summers are for...

ice cream

birthday parties

surprise night swims with daddy

train rides

exploring

and playing with monkeys....

apparently this summer was not for blogging! think we are finally back in a temporary routine. hoping to be better with keeping this up... as the monkeys are changing by the minute! hope your summer was as sweet as ours.

pig tails

i know. i know. i am entirely too excited about doing hair! addy was way more interested in her mangoes:).

here we are again

kev and i were musing the other night over how much we love sleeping in the living room...or so it seems. we laughed about how when we first got married we lived in a studio and, hence, slept in the living room. right before we had w, we moved to a one bedroom and when he was about 8 months and we were desperate for a good night's sleep, we were blessed with a futon and moved to the living room. when we moved into this place, it felt like a castle to us...900 square feet and 2 bedrooms! our little princess is 10+ months now and it has been at least that long since we have slept through the night... so a couple weeks ago she had her 1st cry-it-out and we (at least temporarily) moved out...or should i say back?!

but it is awesome. really, it is. i have slept 8 hours straight at least twice and it did something crazy to her napping too. she actually naps! we are all feeling more refreshed around here.

quote of the week

the other night w was brushing his teeth and kev was looking for the water bottle we use to help w rinse and spit. as kev was wandering around the house looking for it w yells "it's in here dad...on the counter!" kev returns to the bathroom and i hear w say; "if it was a snake, it would have bit ya!"

the day i turned 31...

kev was violently ill with some kind of food-borne bug. so we postponed celebrating until the day after, which realistically was my birhtday anyway with the time difference and all.

there is a new mall here that we refer to as "little america." it is well equipped with a subway, h&m department store, air-conditioning, real toilets, and (most importantly) starbucks. kevin's gift to me was a day (well 3 1/2 hours) there. all by myself.

as you can see i was ridiculously excited:)

quiet reading for an hour with a frappuccino. dreamy. if you have little's, you've got to read this book by the way. loving it.

mom and dad gave me some birthday money and kev insisted i take a bit extra to get something new for myself, so i did something i haven't really done here... i tried on clothes... and i bought a couple new things. and it felt great.

but after 3 hours i really missed these guys. seriously they are the best birthday gift a girl could get. God has been so merciful and GOOD to me. and really... it just keeps getting better and better -this journey with Him. i have a feeling year 32 is gonna be the best yet!

we had our usual birthday meal at our favorite western joint - bacon burger for kev, nachos for me, hot dog for W, and mangoes and banana for this little peanut.

and, of course, a milkshake to top it off:).

rain, spicy fish, and beautiful girls

so we spent last weekend with one of our dearest friends here. he wanted to take us on a short trip to a town a couple hours from here and also introduce us to his new and very sweet girlfriend.

every city, town, and village is famous for something in this country and this place was no exception. our friend was quick to inform us that this place was famous for rain, spicy fish, and beautiful women. awesome! the trip turned out to be a delight, contrary to my lack of enthusiasm. it was beautiful, w had lots of fun being outside, the fish was really quite yummy, and we had a very meaningful time with our friends.

here are some pics:

a t-shirt says it all

so the weather has warmed up here and everyone has shed their layers of winter garb. the constant scolding over the kids not wearing enough clothes has all but ceased and spring is in the air. one of my favorite forms of entertainment here is the amazing array of t-shirts with really really bad english on them. it pains me to think of these people seeing them in a shop, buying them, and shamelessly wearing them all over town having virtually no idea what they say! here are some of my favs:

"no paint; no gains"
"forever love. never ending lisps"
and last but not least;
"she is my girlfriend" (with an arrow pointing to the right which, in a city of millions of people, there is always someone on your right -leaving all kinds of interesting matches for the guy or girl wearing the shirt.)