oh Saturday morning! After a week of blueberry banana spinach smoothies (better than you might think!), I am ready for some biscuits! As exotic as my tastes may run, nothing beats homemade biscuits with lots of jelly (this is rhubarb, a gift from our sweet neighbor), scrambled eggs, and fruit salad. and lots of (strong) coffee. Or sometimes pancakes and bacon. Either way, a good start to the day!
The only thing that beats breakfast is family snuggle time. (My kids aren't the snuggling type. This probably lasted 30 seconds before they were jumping off the bed to the couch and screaming ;-)
Wish I had taken more pictures of VBS. My hands were just kind of busy the whole time! My kids did an awesome job inviting people. We handed out hundreds of invitations, at local parks and neighborhoods. It was hot, but they were troopers. It is so exciting to see them start learning how to live out their faith. One of the spots we visited was a mobile home park. As not a single Caucasian person answered the door, they saw glimpses of many different cultures. We made some new friends (Ethiopian, again!), a single mom and a little boy, and have continued that friendship past VBS.
The last night was lots of fun, with bounce houses, games, and the like. It is mostly melted, but the kids were proud of their face paints: Charlie and Ben are Spiderman, and Hannah was a fairy.
The kids are growing up so much, we can take bike rides now! Well, I push the stroller with Caroline, as I have neither a bike nor a cart thing to pull her. Patrick redid Hannah's old bike and passed it along to Charlie, who is doing great. Hannah got a new one for her birthday, and rides all over the place without training wheels. Its fun to see them grow up. (Although the bike was a struggle for Hannah. Even with training wheels. Other parents, take heart: we kept trying (pleading, threatening, even bribing!) until she got it.)
On Canada Day weekend, up at my moms, we went to a community wide church service. It was really neat, and I finally got to meet my midwife's family. Its a small world. The midwife who helped me with Caroline, in Kansas, actually grew up in the small town in northern Ontario where my mom lives. Her parents moved there when she was young to be missionaries to the First Nations (Indian) communities.
After church, we stopped at a food truck. Kenora has had chip (french fry) trucks for a long time, I think they were the original food trucks, before the craze. (Along with the ice cream trucks of my childhood.) But now they are so sophisticated, they have all kinds of specialty food trucks. There was one just for perogies. (How do you spell that, anyways?)
This has got to be the world's largest piggy bank. Its to raise money for the Lake of the Woods. Canadian currency uses $1 and $2 coins, called "loonies" and "toonies". Or is it twonies? Mom, feel free to comment on that for me. (my cultural lesson of the day ;-) So that is going to be one heavy bear. I had a hard time keeping Caroline in "church", as she just wanted to climb all over it.
dont know if its because, other than Frisco, we have lived in places with limited restaurant options. But I almost always like homemade. (Unfortunately I dont like doing the shopping, cooking, and cleaning up though. Just the eating.) These calzones were really good! It is good practice, to know how to make these things from scratch. Something tells me I shouldnt count on a Pizza Hut always being a phone call away
The interesting city we currently call home hosts an annual International Festival. This, as you can imagine, sounded really exciting to me. Patrick had to work, but the kids and I trekked down there, took our blanket, and stayed all day. (Oh, how life gets easier when you dont have little babies!) It was really neat. The performers included acts from many different countries. The Kenyan acrobats were out favorites, and they were really impressive! Amazing. They shared interesting facts about their culture as they performed, so that was neat for the kids. We went up to talk to them after, and the woman told me to email her, so when we got to Nairobi, we could go visit her family, and they could help us if we needed anything. I know she was very sincere, not just being polite. As hard as I anticipate it being, to move back to Africa, it is small reminders like that, of how generous and hospitable people are, that help me so much.
Since this is a blog about our everyday life, I can talk about potty training, right? UGH, potty training! It is not going well this time around. It fits in with everything else Caroline related, come to think of it. like sitting at the table, etc. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesnt. And I am too distracted/busy to pay much attention to it :-(. Geez Louise, its a good thing I'm not having any more children!
Our pilot and co-pilot taking us to. . .
Kansas!
It was ten years ago this August that I invited myself along on Patrick's roadtrip from Mechanicsville Virginia, to Haviland Kansas, to Longview Texas. (Well, I waited for him to think of it himself, but sometimes a girl's just got to help things along, right? Havent regretted it for a second ;-) I had been in Canada all summer, doing my public health internship on an Indian reservation up there, and Patrick was heading to TX to start school. He was going to stop by to visit his extended family in Kansas. I knew how important they were to him, and I knew how important he was to me, so I figured we all needed to get together. And soon, as i was getting ready to leave for Senegal at the time. Since then, it (and its inhabitants!) has gained a special place in my heart. We had a good visit, with family and at our home church.
it is difficult to get good pictures, especially on my phone, which takes blurry pictures if anybody is moving. (and the kids are always moving.) Sometimes they are moving to put their ice cream bowls on their heads, for example. thats always a good idea, isnt it? she thought so.
Patrick's paternal grandparents still live on the farm, and his maternal grandmother lives on the edge of town. So both places are perfect for the kids to roam! I push them outside whenever I can. Here they were walking to check out the garden, with Grandma Loretta
Hopping in the back of the pickup for a tour of the fields.
I love this picture of Loretta, because it is so good to know somebody else feels that way then they are watching Caroline! That is what I look like every day ;-)
I know cities have their draw, believe me. But sometimes, a small town can be pretty special. We were outside getting ready to walk to the park, and the neighbor volunteered to take the kids on his little train, which is just barrels pulled by a riding lawnmower. But they had so much fun!
Hannah with Grandma Jan.
Special times: Caroline getting a night-night kiss from Nana; Patrick and Charlie churning the ice cream at our friends Kevin and Sarah Melvin's house.
A highlight of the trip for me: our path (sort of) intersected with that of my old friends Kari and Jonathan Masson, my former teammates in Senegal. They, along with their son Alec, still live there. But they are back in the States for the summer, and have family in Iowa. Which is next to Minnesota. So, here we are! Kari keeps up an awesome blog with beautiful pictures of Senegal and the Senegalese people, and stories of expat life in Africa.
In deciding what to get Caroline for her birthday, I tried to think of what Hannah plays with most. Dress-up clothes! Then Caroline put her own spin on it: Cowgirl Minnie Mouse. My kids are very high energy, thats for sure. But the upside to that is that they are rarely ever bored!
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