Long Time, No Post

And soooo much has happened!! Just a quick run down...

December: We made gift bags of food for all of our neighbors that are widows and/or extremely poor. We ended up making 30!! It was a lot of fun to give them out...click the link below to see even more pictures. We celebrated our first Christmas away from family, too...

January: Nothing too exciting, just school... And we found out that we were expecting!!
February: More language school as well as learning at home with a tutor.
March: Graduated from our formal language school... got to see some family in Japan. I want you to note one thing about this picture besides Michael attempting to eat the snake... Erica's not touching the snake at all... :)


April: Celebrated Michael's 31st. Played Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. This kid didn't do very well, but he sure was cute.


May/June: Taught community health lessons in rural villages and had some really amazing experiences. This particular lesson was on how to treat burns and one of the ladies is explaining again what she has just learned. Look how intently everyone is paying attention!



July: I'm 7 months pregnant now and have had MANY requests for a picture, so despite my better judgement, here goes....

We are hoping to return to the States the end of August for the delivery and look forward to connecting with all of you. I hope to be a better blogger once the baby hits the scene! I'll try. :)

A wedding, funeral, and a birthday

Long time, no post! I'll try to make up for it by adding lots of pictures. :) It's been a busy few months for us, continuing to learn language and culture as well as build relationships.
Recently we attended a wedding, a birth, and a funeral... we have been able to see the full circle of life and experience both joy and pain with our friends, as well as all that's in between. Here's a picture of our friend's wedding. The theme was green this time.

This is the funeral for a friend of ours who lost her baby after only 3 days. It was a heartbreaking experience. We were there for the whole thing... delivery, saw the sweet little girl right after she was born, visited every day in the hospital, prayed together... and ultimately sad good-bye together.


This is another friend's baby on the day she was born. We have learned a lot about the local traditions surrounding pregnancy and birth.
What a cutie!


And all the inbetweens... These are some of our neighbors' kids. It is such a joy to see them playing everyday, singing songs, and so full of life. Plus they are just really cute!

So, those are some of the highlights for the past few months. We love living here. With each day it's feeling more and more like "home" and we count it a privilege to be able to live here. We just miss you!!! Wanna come?

Fun Festival

We recently had a festival close to our house. There is a "country club" nearby that opens up it's facilities to the surrounding neighborhoods, including ours, for one day each year. The kids love it because they have playground equipment and a kiddie pool... the adults have a good time, too! These guys are climbing a pole that has been covered with oil to reach presents at the top. Number 6 is on his way up... it ended up taking several hours, multiple tries, and 7 guys to get up to the top. (That poor guy on the bottom!)


Michael and I thought it would be fun to do some face painting, but the kids only wanted it on their hands. It didn't take too long before we had a massive crowd and ended up painting for 2 hours!


The kids were so excited to play on real playground equipment- I don't think this could hold many more! (You should see the pool!)

Neighborhood happenings

We've been here 4 months now already- hard to believe it has been that long. The time is flying by! Language is continuing to go well and we are making lots of friends in our neighborhood. We had a few days off this week in between units at school so we hung out with our neighbors, did crafts with the kids, played badminton, and went to a wedding. Check out our new pics!

Our friends' wedding... and you thought I liked pink. At least I didn't make Michael wear it! :)

Little boys in the 'hood... They loved drawing pictures with their new markers and stamps.

First the girls made hair ties with their new ribbons, then they made pictures with stickers and glitter. They wanted to say a special "thank you" to Emma and Mattie for sending them such fun stuff to play with.

School Holiday

Craft time with some of the neighborhood girls.

These past two weeks have been a school holiday for everyone, including us. We did a lot of hiking, visited some nearby caves, waterfalls, volcanoes, and hot springs. It has been a good time to hang out with our friends and not have homework to do. We also got together with some fellow Americans to celebrate the 4th of July- we had hamburgers and shot fireworks with our neighbors (see the link below for more pics). We had lots of fun, but we are ready for school to start again!!

School Field Trip

Our first school field trip... in a long time!!! Complete with bus ride and bag lunches! We had a great time. We went to the top of a volcanic mountain and saw this really eerie, milky white lake, surrounded by fog.
We would have never thought we would be cold here, but we are actually freezing in this picture! (That's why I'm standing like a nerd). Check out the link below to see more pictures of our day.

Before & After

This is our kitchen table before our package from America.

This is our kitchen after our package from America- look how cheerful! THANK YOU!!!!!