Day to Day Pics

It's so fun to see Katrina getting to the age where she loves playing in the front room with her brothers and sister!  She loves the Duplos (like big Lego for toddlers) and the little kitchen (which we're storing for some friends while they're interior) which is just her size!  She LOVES the phone!  
I recently sewed this outfit for Katrina.  It was so funny to see her excitement when I put it on her for the first time!  (Is she into clothes already???)
Every morning the kids take Pepper for a walk.  It's been a challenge for them to figure out how to get the leash on his collar but Spencer finally got the hang of it!  Amazing to me how much he's grown from the roly-poly puppy he was!  We did find a home for him - he'll be going to live with our Korean friends who work in a tribe in this region.  The boys are glad to be giving him to their friend Yohan since we can't keep it.  We plan to get another one when we get back from home assignment.

Making flour tortillas - home-made is best and now we're spoiled! 

 

I caught Katrina trying to put on her own shoes a few weeks ago...

she was not successful but it was so cute!

The boys asked if they could have mohawks after school was over, so here they are, 

the night before we left for our summer vacation.  

I didn't tell them they could have mohawks (they were modified, not shaved completely on the sides, just very short) and just told them I was going to give them a trim.  When they looked in the mirror they were so surprised!  It was a fun time!  See here for the final product!

So glad to see me after her nap! :)

But glad can turn to sad so quickly when you're teething! :(

Josh & Katrina's feet!

Hippos with Hiccups and Bears in Fridges

School ended for our boys in early May.  They concluded the school year with a program in which they both did some recitations, sang some songs with their classmates and played a few songs on their recorders.  

The boys' school is actually a one-room schoolhouse that has a teacher but they all do homeschool curriculum - just all together in the same room.  This is the last year with Miss Barb for them both as she will be retiring while we're on home assignment this coming school year.  (They get "Miss Mommy" this coming year - my first time homeschooling all three of the older kids.)  

Here are pics of our performers with their funny poetry  - they got to choose any poem they wanted to recite.  I put links to the text of their choices.

Spencer recited "Bear In There" by Shel Silverstein

and Mitchell recited "My Hippo Has The Hiccups" by Ken Nesbitt.

One of the moms offered to teach all the kids how to play the recorder (with homeschool curriculum as a guide).  The boys enjoyed learning how to make their "tooting" sound good!

Generator Trouble

The power here in our town can be pretty sporadic some days. At times it goes out several (up to 5-6, maybe more) times per day, for just a few seconds up to hours at a time. When that happens, unless our generator is working, we are stuck with no air conditioning, no water pressure, our fridge and freezer warm up, etc.   Since this generally happens during the day and most often not evenings or night time, it's usually 90 degrees minimum and we're incredibly HOT.  

When the generator doesn't work we try to get service as quickly as possible.  These photos show one time when our generator was not working (this happens semi-regularly as well) - the man shown is a generator technician.  He looked at the generator, concluded that he would need to take it in for service, and proceeded it tie it to his bike and take it with him!  We were glad to get it back fairly quickly and were thankful the next time the power went out to have a generator that works!

You'd be amazed at what we see on the backs of mopeds around town!

A Visit from Pastor Tom

Josh "The Smoothie Guy" treated us all to smoothies for breakfast 

before we went for a Sunday drive.

Mid-April our pastor Tom came for a visit.  We had a great time reconnecting with him and with our church through him.  We sure have missed our church and all of our friends.  It was great to show Tom around our neighborhood and have him see our life here.  The kids loved having him here too - he and Julia played around 13 games of Candyland (thanks, Tom!) and the boys had fun hanging out with him too.

New Puppy!

We got our puppy on Monday. The kids had been waiting for it for 8 weeks so they were SO glad to finally get him! We named him Pepper as his mother's name is Ginger (thought we'd keep it in the spice family). He's such a little joy to have around (Rachel, Kara, Tam - I'm serious about that - I can't believe he's so good!). He has not whimpered or whined for his mom at night. He's been responsive when we've disciplined him to not go into the house (a little flick on the nose). When he sees the kids heading for the door he just stops and watches them go in! Hope this lasts! :)

Josh and the boys made a doghouse for Pepper. 

Pepper's cute mug.

Spencer and his new friend.

Katrina was SO excited - squealing - when she saw Pepper.

Checking out the doghouse - it's a converted crate.  Still plan on a coat of paint.

Julia and Pepper.

Mitchell and Pepper.

Beach trip

Our last full day in the other region we went to the beach with a couple of the other families in the area.  It was over an hour drive but worth it.  I'd never snorkeled before, so that was a great "first".  I saw Nemo, Dorry and Scar, not to mention some beautiful coral and TONS of other colorful fish.  If I was braver/a better swimmer I'm sure I'd have seen a lot more.  It drops off pretty quickly.  I did accidentally bump an anemone and found out that it's VERY sticky stuff.

This is the vehicle we followed.  I was glad to be in a closed car with A/C.

From a distance it looked like this was a motorbike with a load of balloons and I was wondering why they weren't blowing away...but it's actually spools of the plastic string they use here a lot.

Loved the trees hanging over the road.

Katrina loved the water too...for a while...

These cabanas belonged to a dive resort (behind them) but one of our friends knows the owner and she gave us permission to use them even though we weren't staying with them.

Snack time.

While we were there, a storm rolled in - beautiful - and lasted just a short time.

Here's the first in a series of panoramic shots I took, starting from the right and going left (did I do that backwards?)

On the way home - sharing the road with cows...

From a distance - we were on the beach to the left of the blue roof you see, kind of further in.

Zoomed way in - where you see the boats on the beach, we were a bit to the left of them.

Visit to another part of the country

Here are some photos from our recent quick trip to a different region. We visited some friends and Josh was able to be an encouragement to those he was there to meet with.

I only own one pair of closed-toe shoes (besides my tennis shoes) - I can't remember the last time I wore them, as you can see from the accumulated dust...I only pull these puppies out when I'm traveling, cause I heard somewhere it's safer to fly with closed-toe shoes.

Josh doing some work on his laptop in the airport.  Two men also waiting for the flight decided it was of the utmost importance that they check out what he was doing...kind of annoyed me that they were so shameless in gawking over his shoulder (not that they could probably read English anyway!).

She loved the one-on-one attention she got from Mommy...

And Mommy was glad when she fell asleep so that I could read a book!

We were fortunate to get an extra seat on one of the flights - Katrina enjoyed the space to play!  What she has in her right hand is a (squashed) bun that was our "snack" from the airline.

Sitting on the lawn at the place we stayed - Katrina HATES grass!

These little girls loved Katrina!

Scenery across the road from where we stayed.

A colleague (right) and her sister (who was the cook at the place we stayed).

Josh enjoying breakfast and Kapal Api.

Katrina enjoying breakfast too...

Jonathan (a colleague) joined us for the trip.

The results of my "Manicure Ministry" :)