and a two year old!

Gideon's birthday was a little more low key:)  The Teall's came over for cake and he got to open presents.   

 It took him a while to blow out the candle, but he finally got it:)

 He was very meticulous about opening his gift and put each scrap of paper on the table in front of him as he unwrapped it.

 It's Shaun the Sheep!  (We got a couple of Shaun the Sheep DVDs here and he has fallen in love with them and asks to watch constantly)

Raquel gave him a toy rhinoceros that she wrapped herself.

He will now say he's two if you ask how old he is, but will only put up one finger:)  I can't believe he's two already.  He was just the baby!
Happy Birthday Gideon!

We have a six year old!

We had a fun day celebrating Raquel's birthday

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and she got to open up one present- a bag of marbles (hours of entertainment for fifty cents:)

 We invited 5 friends (3 fellow mks and 2 girls from our church) over for supper and cake.  The day before I told one of the neighbor girls who Raquel really likes that she could come over at 6 with her brother to eat cake.

 They apparently spread the word, and we had around 25 extra kids show up.  We just cut the pieces small and there was plenty for everyone:) They all sang to her and then played with balloons for about half an hour.

 After the huge group left, she got to open fun presents.

 Then came the unveiling of the dollhouse!  Dylan and I spent Sunday and a sleepless Monday night building, painting and making furniture, but it was worth it:)  She was very happy with it, and Gideon likes to use the roof as a road for his cars.

Happy Birthday Raquel!  We love you and are so glad we get to watch you grow into such a big girl!

Just dropping by to say 'hi'.  We're still here.  Trying to get internet at our house.  Will hopefully be posting more soon!

How did you get to church on Easter?

Our house- before

It might be a while until I post 'after' pictures, but progress IS being made now.

Front- the yard is full of garbage and glass and we will be painting over the graffiti:)

Our kitchen- yep that's it for now. We bought a sink yesterday and hopefully within the next few days there will be pipes bringing water into the house.

Bathroom- this has all been knocked out now and soon will have a toilet that you can sit on and an area for a shower.

Our cute kids that will live with us in the house once those things are fixed:)

In His time...

We are kind of antsy right now. Since arriving in our island ten days ago we have been living in a guest house. We have a house that we will be moving into but it doesn't have running water or a place to plug in things like say a refrigerator:) Many things have contributed to not much getting done to fix these issues in the last week. We've been very discouraged at times, but are reminded that God makes all things beautiful in His time. It's good rest on that FACT!

Here are a few pictures of one of the things that hindered us from working on the house this week- obtaining a driver's license. We were told that all we would have to do was go to the police station, get our picture taken, pay and receive our licenses - "ten minutes tops". So, at 9:00 on Monday morning Dylan and I with our three kids, Kendra and Logan with their two kids and our friend Billy all got into the car for our quick trip to the police station. Kendra and I went in first with Billy while Dylan and Logan waited in the car with the kids. It was then that we learned the rules had recently changed and we now needed to do a few more things. So began our morning of filling out an application, driving down the road to a clinic to get a letter of health, taking a written test for both motorbike and car, refilling out the test that we had done incorrectly and then having to do a practical test to top it all off! We were supposed to zig zag in between the line of cones without putting our feet down and then do figure eights. For the car I just had to drive in between two lines of cones and then reverse down the same line. Fortunately they passed us and we finally got our picture taken after 3 hours of being there. The poor guys in the car with all the kids then went in after us and we took the kids back to take naps. Dylan (who had a sinus infection and fever) and Logan finally got back at around 2 in the afternoon.

My zigging and zagging left a little to be desired.

The man standing in the picture told Kendra to 'use her hips' as he moved his hips back and forth.

We were discussing what mirrors are used for in this picture

The whole experience was pretty funny and definitely different from the DMV in the States:)

With all our paperwork done, we headed to the beach!