I found some pictures from the last couple months...

Raquel "played" pee-wee soccer on Saturdays in May and June

She looked cute, but we soon realized that soccer isn't her passion

The weather didn't help matters. It started out cold and windy and never got much better. One day it was pouring rain and 50 degrees so I didn't have her play. The next week was nicer so I made her go. In the middle of the game she heard a plane overhead, stopped and yelled over to me "MOM, that was thunder, we need to go home because it's going to RAIN!"

Gideon was dedicated in June. He stayed still for about 2 seconds

Mom always orders a lamb cake with this verse for the dedications. It's Isaiah 40:41 He gently leads those that have young. When my dad went to pick it up, he saw they had switched the word "leads" with "leaves". Oops

playing piano with Jenna

Visiting with Joel, Christina and cousin Emily

Dylan's 29th Birthday

1+8 = 9 :)

Berry picking

Raquel and I went to the first day of strawberry picking at Basse's farm today. She did a great job of picking only the reddest berries and letting me know when mine did not meet her standards:)

Birthdays!

On May 1st Raquel turned 5 years old and on May 3rd, Gideon turned 1.

We're Baaack!

We had a great visit in South Africa, and are enjoying being back in the States.

I will now be updating this site more frequently

See ya soon:)

Sick House

In Asia-Pacific language the word "hospital" is "Rumah Sakit" which literally means 'sick house'.

Well, we were able to experience the sick house first hand today. Today is a public holiday due to Chinese New Year, so we were taking the opportunity to sleep in and Gideon was actually cooperating with this. At 8:00 am he was still sleeping and Raquel was in our office watching a movie while sitting in the office chair. We were awoken by a crashing noise and screaming from Raquel. She had pushed her feet against the desk to roll the chair back, but a wheel got caught on a play mat and the chair flipped over. She was holding her arm and wouldn't stop crying. When we looked at it, it was already bruising and starting to swell. After talking to a friend who is a nurse and consulting with a family here with 6 kids (5 of them boys:) we decided to take her in for an X-ray. We went to the public hospital in town. Ken and BJ came with us (some of the staff at the hospital know them by name due to their frequent trips there:) to show us the ropes. They did an X-ray and everything was fine, Praise the Lord! Raquel did a great job and is feeling better now. She has a couple bruises and her arm is a little tender, but we're so thankful it wasn't fractured.


We only went to this hospital for an X-ray. If she had required treatment we would not have her treated there, but would have gone to a better hospital in a city about an hour away. I took the picture below on the way to get the X-ray. These disposable (but apparently reusable) surgical gloves were were hanging in the sun to dry.



Since we started out in triage we saw a couple people come in to be treated. It was very sobering to see the suffering of these people who don't have the resources to seek better medical care. While our visit ended well, my heart was heavy for those we left behind.

Raquel

My mom sent Raquel a science kit for Christmas and she's been having fun doing different experiments and learning about making different colors from red, blue and yellow.

She has a three week break from her school, so we've been spending lots of quality time together:)

Today we were running errands in town and she said "Mommy, when we are sweating, that's God. I asked if she meant that God made our bodies to sweat and she said, "Yes, our sweat comes out and that's God on us."

We went to a sewing store to buy some ribbon and she saw little packets of sequins and glitter and wanted to buy them all. I told her that we could think of a project to do and then come back another day and pick out a few things. As we were driving she was trying to decide what she wanted to make. We were stopped at a stop light and she pointed to a sign and said "that's what I want to make" it was a poster with a picture of a muslim lady who was running for office and Raquel wanted to make a head covering (a lot of times they're pretty fancy and sparkly:)

We were at another store and Raquel saw a type of candy she had never seen before. She wanted to buy it, but I said no and offered her some chocolate candy (like M&M's) that we already had. She sighed, took it and said, "I guess I'll just get diaweewa" (I had told her the other day that eating too much chocolate will make you sick:)

Life with her is always entertaining:)