Library Time!

Once a week we go to the boy's minischool library to check out new books!  It's one of the highlights of the week.  

Julia by the "younger kid" section!  5 books is never enough!

Spencer reading one of his choices by the "chapter book" section.

Mitchell's favorite thing to check out is the Guiness Book of World Records - with tons of amazing pictures!  He does read the beginner chapter books already but it's still more fun to look at pictures!

We've read a number of books together already - Around the World In 80 Days, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Stuart Little, The BFG, The Black Stallion, a Hardy Boys book, and now Pippi Longstocking!  I love reading and introducing them to my childhood favorites!  With the Hardy Boys book, Spencer actually read a bunch of it aloud to Mitchell and me since I had to do some work but could still listen!

Katrina Walking and Crawling

I took these pictures especially for our parents.  Hard to have pictures of Katrina walking and crawling but here are some from the other day.  I especially love the pic of Katrina with the funny smile on her face, as well as the one of her standing beside her very tall daddy!

Standing by the water cooler -just after I told her it's a "no-no".

Walked a short ways and then dropped down to crawl (to get there faster)!

She got to her destination - the blue stacking cup!  

(The moon on her arm is a temporary tattoo - all the kids got them the other day...)

Wanting to "help" Daddy clean up the game/art cupboard!

Julia's Adventure

Everyone who's been here probably remembers the ditches that are on either side of the road and between houses etc.  EVERYTHING goes into them, or gets thrown in.  Not just rainwater...  The ones along the roads are GROSS!  Julia is standing next to our small one at our home.  Josh took the kids for a walk on Sunday evening, and Julia, in an attempt to get a better look at a chicken, got a bit too close and fell in a big one!  She lost one of her shoes in the "mud" at the bottom.  Josh brought her home and tried to hose her off (after taking a picture!) and told me that the mud just didn't want to come off - it was thick and sticky!  He had to scrub her to get her clean!  Her dress came clean after some soaking, which was good because this is one of her favorite dresses!  At my request he went back to the place she fell in and dug around in the mud with a pole to get her other shoe back!

The funniest part of this situation is that whenever the boys left for school the first year that we lived here, she would yell out the door at them "Don't fall in the podit (ditch)!".  Now SHE did  - and over a chicken!

Pepper's Bath Time

Every Saturday Josh and the boys bathe Pepper. Here are some photos of that fun event!

Mitchell takes the first "go" at getting Pepper to the bath water.  He grabs Pepper around his belly but doesn't get a good hold on him.  Pepper knows what's coming so he puts up a bit of a fight, plus he's a bit heavy for Mitchell with all that wiggling, so Mitchell can't keep a hold on him.  Spencer looks on.

Spencer chases him and finally gets him under his front legs. He struggles to carry him to the other side of the yard, laughing all the way.  Katrina watches with great interest!
Finally Pepper makes it to his appointment with the bath water - he initially tries to climb out but once he's wet, he's pretty content to let Josh lather him up and get him clean.  The kids get a great kick out of him shaking himself off once he's all clean and out of the water.  He sure feels nicer to pet once he's dried off!

Roasting Marshmallows

We're in "using up" mode here - knowing we're going to be away from this home for a year. All of the great packages we received with treats like jello , instant pudding, marshmallows - I'd been saving portions of the them for a special occasion. Now that we're heading home, we're enjoying the last of the goodies. 

Last Friday night (after soccer) we had a little family "marshmallow roast". Josh lit a fire in our little metal "fire box" and since we don't have roasting sticks, we got out some forks and taught the boys how to roast marshmallows! They were SO good! Can't wait to treat the kids to a real bonfire complete with hot dogs to roast! They'll LOVE it!

Josh showing the boys the finer points of marshmallow roasting 

- like staying AWAY from the flame!

All that sugar...he REALLY LOVES marshmallows...

Pepper has really slimmed down and grown up!  Not the roly poly puppy he used to be.  He leaves us to go to his new home this weekend.  He loves to get in on the action!

Katrina tasting her first marshmallow!  She loved it!

Our Kids with their friends

Here's Julia enjoying some time with her friend Sara.

Yohan came to hang out with the boys a few afternoons last week.

One afternoon last week Josh arranged for us to rent one of the soccer courts in the soccer complex near our home.  A bunch of the MK's in the area joined our kids for some soccer, dodgeball and so on.  Here's Katrina enjoying the action!

Mitchell with 2 of his friends - not only were they running around chasing the ball - it was VERY HOT!  No worries, we brought plenty of water to go with the snacks!

Spencer Update

Here's a quick update on Spencer's "owie". I took the stitches out on the 18th (the 5th day after the accident). The picture below it was taken yesterday, 11 days after the accident. It's healing up really nicely! We're so thankful!

Spencer's Adventure

Just a quick post - last week Saturday we had a bit of an emergency - we'd gone to the pool and Spencer had an accident on the water slide.  Spencer got a cut about 2" long on his forehead.  It was deep but only bled a short time.  We took him in to the E.R. and he got 6 stitches.  I took the stitches out a few days ago and his wound is healing up nicely.  No guarantees there won't be a scar though...

We are so aware of God's grace in this situation - with little things like - 

+Katrina had just fallen asleep so it was no problem leaving her with our friends (whom she was not familiar with yet) so we could take Spencer to the Emergency Room.  

+Also, we had a vehicle and had the keys on us - so we could leave right away.  

+Another thing - I had ice packs with me to keep Katrina's milk cold - so we were able to ice the wound right away to keep swelling down until the Doc could stitch it up.  

+We didn't have to wait at all - Spencer had been to that clinic before so they had him on file. 

+We weren't in the E.R. more than 30 minutes start to finish.  

The whole bill for the E.R., stitches, etc was around $25US.  We finished up with paying, got in the vehicle and headed back to the pool, where Mitchell, Julia and Katrina were waiting for us with our friends.  We then went and had lunch together as planned!  

It could have been A LOT WORSE, and we're thankful that it wasn't.  

In this situation, it's easy to praise the Lord for 6 stitches!

Our 13th Anniversary

On Monday June 8th we celebrated our 13th Wedding Anniversary. 

Above is a shot of us 13 years ago and below is one of us on our Anniversary!

It was great to have most of a day to spend together - with 4 kids, quality time isn't easy to come by!  The photo below is one of us in the morning going out for coffee at the mall.  In the evening we went for a massage while sitters stayed with the kids.  (Third massage here but first massage here that I didn't get bruises from - I LOVED it!)

Our Princes and Princesses

Aufwiedersehen!

The boys and Daniel say good-bye.  

Daniel was a good friend both to us and to our kids.  He spent a year with us here and taught the boys a lot, both in and out of the classroom.  Thanks, Daniel - we'll miss you.  

"Our Lena" Visits

While we were at the beach on Wednesday afternoon, I had a call from my friend Lena - she was wondering if we were too busy that coming weekend to have a visit from her.  OF COURSE we were NOT too busy!  We hadn't seen her since early 2007 when we moved here.  She works in a different place nearby.  We had a great two days together, catching up!

Tough dudes!

Had to re-apply the blue hairspray for pictures 

before their hair all got chopped off for church on Sunday!

Group shot

Blast from the Past - 2007

Here's the 2009 version!

Lena and I taught the boys how to play Dutch Blitz (which Mitchell got confused with British Bulldog and called "British Blitz" the whole time! LOL).  

Our Summer Beach Trip

After the boys finished school in early May, we took a 3 day trip to a beach 3-4 hours from our home.  It's the only beach within reasonable driving distance from our home.  There is a hotel there, but aside from running water, A/C and TV (local language channels - picture the Spanish channel there in Milwaukee) it's basically camping.  We bring our own sheets, pillows, some food (there is a restaurant where you can get some food, but there's not much variety), lots of bug spray, etc.  This is the same place we went in December when we got rained out.  This time we went with some colleagues and one of the boys' teachers.  We rented a car so that was a treat too (we don't own a car here yet).

This is the first time that the kids have found a lot of starfish.  

There were MANY but they were really TINY.

We didn't end up taking them home though the boys wanted to.

We went down the beach a ways one day and the kids played in a fresh water creek that feeds into the ocean.  The water was MUCH cleaner and of course less scary for the little ones.

Our vacation spot is also this man's place to beach his fishing boats.

Cleaning his nets in the fresh water - they also gutted the fish upstream from us-smelly but we just wrinkled our noses and kept playing!

Josh helping Katrina fall asleep for her morning nap on the beach.

Katrina "honked out", as Julia says.

Julia enjoying the ocean.

Getting dumped on!

The boys and their teacher Daniel 

coming back from "Shell Beach" with a bucket full of shells!

Staying hydrated.

My boys enjoying the ocean!

Posed shot.

Our colleague opening up a coconut while Daniel looks on.  

Katrina up from her nap - snack time!

Sunset on another part of the beach.

Took many shots - here are only a few...

There were a bunch of sculptures of animals in this "park-like" area.  

The kids enjoyed climbing up on them.

Enjoying the sunset.

Beautiful!

Our wild guys!

Julia taking the bull by the horns...

The next morning - the beach just down from our hotel rooms.  

Julia and her friend enjoy the water!

Can't dig to China here - we'd end up in America...or something...

The people on the left are part of the spectator crew.  They seem to be fascinated with the "Westerners" playing on the beach.  They especially love to watch our kids.  Our colleagues had the excellent idea of bringing a blow-up pool to the beach so the little ones could play in the water without fear of the waves.  Katrina loved splashing in the water - and it was nice to not have her in the sand!

Daddy holding his little girl.

During the hottest hours of the day the kids did activities in our hotel room.  

The "rug" on the floor is like astroturf.  

Being silly - like usual!

A warm glow from the sun...

Scrounding around for things to chew on - will those teeth ever come out???

Our hotel room - a double and a single.  Katrina slept in her car seat this time.  

Last time her bed was a suitcase.  The boys shared a room with Daniel.

The last afternoon.  Actually we didn't know we were leaving that day.  Turns out we misunderstood or miscalculated the dates and that night there was a regularly-scheduled discotech evening - which means LOUD DANCE MUSIC til 4 in the morning.  We weren't willing to deal with that so we started packing at around 7:30 that evening and were on the road by 9.

Josh enjoying the cool water.  We had heard that it was jellyfish season and came somewhat prepared to deal with possible stings.  Spencer was stung on the hand and Josh on his heel but neither sting was bad and the pain went away in a couple of hours.  THEN that afternoon - just as I was taking the picture above, Daniel was stung badly by a jellyfish.  It was scary - he was in a lot of pain and had some facial paralysis.  That was another reason we were eager to just head home once we heard that the discotech was going to be "on".  Thankfully he recovered - though he will probably be scarred in the place he was stung (his left hand, if I remember correctly).

This is not THE jellyfish that stung Daniel - but one they found in the water around the same time - it was already dead and they just pushed it to shore with the frisbee.  The toxins in their tentacles are still active even though they are dead.

Josh took his turn at creative sunset pictures.  

The round object in front of the sun is the light post!

Beautiful ending to our last day at the beach - 

Josh didn't use a special lens for this though it might look like it - 

God just painted it that way!