The merry merry month of May

May 1st found us in the middle of a two and a half day trip to a small town (but the biggest one close to us) 1/2 an hour flight away from our village.  We needed to renew Gideon's passport and a representative from the US embassy made a visit all the way out here to process paperwork for people like us.  It's necessary for both parents to be present so this saved us a lot of time and money. 

Well May 1st happens to be Raquel's birthday.  She got a couple small gifts, one from us and one that a friend had sent in the day before. I can't believe our sweet little baby girl is 8 years old!

We bought some cream puffs from the bakery in town and stuck a candle in one.

On that trip we acquired a goat.  Miss Molly belonged to a friend who had nursed her back to health after being sick but didn't really want her anymore because she was eating the flowers and such.  We had talked about getting a goat for a while and just went for it.  She is very easy to take care of and Raquel loves her and takes good care of her.

On the 3rd it was this little munchkin's birthday.  Love this sweet 4 year old!

Their actual birthday days were pretty low key because we were waiting for the BIG day.  On May 5th my parents flew in to Dem land!  We had been anticipating their arrival for months and it was so exciting to finally have them here and show them all about our life in Dem.

The first night my mom and I decorated cakes for the next day.

and the next day was party time!

We tried out some face paint that had been sitting in a box for a while

 

the rest of the 10 days that my parents were here were filled with fun times

hiking to different places

 

Reading books

 

visiting with the people

playing games...

 

all sorts

 

One night we heard singing from a nearby hut and we went over and sat for a while and listened.  The next day a whole group of people came and told us they were going to sing for us again so there was a little concert in front of our house :)

 

Can you guess what they're doing?   Dylan and Dad are holding boxes on either side of the closet while mom is holding a broom trying to coax a rat out of it's hiding place.  They caught the rat under the box and got it on to the porch, but it ran out too fast for Dylan to kill it with the shovel. 

  

Dad helped Dylan take off some boards so they could be planed and placed back closer together because they have shrunk quite a bit since they were first put up.

 

 Mom and Raquel started a tradition of reading by the river in the afternoons while the boys napped.

 

We had a movie night while they were here too.  Logan has a projector and about once every two weeks or so we show a Planet earth type movie on projected onto a bed sheet outside our house.  

  

Donkey riding :)

 

There are hundreds of other pictures but I'll spare you:) We had a wonderful time. Many many fun memories. We are so thankful that they were able to come and visit our little part of the world. It was sad to see them go, especially for Raquel. My dad left first and my mom stayed out in town with us for about another week. After we said goodbye to her at the airport and got in the car Raquel started sobbing and was just devastated for a few days. She's better now and we're working on being thankful for the time that we had together and being content where we are:)