On the fifth day of the fifth month of every year Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated here in Taiwan. Consequently, we had a four day weekend! My sister Megan had the great idea to go camping and so off we went!!! Thanks to the previous residents of our apartment we have inherited a bunch of sleeping bags, a tent, and a proper backpacker’s backpack so we were all set.

Thursday we took the train down to Fulong on Taiwan’s east coast. We went to the beach, set up our tent and started a magnificent vacation. That day we just hung at the beach, went swimming, got some sun, walked around Fulong, had dinner, and then built a campfire of driftwood next to our tent.

Friday morning we woke up and took off to go hiking along the Taoyuan Valley trail. Beginning at Dali, the trail followed the mountain ridge along the coast. It was tiring going up and down with the ridge but beautiful; to our right the mountains of Taiwan, to our left the Pacific Ocean…hopefully Emily will get the pictures up soon! After like 5 hours of strenuous hiking the trail finally led us down into Dasi where we got some seafood for dinner before catching the train back up to our campsite, making another campfire and chilling out.

Saturday the guys (our Taiwanese roommate and one of Emily’s classmates) and I rented a couple of surfboards and had a go: Fun but extremely tiring. The Taiwan currents are strong.

Saturday night we came back to Taipei and as quickly as that the vacation was over. Emily and I started in on our mountains of homework.

We camped right on the beach, had campfires, and it was all free….and legal to the best of our knowledge!!! Hopefully this won’t change anytime soon because I can’t wait for our next Fulong weekend. Hanging out with friends who were coming and going throughout the weekend was fantastic. Back in the States I’ll be the envy of all the teeny-boppers with my magnificent tan. I love Taiwan!

I’ve been thinking about my second family lately. The Pippers took me in and let me live in their basement in exchange for a little babysitting during my year-long, unpaid, internship with Student Statesmanship Institute (SSI). They welcomed me back to sleep on the hide-a-way several times after that whenever I was in town and let me stay back in my old room for another 6 months right before I was married last year. Without a doubt they are a huge part of my life and I miss them.

Dennis is in fact a big reason why this site exists. He, along with Robbia, gave the taiwaneers.com domain to Emily and I as a wedding gift and has been webmastering and hosting this site on his server since it started. A great guy who I always enjoyed talking with, sitting around the kitchen table sipping beer and making wisecracks while the kids were swimming or bouncing on the trampolene. The camping I got to go along with the Pippers on is still with me. Higgins lake with the empty campground, and Luddington! Great times that I wish I could do over.

Robbia was our connection to summer jobs this past summer which was incredibly wonderful, taking the pressure of finding the dough-re-me for the plane tickets off of our shoulders. I cannot forget how her and Dennis included me in the MSU workers/friends cliqe parties, not to mention her own contributions to the beer sipping and wisecracks around the table. I loved those parties, which seems strange to me now since everyone was either married with kids or the kids themselves, and I was the 20 year-old guy who tagged along with the Pippers. For some reason those parties made me feel like I had a group. I was away from home but it was okay because I had a group. I haven’t even mentioned the food. The mushrooms Robbia can make are out of this world (did I mention Dennis’ homemade beef jerky?)….I’ll leave out the entire list of food that I miss from the Pippers because it would just be too long. The kind of hospitality Robbia and Dennis have is amazing. They basically had me over to dinner about a month into my internship, and towards the end of the meal Robbia asked me when I wanted to move in. A few days later I did and I’m so glad.

Abi, when I first met her was only eight years old. Now she’s a beautiful, talented, young lady who can razzle dazzle you with a piano and can make anything from cookies to dinner. She’s a fantastic young woman who loves God and seems to have limitless potential.

Noah, the former six year old now hockey/baseball/everything player, is someone you better not ‘let win’ when it comes to the basketball hoop in the drive way because now he really will beat you! He is definitely special to me. In my own family I’m the younger brother and now I finally have someone that I’m bigger than!!! He’s a great guy.

Emma, that four year old who was so crabby that first night at dinner, having just woke up from a nap, is now so grown up. She is basically a FIREBALL. I never used to understand it when I was younger and adults would describe certain people as FIREBALLS but now I do and Emma is one of them. She such a cool person and doesn’t let being the youngest in the family get in the way of anything.

If I listed out all the ways the Pippers have given to me (like helping at my wedding, giving me shelter, giving me sage counsel when I was hung up on Emily, taking me camping….) we’d be here forever.

I miss them and wish them a Merry Christmas!

PS- Some of you may wonder if this post reflects a bad relationship with my own family. On the contrary, I believe my incredibly good relationship with my natural family has made creating relationships like this one with the Pippers even better and I doubt my natural family will feel hurt or diminished by this post.