lately in images

Our lives lately .... in images

Can't live without them ... 

Happy 7th Birthday girls!!!

This group of people knocked our socks off by blessing each orphanage child with their first birthday party (supplies) and gifts. Thank you for partnering with us in such an endeavor!

Love these two!

Car throw up is the worst

Just a typical Sunday... we haven't seen one in months but that's not the point. 

We were just leaving a friend's house after a nice dinner. We do the whole circle of hugs and load up in the car. Charles makes mention of how he's felt nauseated off and on through the series of the afternoon's events. I call his bluff as he just consumed a hamburger and weighty bowl of carmelitas and ice cream. Not two seconds later Ava starts up with "my tummy hurts." This has become routine in her little life for about eight months now. We pray. She starts crying. She gives a one millisecond warning before a river of odds and ends along with an abundance of fluids projects from her mouth onto her white coat and drips down to her toes. She looks at me shocked. It seemed like the vomiting lasted an eternity but i'm sure it was less than a minute. Lilly looks at me like 'that prayer didn't work,' mom. And then proceeds to say "Ava, you smell terrible." Car throw up is the worst. 

We went to Plan B, actually as my friend said, when you change plans because of a child vomiting, it's more like Plan F. Or Plan Z. Alternatives are never crystal clear when you don't have a house on this entire continent and the friends hosting you have three little people who could be contaminated, one on her birthday. So we pull into a hotel. Everyone is still in slow motion. Ava is screaming to get it off and Charles' nausea had seemingly returned by the smell of the car's odor. We were probably the only people riding around last night in thirty-something degree weather with the windows down. I prayed for favor in this hotel as we used to have a good friend working there but had since changed jobs. Charles walks in and I could tell by his expression she was across the counter. His side of the hug was hesitant and his smile uneasy as he was about to tell her that we were wanting a room with a vomiting toddler. She loves Ava so that was going for us. She gave us a room at half price and I was seeing God's grace in a messy situation. So for the tricky part. Can you really just unbuckle a car seat and carry in a three year old dripping in vomit up to the room? We decided to try to get as much of it off as we could in the grassy area behind the hotel first. Lilly continued to make unnecessary faces as she held her nose. Charles gave it oh about 2 seconds of trying to clean off the car seat until he walked it right across the parking lot and chunked it in the dumpster and calmly said, "stop and buy one on your way back here, that wasn't worth keeping." I think we were unexpectedly relieved that the car seat was out of the equation at this point. Ava, on the other hand, couldn't be tossed in the dumpster so we stripped her down to nothing in the hotel parking lot and I took the soiled clothes and Lilly as she entered the hotel just the way she was born but shivering. It was wild. I found myself being so less disturbed by the whole thing since she has been having such episodes for a good part of 2014. I do say to myself over and over "we've got to get her better" and yet find myself completely helpless in doing so. 

Our gracious friends allowed Lilly to crawl in bed and handed me a bucket for Ava's clothes and eventually I got back to a smiling toddler at the hotel who was in altogether different spirits. Clean and still half naked and jumping on a hotel bed. Charles on the other hand was not 100%. Oh well. Here's to the travel season and Take 2 from last January's vomiting saga. 

That being said, our travels have been great and rekindling relationships even better. Our hearts have been filled with each old friend we've seen. Sitting at the table talking life to life. The good, the bad, the almost can't survive has been immeasurably refreshing for us. We've celebrated new babies, fresh starts, school changes, marriage revelations and so on with some of our closest people. We worshipped on Sunday morning in Spanish with some dear friends and were blessed by a group of givers who went above and beyond. Charles and I also processed with friends the transition of re-entry and the painful aspects that challenge all of us who have moved from one country to another and back. Like I've said, the time is the biggest sacrifice. Not sitting across from friends or throwing our hands up in worship with others, or holding the babies of others or running through the dark mornings is what we miss. It's a sacrifice of time. I said to one friend across the table, "It's lonely there." She responded, "Hannah, it's lonely here." It is. This stage is a lonely one for so many. It's years of investing in children and putting our own social lives, wants, and needs aside regularly. I laugh as I think we have gone to one of the hardest places in the world during one of the hardest stages, added homeschooling and the challenges catch me by surprise. God has a way of humbling us. 

It's like the college students who wish to bottle up the sleep they get in the summer and draw from it during the other nine months to stay rested all year. I want to bottle up the experiences in the States (besides the throw up ones) and draw from them for the months in Haiti when community is limited to weekly strangers and a few consistent staffers. Like one of our friends said, relationships are based on past experiences and here we have those and in Haiti we are still building on those experiences. 

Today we celebrate Abby's birthday and the friendship that exists between seven year olds. We eat two identical cakes that have become tradition for them. The mama friends celebrate that we have daughter friends. They blow out candles and on the other side the faces grow older and more mature. Five little girls who have run around the house, spread out on the beach and tell secrets until their eyelids make them give in to sleep.

Tomorrow will be more goodbyes and tears and the hard that's the good. The filling up comes at a price. It's not in the showing up, it's in the leaving. We are always coming and going. And we're always choosing to live in the grateful. We are thankful for friends and family we love, times around the table with them, more experiences that build the relationships and new carseats (because car throw up is the worst).

Chilly Sand Angels

Our own New Year's Eve party!

Charles and his grandmother Mimi!!!

This weekend was the first time we have unpacked in a month. I actually arrived at the condo and put clothes in drawers and put things "away." Then we sat down for dinner as a family of four. Another first in a month. I love sitting at the table with the girls and hearing their highs, lows and odd comments like which end of asparagus do we eat. I love cooking again. Arugula salad and roasted veggies. Mid-morning omelets, afternoon brownies with decaf. We have kept the TV off and played games and read books. We linger in bed four abreast reading books and "doing schoolwork." We walk on the beach every day with coats on and long pants. The girls are just itching to spread out in the sand and dig to China. But it's too chilly. This is the first beach trip we've made to our beloved Port A condo that is chilly. It's a winter beach vacation which seems to translate into mornings inside playing and afternoons outside for sunshine and at least a peak at the waves and sandpipers. We take hot chocolate on our walks and stay a few feet from the water so we don't have cold feet. The girls are in their nice coats. What mama buys white coats for her little girls who are prone to drip, spill, make a sand angel on the beach? But I gave up on the "don't get it on your coat" and surrendered to Clorox. He's asked me to hold his mug while he spins the girls. Coats and all. Their spinning around and around until they stumble to stand on the sandy shores. Their giggle is contagious and the few heads turn to see who is having so much fun on a January day on the beach. Aves can't walk straight yet and she's asking to do it again. "Do it again, Papi" ... Seaweed pollutes the beach this time of year and people are sparse but it's familiar. The others are glove-handed with leashes in hand and dogs out for some fresh air. It's amazing how familiar places bring comfort in ways they never did before moving to a foreign country. It's like comfort food on a cold day. Satisfying down to the soul.

I love hearing Lilly read. I remember this morning as we share the covers. The most challenging resolution for 2014 was reading with Lilly for an hour. 60 minutes! Daily tasks are hard when they aren't necessity. It's no problem to eat daily or breathe but reading with a six year old for an hour every day is no small feat. So it's on the list again for 2015. I do research after they are in bed. More resolutions ... more books to read, homeschooling ideas, encouragements, etc. So many ways to improve. I put the book down on the bedside table last night that gives way to the sin none of us have. Envy. A dear friend hands me a stack of books and they all look worthy of reading. I ask why she has so many of these books .. "you have to sharpen the sword ... always sharpen the sword." More books to read and more sharpening for 2015. I try out a new idea. A homeschooling mom I recommend says make school about discovery and not so much about the six-letter word s.c.h.o.o.l. So when we walk back in from the beach we spot a number of black caterpillars. I recommend we look them up on the web and learn more about them. I find that I'm shocked at how interested they are and what the web has to offer on the Wooly Bear Caterpillars of Texas. I realize the web could really work in my favor and I miss it daily in the realm of homeschooling in Haiti. But I remember we have what we need. I opened the Word again January first with a new plan to read and a new hope for learning. For discovery.

We lay out the Uno cards and Ava is playing her cards with her own rules. We're around the table laughing. So good for the soul. Lilly's head cocks back as she laughs at her own mistake. Downtime in a season of fast-paced vacation. Leave the city and land at the beach and the car comes to a halt because it's hard to be fast-paced in a slow space.

The farmer and I process out loud. Next steps. Outlines. Feelings. Hopes for the future. Hesitations. He works at the table while the girls are outside working the seesaw.  We soak up the time together in between. Lots to say and conversations continue over days as one thought provokes another. Our prayer times are uninterrupted and relaxed. Girls between us patiently waiting bowls of cereal.

They are not the only ones waiting ... we're up tonight waiting on best friends to join us at the beach. Tomorrow morning won't be four of us reading in bed but a joyful chaos of girls giggling who are in the same room and not on Skype. It will be a gift in itself.

Friends have been one of the greatest joys for us this break. Tomorrow I'll be catching up with one who knows me well and loves me all the same. One who drives the distance to keep the friendship going and doesn't let anything stop her. We've agreed to be best friends despite the roller coaster of life and an ever evolving phone number.

The familiarity started when we saw the sign that said "Welcome to Texas" last Thursday. We celebrated New Year's Eve by practically drinking the creamy jalapeno dip at Chuy's and watching Mississippi State get stomped in Miami. I think we made it to 9pm before all four of us were snoring. Our dear friend Peggy spoiled us with gluten free desserts and a comfortable spot to watch the game. Seeing her is like seeing family and the amount of wisdom I gain just by being in her presence is indescribable. She mind as well have had a sign on her door that said "Welcome Home" because being back in Waco feels like home.