Christmas in Haiti

"Joyeux Noel" from the TR crew!!! ;-)

Craft activities this afternoon...

This is for those of you who are longing for the warmth and sunshine!!! :-)

Baking Day!

We did some special baking for Christmas, and the children were thrilled to help! :)

iPod to the rescue "Now where was that recipe I saw?" 

Sunset over the Caribbean Sea

Breakfast time!

just a random shot of breakfast time at our house! :-) Happy Friday!

S'mores!

For Michael's birthday we made a fire and roasted marshmallows for s'mores! Dads and Cleons were here and brought marshmallows down from the States.

Sticky faces and fingers, smelling of smoke - the children loved it!!!

They're begging to do it again!!!! :-)

Thanksgiving Day Pictures

Finally here are some pictures from Thanksgiving Day... We enjoyed spending the day with the crew from Allegre. A late morning brunch started the day off, and then we had our traditional turkey dinner in the evening. It was a fun day...

The children enjoyed a treasure hunt...

...and games... (poor Alex suffered a bike accident and injured his nose!)

Enjoying the rewards of the treasure hunt...

And a pinata that a family from the States sent down...

The children were thrilled! It's kind of getting to be a yearly tradition to do a pinata... and when it looks like the pinata will give out before everyone gets a fair chance to swing at it, well... it's duct tape to the rescue!!! :-)

There was singing in the unfinished addition 

where the acoustics are really good...

 ...lots of interesting conversation...

And what day would be complete without a few stories and laughs from "The Fishwrapper"???(They are the MOST READ books around here when we have guests!!! I like to tease that I'm going to start charging rent on 'em!!! :-) 

And the perfect ending to a wonderful day...

Just love these sunsets around here!!!

Back again!

3 weeks... does that break a record for me? I'm sorry, I know how disappointing it is to check a blog when the author never posts!!!

It's been a very busy 3 weeks for us... I was in the States for 10 days, and came back just a couple days before Thanksgiving. So that meant a dive into Thanksgiving preparations as soon as I got back... I also came back from the States with a partially torn ligament in my knee, so I'm getting a taste of managing my household on crutches or from the recliner - not my idea of fun... especially when the generator battery goes dead, and you have to get it going again!

I wanted to post pictures from Thanksgiving Day, but Blogger was giving fits about it, so I'll have to try again later...

Some comments overheard from Weston...

In talking to Loretta about her impending visit to the States he wondered, "You're going to come back?? And when you come back I'm going to do school with you?" (He hears the older siblings talking about school when Lor comes back.)

One day when he was playing nearby, he was talking half to himself and half to me. "God made Weston for Mommy... and I'll give you starbursts!" (He really has this thing about wanting to give special things to the people he loves!!! :-)

Later...

Finally!

 So the rain is over, but the wall still needs to be built, and the sand that needs to be sifted for concrete is very wet. We had a beautiful weekend of sunshine, and were ready to begin bright and early Monday morning - with 2 1/2 days left to do the project that was the main purpose of their trip! Of course that day my hired man had to take off for a funeral, and we had to sift all our own sand... Here's the proof ;-) - Cleon & Lori made a really good team! The next day when Lori was shoveling sand for Maxo (my hired man) she said she'd never try that again, because he never stopped for a break! I told her, he couldn't stop as long as she kept on shoveling!!! He was amazed at this "blan"!!! :-)

 Dad cutting the doorway in from the other side (to minimize the dust in the house). I wish I had a picture of him when he was finished... Even his eyebrows were coated white from the dust!!!

 My boys enjoyed helping wherever they could...

 Stress management at its best??? (Breaking the doorway out with a sledge hammer)

 The finished wall with the doorway cut in...

 ("Is Mommy taking a picture of us????")

 The Haitian bosses came up on Thursday and in 2 days had the wall plastered. 

 Saturday night we put hours of "elbow grease" into the tile floors to get all the concrete off before it got any harder!!!

Somehow, having this wall up and the door cut in make the addition project seem so much closer to being finished! And it makes the other rooms feel more connected to the rest of the house! We'll have to let the concrete cure for a while before we try to paint, or the paint will just run off the walls...

Back online!

    You all were wondering what happened to us, weren't you?

     Last week we got sideswiped by Hurricane Sandy, and had a lot more rain and wind damage from Sandy than we did in the direct hit from Isaac. Sandy dumped rain, Rain, and MORE RAIN! Being the weather bug that I am, I had been tracking the system coming across the Caribbean, and was especially concerned about it because Dads and my cousin Cleon & wife were planning to fly in around the time it was supposed to hit! Since their flight wasn't cancelled early Tuesday morning, I was really praying that they would be able to make it back here, before we got too much rain (that the road would be impassable). By the time they reached TG we were having wind gusts of 73 mph., but not much rain. They got here around 2 pm, and very shortly after the rain started dumping! By that evening we had 20" of rain, and we still had 2 more days of hard rain and wind. By the end of the storm on Friday my weather station had tracked over 57" of rain. I find it so hard to believe that we got that much rain, but I do know that rain just dumped, and it's nothing for us to get 2 or 3 inches an hour when we have rain like that, so I guess it would all make sense in the end. Believe me, we were sure glad to see the sun FINALLY shine on Saturday!!!  The wind destroyed our bananas and yams crops, and knocked my satellite dish (internet) off course, which is the reason it's been so quiet around here... It's been a very hectic week, and my visitors got to experience quite of bit of "life in Haiti" in such a short time! :)

    

     Hoping to post pictures soon...

{smile}

Don't you just love this picture of Elaine playing "cook"? :-)

They get SO MUCH fun out of the cans and bottles around here. I have to lay claim to anything I want to reuse, or it will be long gone - out in the sandbox - appropriated by my children for some use or another.

Rachel's birthday

Our Rachel is 7, and feeling smug for blowing all her candles out at once! :-)

And just for fun - some pictures of bygone years... I hardly knew where to stop on the old pictures!!! ;-) Maybe I'll have to do some more posts of old pictures.

Rachel and Emily

... Yes, that's Bethany and Jared with her! :-)

Dear Rachel, we are so thankful that God saved your life and brought you into our lives!!! 

Happy Birthday!!!

Rachel's father told us that he felt like God saved her life twice... Her mom had tried to abort her because they felt they couldn't handle another baby... then when Rachel was born, her mom died. - the family was sure that Rachel wouldn't have a chance to live either until they brought her to us. So many times when the children's relatives see them, they are just in awe... I'll hear them say to each other, "Remember how he/she was? We thought they were going to die. Just look at them! Gras a L'evanjil!" (here I interpret the meaning, 'cause it doesn't make any sense in English) - "Look what the love of God does for us!"

This morning...

 Elaine just loves to "read" to Weston. Since he loves to be read to, they both are entertained for hours. She makes up her own stories from the pictures - it's kind of interesting for me to listen to her "stories" too!!!! :-) 

Happy Monday to all!!! 

Busy days...

 We're having busy days around here!!! Dads were here for 10 days, and now my brother & his family are here for 2 weeks. We've been enjoying having them around... Some projects have been accomplished and the cousins just love playing together!!!!

 In training???

 Mowing lawn...

 I think Sierra looks just like her mom! :-)  It's not often that I get to celebrate my nieces and nephews birthdays so it was a special treat to be able to celebrate Sierra's 3rd birthday soon after they came!

 Playing blocks.

Shelling beans...