our birthdays

It’s been two weeks since I said goodbye to my four year old boy.  We sure are smitten with this guy.  He has the funniest expressions, and a big tender heart.  Yea, there is also that (loathsome) propensity for fussiness unmatched among any I’ve personally ever witnessed., but we love him endlessly still and we. are. working. on. it!  He started reading lessons and is doing great!  I love seeing his excitement and eagerness to catch up to the big kids… We are so proud of this fantastic son…. our son whom we love, who we pray will be faithful, fruitful in the Lord…  

For his birthday, we had super cool friends visiting and once again, I neglected my camera.  Even missed shots of the bday boy and his cake (actually, brownies).  But he did have a pretty fun party, thanks to Daddio.  Matt planned a fun game of dodge ball and then, once all the kids understood the game- in one of the three languages spoken- then he brought out the water balloons to bring dodge ball to a better level…. It was especially fun because it was a hot day (we haven’t had much super heat here yet- it's been beautiful) and I loved watching all our neighbors behold a water balloon fight for the first time….  shoulda got some pictures of them too!

Here’s  a sweet pose of him and the little sis (who was eagerly guarding her balloon.)

And for my bday too…  We went with some friends to a mountain spot nearby but they closed the road out to the trailhead so we had to hike a long way down the road to begin.  That’s when I hitched us a ride with these guys- who were for some reason, allowed on the road.  The back of the van had two seats and a large space with a fresh and bloody lamb skin (it's so normal... with intestines and lungs too, delicacies here).  If only this shot could be a scratch and sniff, then you'd get the full effect.  

I'm pretty sure 7 kids and 1 dad made it into/ on top of those 2 seats just to stay as close to the front of the van as possible.  

It was beautiful but we were cold (it's not much higher in elevation than the city, but man, it was a lot cooler there!  So nice!!)  It was a bit of an adventure to hike and hitchhike our way back to the cars at the end of the day too!  Finally, Matt paid for a ride on a motorcycle once we thought we should surely be allowed to drive in, since so many other cars were.  And then it started to rain.  And then the girls all jumped in another van- a comfy one this time and, in the end, Matt brought 5 local ladies who needed a ride and all the boys in our crew (6 of them total) (in our 7 seater-van) back to meet us at the front....  a funny little ending to our funny-hike day.