family trip

Ah, home sweet home. For a few days, at least. This past week we headed out as a family for some countryside-time. Minus some illnesses, it was a great trip overall! The girls traveled well and it was a very worthwhile time. In fact, Grace didn't want to come home today. I'd say that's very good news seeing as how we might be moving to the countryside next year. But getting ready to leave for this trip was not without some drama. Late last week, Grace was playing with a friend and hurt her foot coming down some stairs. I really didn't think anything of it until she still wouldn't walk on it the next day. So, since we were getting ready to travel and needed to know if her foot was possibly fractured, Grace got to have her first local hospital experience. Hospital visits here are worthy of an entire blog post in itself, so I won't go into detail here. We were just glad to be able to get an x-ray and find out it wasn't broken. Then the day before we left, Kevin's passport met an untimely demise. Kevin normally doesn't put his passport in his pants pockets, but I guess it only takes once. While my dear helper was doing laundry she didn't notice Kevin's pants pockets were holding said passport, and well, it was laundered. I wouldn't recommend putting your passport in the laundry because it will be completely void, but if you do, it comes out looking really funny. Thankfully this week we are already scheduled to head to a city with a US consulate, but getting a new visa might be tricky. Ugh. Ok, now for some pictures. This week we discovered Grace totally digs villages. I mean, what's not to love with water buffalo, dogs, pigs, and chickens roaming around? She didn't get near the water buffalo (said it might "eat her") but she did love feeding the chickens. And her absolute favorite new person this week was a little boy we'll be seeing lots of in the future. He is such a sweetheart! I was excited to see a new supermarket in town; it's at least 10 times better than the previous one. It was kind of a mini version of Wal-Mart that we have in our big city. And they even had the infamous fish tanks to pick out your favorite fresh fish. (Don't tell anyone but sometimes we let Grace go fishing just for funsies.)

One little sucker jumped out of the tanks and was flopping everywhere. No worries, a worker came to scoop him up and put him back for sale.

This child never ceases to amaze me with what she will and won't eat. She often turns her nose up at "typical" food but then was all over these really chewy and hard pumpkin seed appetizers at dinner one night.

Here's what often happens with Trinity when we eat out. Once I let one restaurant worker hold her, they all come over and take turns. Everyone in this picture held her at least once!

We also had a fun little bbq one night with friends at the park. Who doesn't love meat on a stick? And who knew you could even fit tiny green vegetables on a stick?

Trinity had some more friends to love on her at the bbq.

Chicken feet on a stick anyone?

Here's Kevin showing his skills on the bamboo dance. He's got skills, I tell you.

We got back today and head out on Tuesday for a short vacation trip we are completely excited about. Some dear friends of ours just got their baby after literally years of waiting for their adoption referral! We're so excited to meet him! Now we just hope Kevin can get on that plane even with a washed-passport. We'll find out on Tuesday!