DB, Jeni, EB, and Lorelai

This outfit is incredible. It is bloomers from one dress and a shirt from another outfit . This is the type of outfit the babysitter dresses her in everyday.

I just sent an email update-if you did not get it and would like to, let me know!

I was reminded this week by a passing comment a friend made that my marriage is of utmost importance.  With all of the responsibilities I have right now – language learning, relationship building, cooking, cleaning, chasing a toddler around, teaching my daughter things and helping her develop appropriately, not to mention training her up to be a godly young lady, stay in communication with my friends and family at home, keep up to date on all medical issues for the whole family, exercise, and did I mention I have the added element of living in a foreign country and all of the emotions that come with that – I can be a bit overwhelmed to say the least.  This week I was wisely reminded of my priorities – with my relationship with my husband as number one.

 

In light of that, I have been thinking through ways that I can encourage DB and continue to work at making our marriage strong and keep the romance alive.  Remembering my environment, which does not lend itself to going on dates at all really, I am asking you all for creative and wonderful suggestions for showing love to my husband.  Think outside the box!

 

Notice the last frame – EB’s face looks vaguely familiar - anyone ant to say who she reminds you of in that picture?

Where we live, everyone takes their shoes off at the door.  This is imperative becasue there is so much dirt and mud, that you could never begin to keep your house clean if people walked all oevr the floor with outside shoes on.  The polite thing to do is to turn your guests shoes facing outward before they leave so that they can easily step into them.

So,we have our families’ shoes lined up right inside our front door.  Recently, EB has begun carrying people’s shoes to them – if there are guests, she brings them their shoes no matter what they are doing.  

Now, first of all, she always knows whose shoes belong to who.  It is kind of uncanny.  Second of all, is she telling them she wants them to leave?  And finally, this is a truly disgusting habit that is sort of cute and funny, so I haven’t tried to stop her.  My sister used to like to play with shoes when she was little and she turned out okay – sort of…

I have had several of you mention to me that you made the dutch baby and it didn’t look like the picture.  Well, I confess, my doesn’t either – that was a picture I swiped from the internet.  The consistency is sort of like flan, and the sides are mainly puffy and a little bit in the middle.  My gluten-free friend even made it with rice flour and it was good too.  So, I am encouraging you to try it again sometime with this in mind.  Sorry if the picture led you astray!

I know when you think of us, you don’t think of us “living the high life.”  But I am here to tell you we are truly excited because we have INTERNET IN OUR HOME!!!!  When we have electric, we have internet.  We never thought this would be possible.  But it is here!!!  SO – www.skype.com free download – we can talk and if you have a camera, we can even see each other – or, I should say, you can see cute little EB walking around, which is what you all really want anyway.  

Another part of our “high life” is our vacation in August – we are going to Indonesia!!  We are staying in a house on the beach – and we can’t wait.  Any tips of things to do or see?  

Okay, so you might think of a different definition of the high life – but no longer kidding – my life as a whole has taken a turn for the positive, internet and vacation aside.  I have two sets of neighbors that I am friends with – real friends!  Well, as real of friends as I can have with my language limitations.  (See previous post).  We are in a very cozy home that is slowly slowly becoming organized and pretty.  (It takes longer to get things accomplished here, so things like closets and drawers have to be built, not just purchased, which means we have to find a guy to build them the way we want, argue about the price, and then wait for it to be built.  Just the choosing and bartering will be a day’s task for DB, and his days have been full with other things, like getting us internet, so I am not complaining).  DB is excited about the business aspect of being here, and making friends as well.  We have electricity about 2/3 of the time, and we even have a “swamp cooler” to battle the 125 degree weather.  Life is good – so thanks for all of your thoughts and keep them coming.  We are more than just surviving now – we are actually liking our life here.  It has been a hard road, and I am sure it will continue to be – but when some of your creature comforts are taken care of, the hard part doesn’t bother you so much , you know?

So yesterday I was sitting with the neighbors and one of them was changing her three month old son’s diaper.  She started talking about how it is customary to cut a boys private parts when they are 8 years old.  And she said the word for doctor, which sounds alot like the word for daughter.

Now understand that in the course of a conversation, I only understand a portion of it, and then try to make sense of what I understood.  So I understood them to tell me that they sometimes turn a little boy into a little girl by cutting off his private parts.  I kept saying “i don think I understand what you are saying.”  And they would repeat themselves.  Finally, after they said the same thign about 4 times, I repeated back to them what i was hearing.  They burst out laughing and tried to explain differently, and I finally understood they were talking about circumcision.

Wow – sometimes I realize my language is no where near where I thought it was.