoke English, so we had lots of fun pointing and figuring it out. From there, we caught a bus and just rode until we saw something interesting. If we saw something out the window we liked, we just hopped off at the next stop and explored. And really, that is what we like best about going to another country. Just jumping into the culture and figuring it out.

That night, we went out to a special place to eat for our actual anniversary dinner. The restaurant had an incredible view of the city. After wards, we tried to take a picture, but it was a little too dark. I tried to lighten it, but it just came out looking photo-shopped!! Oh well, enjoy!


It was a short but wonderful trip that I would be again in a heartbeat. Chris would go back for the food alone!

Uh, say what?

A few months ago, I saw a teenager here in Taiwan wearing a rather interesting T-shirt. I only wish I had gotten a picture for you all. He was obviously Taiwanese and his shirt read, "I am the Black American dream". At first I thought, "Uh, perhaps he needs a few more English classes." But you know what? That T-shirt has secretly thrilled me for months. Every time I think about it, I giggle! I never knew that the black American dream is to be Chinese!