A month ago, Joshua was unwilling and unable to pedal his little tricycle and now he has blown us away by cruise around on a regular bike with training wheels. We never even thought he could do this so we hadn't even considered buying him a bike. However, this past week we were down at the OMF Bangkok mission home for a Church Planting workshop and Joshua floored us by scrambling onto one of the children's bikes in the play area and... Woosh! Off he went!

Joshua had lots of fun playing on the beach during our most recent trip to OMF's holiday home in Southern Thailand. He is still a bit shy of the waves and doesn't like getting his hands dirty with wet sand but he had a good time walk and running around with Mommy and Daddy, not to mention Pepsi the dog.

Mommy and Daddy each had a few gifts but Joshua was the big winner as far as Christmas gifts this year. Actually, we hardly bought him anything all, but other people, especially Grandma, showered gifts upon our little man. Last year, Joshua didn't know what to do with gifts except stare at them and tap the box but this year his ripping and tearing skills were much better developed.

Do you know what a TCK is? TCK means third culture kid and is coming to replace the term MK (missionary kid). Joshua is a TCK. A TCK is a kid who grows up somewhere between one culture and another, not really feeling fully at home in any culture. Along these lines, Joshua is making an interesting beginning in life as he interacts with us and the world around him here in Thailand.

We are still waiting for his first English words but he has a few Thai words that are very clear and very frequent. Although we think he has said "Dad", "ball", "amen" and "book", all of these have been one time occurrences. His favorite word is "nam" which is the Thai word for water. However, he uses it not only when he wants water, but when he wants milk, or grilled pork sticks, or sticky rice, or that tasty cherry children's Tylenol, or the toy we stuck