What I found today when it got too quiet around here....

I love these little boys. That's all there is to it.

The Littles

Elijah has been going to the international school this fall, so my day consists mostly of Caleb and Ezra hanging around the house, doing home school and playing. They wear the same clothes and are almost the same size.  (Caleb, 7, is catching up to Ezra, 4! I joke, but really Ezra's 4-5 pounds heavier than Caleb, though Caleb does have him by a couple inches.) We've taken to calling them "the Littles" because Elijah's so much taller and more "big boy" acting than the other two. I love how they've become buddies and have a blast playing together.

They create all kinds of elaborate forts and projects... this is a car maze...

Here Caleb "cooked" Ezra dinner....

And here they "baked" me cookies.... :)

And here they made a whole imaginary world... they had their beds spread out on the floor and their bears sleeping and their backpacks packed and made paper confetti soup.... not quite sure what all was going on, but they were very happy playing like this for hours....

Here they really cooked "Turtle Bread" - it's become a first grade home school tradition and I don't know what it is about the recipe, but it is way, way yum.

Things I am thankful for this year

This is a hard one to write. We are coming off of one of the hardest months we have ever had overseas... one of the hardest in our life. But God is still good and I have much I can find to be thankful for. 

Disneyland. Hard to believe it was just this January we were at Disneyland with the little boys and Brant’s parents. What a magical day and beautiful memories. We still talk about it regularly. 

Our teammates. I love our tribal teammates. I am so, so thankful for them. We have been blessed and challenged and laughed and cried together. The boys’ best friends are our teammates’ kiddos and they play wonderfully together. We thank the Lord all the time for the team He has given us. 

Noise ordinance laws and sealed houses in the States. Not sure why they need noise laws in a place where all the houses have glass windows and insulation, but I am thankful I got to grow up in such a place. 

A ministry we are good at. We started this year very uncertain of what our future would hold. While it certainly has not turned out like we planned, the Lord has given us a ministry where we can use our gifts and serve Him. We know that is a gift.

My trip in October. I got to go off-island to a ladies missionary retreat. What a gift! It was such an amazing time - great food, fun times with friends, relaxing spa treatments and great times to study the Word and pray with other ladies serving the Lord in our corner of the globe. Wow, what a treat.

The ability to see fruit from our work. I have seen very clearly how the Lord has used us in certain situations this year to bring glory to Himself, serve other people or explain the Truth of Scripture to others around us. Has been as if God has said very clearly “This is just where I want you for just this moment” and I am thankful for that grace He has given us. 

Truths from the Word that the Lord is teaching me. Again and again the Lord has very  clearly spoken Truth from His Word to my heart this year. Time after time I have received an email from a friend with encouraging verses that I had just read the day before. Or a sermon or song confirming what I’ve been studying in my Bible study. There have been times in my life when I feel like God is actively teaching and speaking into my life and this year has been one of those. 

Friends. When Elijah was so sick earlier this year, I had friends I could email or text and get an instant reply “I am here. I am praying.” I am so blessed with friends around the world and so thankful for the support group the Lord has given me. 

Soccer. This spring, during our stressful re-acclimation to life here, a friend suggested I start playing soccer with the missionary ladies’ intramural group. I have not played soccer since college.... and I don’t know that you can count 2 years of bench sitting as really playing on my college team. :) But I have LOVED playing every Wednesday morning here. Such great exercise and stress relief and great fun being with all the other moms who used to play soccer in college. :) 

Fast internet. We switched internet to a new 3G cell thing... you know, that’s supposed to be for all the iPhones and smart phones. But no one here uses that kind of phone service, so we have really fast (relatively!) internet for a quarter of the price of the dial-up that’s offered for regular internet usage. We can actually almost stream a YouTube clip in real time. 

Increased support. Our last term we were scraping to get by.... as in counting each penny and not having 5 dollars extra in a month. Our support has gone up a bit and I feel like we can breathe and actually occasionally go out to eat. And we bought a water heater for our shower! Extravagance. :)  

Peace with the culture. I see new missionary ladies come every year and go through such horrible culture shock. I used to be one of them. I’m not now. I am so, so thankful. Yes, I have awful “I hate this culture” days (like with the music!) but for the most part, we are acclimated and used to all the craziness around us. It doesn’t throw me off kilter to see a guy hunting a pig in my backyard or naked kid running down the road. I can handle the heat (better!) and all the power outages without feeling helpless. I’m thankful to the Lord for bringing us through that transition time.

The new mall. While we were in the States, they built a new mall in the big town two hours’ from us. There’s a frozen yogurt shop and a bakery and a coffee shop. There’s a sporting goods store that actually carries real American brands like Speedo and Crocs and Nike. There’s a department store that occasionally carries import kids’ toys. There’s a grocery store that is a tad bit like a SuperWalmart. And.... there’s a movie theater. The theater actually just opened two weeks ago, and we haven’t gone to see a movie yet, but.... BUT.... there is the opportunity to. Someday we could go see a movie if we wanted to. It makes life so much easier to just have the knowledge that you CAN do something. :) Thankful that civilization is coming to our corner of the globe.

The Pirate Party

No secret this has been a really hard month for us. But the Lord is faithful and life is calmer (at least today!) and so I'm going to try to catch up on blogging a bit.... We did have some fun moments this past month.

Like the Pirate Party.... held to welcome back our co-worker's 22 month old son. He was med-evaced out of country when he started losing control of his eye ball... literally could not move it. Turns out it was a really weird virus attacking the muscles around the eye ball. Yes, life is that crazy here.

Part of his treatment is wearing an eye patch for the next month. So we all got together and made a Pirate Party to welcome him back and show some empathy. :) The party was thrown together in about 30 minutes (Frantic call from Ryan, our co-worker, "Our kids said you were doing a Pirate Party today? Is that true?" Recalling an off-handed comment I had made to all the kids earlier the day before: "We should do a Pirate Party and all wear eye patches when Logan gets home!" So, of course, we have to do the Pirate Party.) 

There were Sharpie marker tattoos, courtesy of Uncle Ryan, because everyone knows all pirates have tattoos.  

There were cardboard swords. Because the best part of being a pirate is having a sword. 

And there were cloth scrap hats and eye patches.... because the whole point of the party was wearing the patches. :)

After everyone was decked out, we went outside to hunt pirate treasure (popcorn and Skittles) and to fight with swords. Logan, the star of the show and 4th from the left below, was a bit out of it from the 14 hour flight back and the previous 5 days of tests and poking and prodding. But he liked the popcorn. :) 

It would have been a perfect evening after a very stressful week, but right in the middle of the party I got a call from a new missionary gal whose husband was in a tribe at the moment. She had been in a motorcycle accident with her 2 little bitty boys. Brant and Ryan dropped the party and hurried out to help her (in another town 45 minutes away!) and that evening we ended up baby-sitting scraped and bruised little boys while she was taken to the hospital for x-rays. (Broken elbow.)

Arrgghhhhh.

What we put under Ezra's pillow tonight...

Poor baby is only 4; no, he did not loose it naturally. We were all outside waiting for the US Consul General to show up for lunch (when my dad asked how we managed that... we just invited him when he was in town doing paperwork and he accepted!) and all the kids were running around... and Ezra fell into the ladder on the playground. Brant brings him to our house, covered in blood, just at the same moment the Consul shows up. So I missed lunch and fed Ezra ice cream instead. That "made it feel better" - so did the new can of Play Dough and the $2 the Tooth Fairy left under his pillow that night. :) And we never did find the tooth... 

Today

This morning I woke at the unearthly hour of 6:15 to take a guest to the airport. Short term, college aged gal. Happy and chipper to be returning to the safety of home. I was a tad grumbly that I couldn’t have a cup of coffee before we left and was only half awake as we pulled into the airport parking lot. 

I soon woke up.

As we were walking down to the entrance, people starting running past us. Running. I heard shouting and yelling. Arms raising in fists.

“Walk a little faster,” I encouraged her. “Don’t look back.”

The police had already formed a line across the entrance by the time we got to the door. They squeezed us past only after she waved her ticket. We managed to get into the terminal and I caught a glimpse of a mass of people swarming in a tangle of fists and shoving outside. I frantically texted Brant that a riot was breaking out. The airport went into lockdown mode. What do I do?

All my training kicked in. So thankful for that training. Look for a place to escape. A place to hide. For things that could be thrown or used as weapons. (Not that I would use them, but to try to figure out what people could hurl at each other.) Look for people in the crowd I might know from church; perhaps another missionary traveling off island today. No one.

The police came in. Doors were locked. We were safe inside. Witnesses to the chaos on the other side of the glass. Safely behind the glass. I prayed the glass would hold. I frantically texted Brant again. We couldn’t talk on the phone. It was too loud. 

In an hour it was over. The police had squelched it all. What had started as a fist fight between two enemies and escalated to a full on brawl between anyone happening to walk past ended with me walking out of the airport quietly and safely. Shaking, I called Brant from the safety of my car. 

“I’m coming home. It’s over. She’s on the plane.”

I didn’t make it home before Brant called back. Our teammates, dear friends who had just returned from furlough 2 weeks prior, were on the way to the hospital. Their youngest, a little boy not yet 2 years, was losing control of one of his eyes and couldn’t see. The same eye that had been hit last week when he fell off a railing at the mall. 

Something like that you can’t exactly get checked out here. The doctor at the local hospital recommended they get out of country as soon as possible. Brant rushed to the airport - thankfully calm - to buy plane tickets. I came out of my “what in the world did I just witness?” fog to start digging through as of yet unpacked suitcases to find clothes and diapers and toiletries for an international trip. Crying, we packed and prayed and sorted clothes and figured out insurance and passports. Less than an hour later, she was on the plane, carrying the baby. I picked up their other son from school to tell him that his mother had already gone.

And I came home. Exhausted and spent. I drank my coffee. I rocked my Caleb, fevered and dripping with sweat and coughing and hacking. This whole crazy morning he had just lain on the couch alone and sick. We rocked and prayed and sang songs. That’s what mama’s are supposed to do when their little guys are sick. Not hide from rioting masses. Not comfort distraught friends. Just rock and sing and pass the tissues..... 

Tonight there is a peaceful tension in our home. We dispensed medicine to sick boys and got new library books this evening and had hamburgers (pulled from the freezer for such a day as this!) and tucked little boys into bed after reading chapter 6 in The Boxcar Children. I am drinking hot chocolate as I write.... a treat from the States savored on evenings when the temperature dips below 80. It seems like a beautiful end to a very difficult day. But my mind is still reeling from these past 16 hours. My friend is still flying, even as I write, and will be late into the night. Tomorrow brings CT scans and MRI’s and blood work. Fear. Exhaustion. Stress. The unexpected. Another day. I am learning submission to the Lord, one very hard day at a time. What the Lord gives in a day, I am to be thankful for, and to embrace as from Him. It’s hard. Very hard. I am just thankful not all days are like today.

On power issues and blaring music

I hate it here. 

That’s all there is to it. The heat. The bugs. The constant shoving of powerful drugs into my kids’ bodies just to keep them semi-healthy. The oppression and injustice and poverty I see every single time I step outside my house. Problems I am powerless to fix.

My kids can eat meat on a daily basis and take medicine when they need it and get good schooling. They wear good quality clothes and shoes that fit. They have birthday parties and decorate Christmas cookies and went to Disneyland last time we were in the States. They have a future because of their passport and the color of their skin and the language they were born speaking. Their little national friends dream of such luxuries and will never attain them, simply because of their nationality and the color of their skin. I hate it. And I am powerless to fix it all.

I am totally exhausted. These past weeks the music has been blaring non-stop all night long. The drunk guys and “bad” kids across the street have been partying. Bob Marley. Elvis Presley. A bunch of songs I can’t make out over the garbled speakers pointing straight at our bedroom that play all hours of the day and night. Brant finally dug up a couple pair of ear plugs last night at 2 in the morning. They muffled the music, but did nothing for the beating bass that reverberated through the walls. And there is nothing I can do to stop it. 

Today Brant and I went to the nice new hotel in town for lunch. The boys stayed with some of the guests here at the guest house. We were so looking forward to a break from the busyness of the week. An hour after we had placed our order, they finally brought Brant’s sandwich. Twenty minutes later, when my burger still hadn’t showed up (was still “cooking,” they said) we walked out. I was in tears. Powerless, powerless.... even to order and eat a nice meal.

I hate the feeling of being powerless. Of not knowing all the social rules that govern this land and not knowing how to really help those who are in such pain around me. I hate the suffering I see and I hate the suffering the Lord asks me to endure.

I don’t want to endure this journey of sleepless nights and exhausting days. I didn’t ask for this when I signed up to serve the Lord. Back in America, I have friends who long for children and can’t conceive, and friends who long to be married and aren’t. They didn’t ask the Lord for those paths.... He gave them. 

Last night as I was lying awake, crying out to the Lord for silence, I remembered the line from the Laura Story song, “What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near?” And I argued with the Lord. I don’t want to know God through sleepless nights. I don’t want the lessons He has to teach me through accepting this as from His hand. I don’t want to acknowledge that this is HIS doing.... that He is using this moment - this dark, loud, sleepless night - to teach me that true rest comes only from Him. That He can use what appears horrible to show His deep, abiding love for me. That what seems cruel - this unanswered prayer - is really His mercy and grace in my life to bring me into a deeper relationship with Him and make me rely on Him more fully.   

My issues of liking to feel in control and liking to be able to fix things.... they transfer into my relationship with the Lord as well. I want to pick my own testing grounds. Let me get a good night’s sleep and I will be ready to do battle for the Lord and accept whatever He has for me to learn. But this week that is not what the Lord has for me. He has exhaustion. He gives headaches and sleeplessness. It is His love for me that brings these into my path. Can I praise Him through these? Can I bring Him glory through this?  I am tired. Very, very tired. Yet is that not the point? That I can do nothing - not even worship the Lord - in my own strength. It is only His Spirit within me that can produce true worship for the King of Kings. And His Spirit never tires.

So should I pray that the music will stop or that my heart will be humbled before my Maker? Do I want a good night’s sleep more than I want to learn obedience to walk in a manner worthy of my calling.... regardless of how tired I am?

Regardless of how tired I am. 

The paper airplane birthday

 We had a really fun day celebrating Elijah's 9th birthday. He settled on a "paper airplane" birthday party which turned out to be really fun and simple and cheap. :) I made the mistake of looking on Pintrest for ideas.... hello, I am so out of American culture, but seriously, mini-suitcases filled with $50 worth of party favors for each kid at a 1 year old's birthday party???? Cakes that look like wedding cakes for a 4 year old's party? Really?

Anyways, back to the party.... Origami is really big here, so it was no problem getting a ton of different sizes and colors of paper. We found a stack of books on paper airplane folding at the school library (who knew!) and set out all the paper and books and markers and let the kids go to town. I was surprised at how many kids didn't know how to fold paper airplanes... it's pretty serious business in our house.

What I didn't get a picture of is all the kids "testing" their planes INSIDE our house... it was pure madness. But really fun - because seriously how much damage can a piece of paper do? After almost an hour of folding and decorating and flying inside, we had a flying contest outside (and a decorating contest for the girls). Then we made paper origami cups and did water games with them. 

After a few games, we did popcorn and watermelon and cake. Every birthday party I have every thrown has popcorn and watermelon and cake at it. Cause I can't stand too much sugar for the kids and ice cream here is nasty. :) 

Very simple. Very fun. The kids all had a blast, without Pintrest's help. :) And the birthday boy loved it.

The "real" birthday also fell on "party day" this year, so later we got to do presents from grandmas and family. Presents are a very careful thing here - some kids don't get presents from America sent over, so people keep it quiet if their kids do. 

We have seen Elijah grow and change so much this year. He loves to read and loves school. But he also loves to be with his friends and play outside. He's always planning forts and clubs and making weapons out of sticks and creating grand plans of inventions and crafts. He's very, very independent and stubborn, but still enjoys cuddling with us on the couch and playing games with us. He's definitely moving out of the "little boy" stage and I am sad to see it go, but it's fun to see him become his own person. We love you, Elijah!

What to do With a Bitter Cucumber

So a lot of folk wisdom I've learned in our 6+ years of living here has been a tad on the crazy side... Don't chew gum while you're pregnant or the baby will get stuck inside you. Don't walk with your hands behind your back because that means you're hiding an evil spirit. You get the idea. So when a friend told me a little old lady had shared a trick for getting bitter cucumbers to taste good, I wasn't holding my breath. But wow.... it actually works!

If you get a cucumber that tastes bitter, this is what you need to do... chop off the end and rub it in a circular motion against the rest of the cucumber for about 2-3 minutes. You'll start to see a white foam appear around the edges of the cucumber...

The foam will build - keep going until it seems to have stopped. At this point your cucumber should look like this....

Rinse off all the foamy stuff and repeat the whole process. If very little white appears, you're good to go. Rinse it again and eat it. (You can also cut a slice and taste it to see if you're satisfied.) Totally changes the way the cucumber tastes!

So there's your cooking tip from my little corner of the world. Maybe this isn't such a great secret and all Americans know how to turn a bitter cucumber sweet, but I had to travel 12,000 miles to learn it. :)

Around our house lately...

There has been lots of fort building...

And one six year old boy who can ride his bike. all. by. himself.

He took his training wheels off a couple months ago after seeing some guests' kid riding without training wheels (and he was only 4!) and finally got up the gumption to practice last week. He's been riding ever since...

Monster spider. It jumped. Brant was attacking it while I was on the phone with our banker in America and Elijah was trying to put on shoes, late for carpool, and a guest was knocking at our front door. That's kinda been our life lately.

My sister spent $26 to send two boxes of Twinkies over. Worth. every. penny.

One of Caleb's many costume changes throughout a day...

Ezra on his first day of preschool. This was the closest I got to a smile after a morning of nervous tears. But he loved it. LOVED it.

Another guest (not the 4 year old bike riding wonder) had some extra tie dye materials leftover from a package she had gotten. Brant ran out real quick and found some white cotton cloth (no plain t-shirts here!) and the boys had a fun afternoon dying fabric squares. They turned out really cute. I might turn them into pillow covers.

The One about the Blanket Folding

We make the boys fold the blankets on their beds in the morning as one of their "jobs." They don't sleep under comforters, but occasionally use sheets and have a whole slew of little rags and small blankets they cuddle with. So this morning I walked in to check that he had done his job and found this on Caleb's bed...

The hilarious thing was this evening I said to Brant "You have to look and see what Caleb did this morning - check out my camera." To which he replied "Oh, you saw the picture I took?" I was really confused until I clicked back through the pictures and we realized Brant took almost the exact same picture YESTERDAY morning:

We have a budding artist on our hands. Either that or a wise crack. :) But aren't you glad that both of us are aware enough to document his creations?

And this was for the kindergarten class...

Today at our national church the kids learned about Naaman the Leper during Sunday school. One very eager, new young teacher taught the class and I'm sure wanted to show off the fact that she had a laptop and could use it for ministry. :)
So the lesson included REAL pictures of people suffering from leprosy and a very vivid description of how people suffer and die from the disease. Memories of the Christmas lesson of Herod killing all the babies in Bethlehem came to mind. I think the kids will be scarred for life. Caleb was terrified.
Sometimes I wonder what memories my children will have of growing up here...

Last beach trip of the summer...

New to us beach... last term we went to the same beach the entire 3 years we were here. Since January we've been to FOUR different beaches... so that either means we're finally getting comfortable enough with life here that we're ready to branch out or... I'm not sure what it means. :) 

It was cool and overcast, but still a really fun day with two other families. 

The boat ride is a favorite... 

Smaller beach, but in a cove with no waves and spectacular snorkeling. I think we saw the whole cast of "Finding Nemo" in the reef.

Caleb's pool snorkeling practice is paying off.... he spent most of the time snorkeling in the shallow part, but Brant did take him to the edge of the reef for a bit.

No pics, but Elijah "graduated" to snorkeling without a life jacket. He had a flotation device he held on to most of the time, but he was able to dive under to see better and even went down to the ocean floor to pick up a brilliant blue starfish.

Ezra and his rocks...

Before we left Brant stopped at a shop someone had told us about and picked up some fresh fish... six bucks for all of this...

And this was after grilling them up the next night... So. yum.

On vaccines and drainage ditches on the mission field

Thursday we had a South African couple come stay at the guest house. Nice couple, but very broken English, so we settled them in their room and left them alone.

Yesterday the South African couple picked up two single Dutch girls from the airport who were going to visit for a month to learn more about "the mission field." The Dutch girls couldn't speak 5 words of English, so we left them in the care of the South African couple... who couldn't speak Dutch, but who spoke Afrikaans, which is a very loose type of Dutch, so they could mostly communicate. Mostly.

The four of them went out to dinner last night and the sweet Dutch girl, who was so excited about getting to ride a motorcycle, stepped backwards to take a picture of the bike and promptly fell into a drainage ditch.

Ah, the drainage ditches here... how to describe them? They are narrow, 3 feet deep, cement... and the catch-all for all things nasty. No trash can? Throw it in the drainage ditch. No bathroom nearby? Use the drainage ditch. Building a house and can't afford a septic system? Plumb the dirty water into the drainage ditch.

So on top of smelling revolting and ruining her pants, the poor girl suffered a nasty cut in her hand. Small, but very deep and bleeding profusely. They brought her back to the guest house whereupon the circus of trying to translate tropical wound care from English to Afrikaans to Dutch began.

I brought out the hydrogen peroxide, iodine, anti-bacteria gel, band-aids.... how do you translate all that? I ended up opening up the band-aid to actually show what it was and Brant tried in vain to explain that hydrogen peroxide would "burn" but not actually burn off your skin.... I am still not sure that they knew what the iodine was... but she accidentally poured it on her pants... which meant two pairs of pants ruined in one evening ....And that's life on the mission field.

In the course of the "conversation" it came up that the girl had never had a tetanus shot. Out come the medical books to determine how long we had to track down a tetanus shot before her jaw started locking up. Do you know what the Afrikaans word for Tetanus is? Something like calamari. I never did learn what the Dutch word was.

Tetanus is a very real and present danger here. We had a national friend die a very painful, brutal death about 6 months ago from Tetanus. Left behind a wife and 3 young kids. Opting out of vaccines in nice clean, healthy countries like America or Holland is one thing, but here the diseases they prevent are very real threats and you opt out at great risk.

So at ten o'clock last night when we were feeling we were beating our heads against a wall trying to communicate, we called our good friend here in town who is Dutch, but who speaks excellent English. We explained the whole situation to him, who in turn spent half an hour on the phone with the Dutch girls chewing them out for never having gotten a Tetanus vaccine before they got on the plane. I think "my friend died a painful death from Tetanus and I watched him suffer" came into the conversation as their eyes got really wide.

Then we had a long discussion about penicillin class drugs vs. tetracycline class drugs, which with a Dutch accent "cillin" and "cycline" sound almost the same. In case you're not up on your tropical wound care... you can take high doses of amoxicillin and hope for the best if you cannot get a Tetanus vaccine in time... not a fool proof treatment, but better than nothing. 

So at midnight last night Brant and I fell into bed totally exhausted. Half laughing because of the hilarity of the communication blunders of the evening. Half crying because of the seriousness of the situation and the fear and pain the girl was going through. 

Welcome to the mission field. Don't ever come without your vaccines. Or extra pants.

Things making me smile this morning

- Hanging clean laundry on the line outside in a cool morning. Very peaceful. Reminds how beautiful it is and makes me feel like a super productive pioneer woman.

- New silverware divider in my drawer. Have been searching for one for YEARS and yesterday found one (ONE!) on a random end cap at the big new store in the big town two hours from here. Every time I open my drawer I am surprised by how neat and orderly it looks.

- Freshly ground cinnamon and other spices sent in a package from a friend whose parents own a spice farm on a nearby island. Heavenly.

- Caleb's new toothless smile. Just as his first adult tooth grew in and closed the little gap in his mouth, his second tooth fell out. So cute.

- Signs at the mall yesterday for a movie theater being built! Civilization is slowly creeping into our corner of the world. Really fun to be think about being about to go to a movie someday.

- The boys' constant scheming this morning to trick and surprise me and Brant. Have found someone around every corner or doorway ready to jump and yell "Boo!" I overheard the latest plan being hatched to "put a trip line in the bathroom so when Daddy goes in to go on the potty he will fall and his head will land in the potty."

The secret to parenting...

So, Brant and I felt like we have stumbled upon THE secret of all secrets... I think we could retire rich off this one... the trick to getting the boys to sleep at night without a fuss or a spanking or an endless parade of drinks and potty breaks.... 

Flashlights.

I kid you not. We modified the idea from a friend. For 15 minutes each night the boys are allowed to play with flashlights, read, talk, whatever they want to do (staying on their beds.) When the timer goes off, if the flashlights don't go off and the talking doesn't completely stop, then they lose their flashlight time for the next night. 

It works! They LOVE it. I hear them tell their friends "We get to play with flashlights when we're supposed to be sleeping." They are totally quiet as soon as the timer beeps and only once or maybe twice have we had to suspend their flashlight time the next night. 

We've taken the same concept over to the tents they've been building all summer... they are allowed to build any type of contraption they want to sleep in (we do check to make sure it's decently safe) as long as they are totally quiet and go to sleep when the flashlight timer goes off. The night we had all 5 boys in one tent, we gave them 20 minutes of flashlight time.... then dead silence. Easiest slumber party we will probably preside over. :)  

Summer dreams

Our summer hasn't gone according to planned. See my nice little plan I made on June 8, exactly one day after we packed up the home schooling books and celebrated the end of an excruciating school year with pizza and ice cream?

You can't hear the music playing in the background and the sounds of happy children laughing as they play peacefully on the floor while I read a book and bake cookies and fold laundry all at the same time.... that's kinda what I was hoping for this summer.

Enter reality.... A really full guest house with guests sleeping on the floor and calling at all hours of the day and night with needs. A cook who quit. A sick kid who won't get better. Teammates who left on furlough. June was a TAD stressful. I'm not quite sure that I saw my children the entire month (other than shuttling Elijah back and forth to get blood work done.)

I did manage to find some apples and have a friend help me make a pie crust and put together a pie for Father's Day. But that weekend happened to fall on "I'm on kitchen strike because I've been cooking for two weeks for 30 people and we're getting take-out all weekend long" so we ate pie and fried chicken Brant picked up on the side of the road for $5. Happy Father's Day!

But July has been amazingly wonderful.... all the guests left the guest house. I think we're going to start running the guest house with no guests in it. Way easier. :) The boys have de-stressed after having our yard overrun with children for a month. They've built tents.... they actually slept in this one....

...and in this one. This was their first sleepover - we had our teammate's boys over for a "camp-out" in our living room. Was SO much fun for the boys - they were bouncing off the walls.

We've had beach trips with friends...

Pool time... Caleb is learning to swim! He is SO proud of himself. He calls it "floating" because he can get around in the pool without touching the bottom. He's also learning to snorkel, which happens at the pool first. At last week's beach trip he was going to try to snorkel on the reef, but it didn't work out.

Ezra... with his flippers and sunglasses and floaties and hat. He is cool and he knows it. 

We have been doing a little summer reading contest I picked up online. The kids write the titles of the books they've read on ice cream scoops and when they get to ten scoops they get to go pick out an ice cream at the store. 

And yes, I let them pick out whatever ice cream they wanted, and no, I don't normally let them do that. Of course they picked out the biggest chocolate-est things they could find and were totally sick afterwards. Elijah finished his second round of scoops this week and settled for a "mini" chocolate ice cream. Smart man. :) 

We had our annual 4th party, which was so much fun. Our teammates back in the States sent us decorations and we pulled out the ice cream maker and cooked burgers. We had six other families come up to the (empty!) guest house and had the yard and playground to ourselves. It was a great party - one where everyone leaves way later than they intended to and kids run around and play in the dark and adults talk for hours. As they were leaving, a friend gave me a hug and said "It really felt like the 4th." I love it. Holidays are hard here; make us miss home a ton. Independence Day is one of the harder ones... living over here with such abject poverty and hopelessness we realize how incredibly privileged we are to be born Americans. So it's a time to be patriotic, but also a time of thankfulness to God that our kids can get the medicines they need and eat 3 square meals a day just because they were born into such a blessed country. 

Tomorrow's Thursday. Craft Day. Thankful for these summer days.