Fried chicken

We found this great fried chicken stand on the side of the road. Normally we don't eat a lot of street food, but this place seems clean and it's really good... and cheap! :) Last night was movie night so we sprang $5 for 8 pieces of fried chicken... Ezra loved his drumstick....







Brant and I are doing lots of playing with his fancy camera (mainly so I can teach my journalism students photography this fall!) but also just for fun. So *hopefully* you will be seeing some better quality pics of life here in the coming days.

And... today celebrates 3 years of us leaving America and coming here!!! Very thankful for God's grace the past 3 years....

The beach

There are some great things about living here. One of them is the beach. We live on the coast, but it's not easy to get to the beach; and after living here for a while, I have a new understanding of tropical beaches. Those beautiful calander pictures you see of the palm trees and clear water and empty sandy beaches? They are empty because it's a pain to get to them... and behind all those palm trees are no restuarants, gas stations, or any place to wash your hands or go to the bathroom. Getting to the beach for us involves an hour's drive down a bumpy road then a 20 minute boat ride to the nearest stretch of sandy isolation with no bathrooms. It takes a lot of planning and is definitely a full day trip.

This week we went to the beach with 3 other families.... all with little kids. Elijah was the oldest! It was a lot of fun. Here are some of the highlights.

Elijah with his sand castle. He had help. :)


Caleb and his starfish. There were some really cool neon blue ones, that I didn't get a picture of.


Ezra "talking" - this is a classic look for him these days - lots of noises and pointing. He loved the beach once he got used to the idea of the sand.

Always thinking about food

Tonight we were reading the Bible with the boys before bed. We're on the story about God asking Solomon in a dream what he would like God to give him. We paused and asked the boys what they thought Solomon asked for....
Elijah: "I don't know"
Caleb: "A snack?"

That's right!

Me: "Caleb, are you a super hero?"

Caleb: "Yeah, I'm a mom"

Happenings

Our neighbor is really sick right now; her husband is in Jakarta at the moment, so in talking with her daughter this afternoon, I offered to let them use our finger pricker thing to get a blood slide to test for malaria. She was really excited, so I ran inside to get Brant and the pricker thing. (Do NOT do the finger pricker thing myself!)

Elijah was looking at the box of needles after Brant left and said, "Mom, looking at this thing makes my bones shake."

In other news, Ezra finally, finally after 18 hours of not eating, decided to eat his chicken pieces from yesterday night's dinner. But then tonight he didn't want to eat dinner again. We got a few bites down him and he threw everything else on the floor while we were giving the older boys baths. You win some; you lose some.

We had the best dinner tonight. I found a great new recipe in my favorite magazine, and was definitely a hit... with everyone except Ezra. :) You take boneless, skinless chicken breasts, coat them in melted butter then dip them in a mixture of crushed Ritz crackers, shredded cheddar cheese and minced garlic... I think the recipe called for one clove, so I used 6. (Not an exaggeration; we use a LOT of garlic here; cheap and great for the immune system.) It was REALLY yummy and so easy - just bake for half an hour. We also had zucchini sauteed in butter and garlic (another 5 cloves) which was a special treat - the first time the boys have had zucchini I think other than in zucchini bread.... I can find zucchini occasionally at the import grocery store an hour and a half away, but it's usually got rotten spots or is old, so I just shred it to make bread; but last week I found some that was really fresh (as fresh as imported zucchini can be!) so sliced it and ate it tonight - so good! Topped the meal with garlic cheese bread (more garlic and butter!) and with mangoes (also imported; don't grow naturally here, how weird is that?) that Brant found when he was supply buying the other day - GREAT thing having a husband who shops - and who shops enough to know a rare treat (like mangoes) when he spots them at the grocery store.

All in all, used one full bulb of garlic on tonight's meal.

Turns out our neighbor had malaria. Brant took her some re-hydration drinks as she wasn't eating or drinking anything. I talked with her daughter this evening and she said she had taken "medicine" ...but I'm not quite sure she was taking malaria medicine.... so we'll see how she does in the next couple days....

It was THIS big

Brant and I were eating lunch this afternoon while the big boys were out playing. Elijah ran in: "Dad, I saw a lizard and it was THIS big (holding out arms as wide as they could go). I'm going to catch it and put it in my bug box."

Brant was out the door in a flash, grabbed a shovel "to help catch it" (wink,wink) and searched for a "lizard" ...a bit concerned that all the neighborhood talk of poisonous snakes might actually be true (like the one about the coconuts falling and killing kids!) But Elijah, turns out, knows his animals, and it was in fact, just a lizard... a really big lizard, with a looooooong tail - hence the THIS big (was maybe 2 feet total, but 3/4 of that was tail)

Helen, our house help lady, was here today and she saw it and said it was dangerous (not poisonous though), so Brant did try to use the shovel on it (after he tried to use the camera on it!) but no luck on either count... the thing could move!

Happy 4th!!!

Did not set this one up... but doesn't it look great?

Tonight we had our annual Fourth party... 3rd one we've celebrated here! Ever since Brant and I got married we've celebrated the 4th at the Baima's (friends of Brant's fam) and I have loved it - very stereotypical magazine like all-American 4th party. So it's been important to me to try to recreate a bit of that here - also want our boys to love their home country and have some identification with it....

Anyways! We had a great party tonight. 35 people - all of our town team plus several interior families who were out for paperwork, couple Canadians included, but they behaved. :) Tons of kids, great food, water balloons, and *firecrackers* (kinda) The menu - hamburgers (a real treat as the closest McDonald's is 1500 miles away and beef is expensive here!) and homemade ice cream - another huge treat as the stuff they sell for ice cream here should be illegal. :)

The spread

Happy camper - eating watermelon and hamburger bun

Ezra when we told him no more watermelon (after 4 chunks!)

Elijah and the ice cream - turned out really good this year!

Caleb with his water balloon

The *fireworks* - we couldn't find any for sale ANYWHERE so we had about half a dozen of these - that were in our car when we bought it - leftovers from who knows when! They were NOT spectacular to say the least, but the kids loved them!

Ugh...

We just got a phone call that we have to go to Jayapura (an hour and a half drive) tomorrow to renew our visas. We were hoping we wouldn't have to make the trip for a couple more weeks. So you can be thinking of us tomorrow - dragging our 3 little boys (all with colds) all over Jayapura in the heat, wearing formal clothes, to sit quietly in government offices all morning, just so we can AGAIN give the government our passport photos, our fingerprints and pay a couple thousand dollars...

The plus side for me is that there is a nice new coffee shop in Jayapura... has imitation Frappuccino's. The plus side for the little boys.... well, you can be praying for them! :)

Third time is not a charm

Ezra trying his hardest not to swallow.

Both Elijah and Caleb had this horrible habit of not swallowing their food when it was something they didn't like. We would shove whatever we were having for dinner in their mouths (I know you're not supposed to do that cause they could choke...) and then the little monster would hold it in his mouth crying that he didn't like it - for at least 5 minutes. I remember once Elijah screaming about not wanting to eat his bell peppers... it was probably 20 minutes before he would actually swallow the bell pepper piece in his mouth - he just sat there crying with the bell pepper hanging out of his mouth. Trying to explain to a 2 year old that the faster he swallows the faster the taste is out of his mouth is impossible. We've tried.

Yes, we are horrible parents. Yes, we torture our children and grandma would NEVER make them keep bell pepper in their mouths for 20 minutes...

So tonight Ezra joined the screaming-refusing to swallow his food hall of fame, when we had BBQ chicken sandwiches; I think he's just into being stubborn as he usually loves chicken and loves all things related to bread. He was mad that I wouldn't give him any more french fries until he ate his chicken.

I had to get a picture with his chicken piece hanging out of his mouth. He would not swallow it - just kept it in his mouth and screamed. Brant and I had a big argument over where in the world the boys picked up this trait... certainly not from their mother!

While Ezra was screaming and carrying on over his chicken pieces, Caleb and Elijah very calmly and quietly ate all their bell pepper spears covered in Ranch dressing... 2 down, 1 to go.