Peru

Our Team - Dave, Bo, Jess, Josh

We have been back from our trip to Peru for two weeks now and are slowly getting back into our daily routine. We had a great trip and met lots of wonderful people down in Tacna, Peru. Here are some pictures and highlights from our trip.

Had an overnight layover in Lima. So first day in Peru we are at the beach!

Just off the plane in Tacna waiting for our ride.

Sunday morning at New Jerusalem church. One of the 3 churches the missionary, Brian, works with.

Assortment of Peruvian dishes to enjoy for lunch. It includes guinea pig, ceviche, stuffed pepper, and I think there was some fried octopus as well.

The arch in the middle of Tacna.

 For our week in Tacna we were able to help with a handful of projects, visit, and get to know many people there. We helped landscape one of the churches, fixed a grandma's roof, moved dirt for the construction of a health center, made all natural cleaners, played soccer, did Zumba, and had the opportunity to be apart of a couple prayer meetings. Through all these things the moments that stick out to me the most were the times I got to talk and get to know the different people there. Not knowing much Spanish it made it a little difficult, but Boaz was always a great conversation starter as well as my picture of Davey, Cassia, and Abigail. Through my kids I was able to make relationships with people that will stay in my heart forever. Kids truly are a blessing that can bring joy in all circumstances and bring people from different cultures together.
 Boaz definitely had a mission and a purpose on our trip. All the women and children loved seeing Boaz and holding him. His smile and love is infectious. They loved his super thin blonde hair and big eyes. I did pick up on a little Spanish and the phrase I heard the most was "Ohh que lindo" which means "Oh what a beautiful baby". Not only did I learn it, but Boaz did too. He got very used to the attention, and in the airport on the way home we were talking with our pastor Josh about how much the ladies loved Bo. As Josh said the phrase "que liendo" Boaz turned his head to Josh the same way he would if someone was calling his name. Boaz blessed the people in Tacna, but he also blessed us and our travel as well. Because we were traveling with an infant we got to go to the beginning of every line; checking in, security check, customs. . .

Boaz riding around Peruvian style with Grandma Julia while the guys fixed her roof.

Boaz with Maria at the New City church.

Taking a nap while driving. Also sporting the nice beanie little Matthew gave him.

When Boaz did go in a car seat he enjoyed facing forward. It was rough coming back home and needing to be strapped in a car seat facing backwards again.

Dave fixing Grandma Julia's roof with Alex.

Boaz, Jess, Chiqui (Brian's wife), and Tiana. I truly enjoyed the time I got to spend visiting with Chiqui, getting to know her and her beautiful family.  She was a great hostess and always made me feel so welcome there.

Josh, Brian, Steve. Brian and Steve are both missionaries in Tacna and good friends of Josh's when they all lived in California.

Tiana, Matthew, and Boaz having playtime.Tiana is 6 months old and the same size if not bigger than Bo who is 9 months old.

Future site of the health center right next to New Jerusalem church.

Shoveling and moving dirt at the site where they are planning on building a health center.

Main entrance for New City church before landscaping.

After landscaping. There are different plants and bushes along the wall with the beautiful grass  the guys picked up while getting the ladder. Along another side of the building not in this picture they planted more beautiful plants too.

 One of my favorite stories from the trip is about a ladder we brought down for the missionary in Tacna since he was unable to get it shipped. Dave and I decided to check it in since we were allowed an extra checked bag due to Boaz. As we were checking in our bags and the ladder, the ticket agent got someone to take the ladder to the plane since it was over-sized and wouldn't fit on the conveyor belt. The ladder was taken before we had finished checking all the luggage in. When the agent got us checked in and it was time to pay for the over-sized luggage (ladder) the agent found out there is an embargo agreement restricting us from bringing the ladder. However, the ladder had already been taken and would be near impossible to get it back to us. The agents brainstormed and labeled it a bicycle and we were on our way. If we hadn't had a ticket agent that didn't know about the embargo and if the ladder hadn't been picked up so quickly we never would have gotten it on the plane. Our flight went to Lima, Peru where we spent the night before catching our next flight down to Tacna, Peru. The next day when we checked in for our flight to Tacna the ticket agent told us she couldn't check in the ladder that we would have to go to a shipping company just out side the airport. With the language barrier all we knew was we had to take the ladder to a company just out the door to the left. We went out the door and didn't see it anywhere and continued walking. We were approached by a man wanting to help carry our luggage. We said no we were looking for the shipping company. He then took the ladder on his shoulder and lead us through a barred gate, down a few back alleys and to the shipping company. There is no way we would have found it without him. Once at the shipping company we found out the ladder couldn't come on our flight and we would have to pick it up later that night. In Tacna, we went back to the airport quite a few times to pick up the ladder and it was a few days later before it arrived. Amazingly, when the guys went to get the ladder, city workers just happened to be cutting out some grass sod, which they let the guys take. The grass worked perfectly for the church we were helping landscape. They had planned to get seed and do their best to get grass to grow in the dessert and sandy climate. God used many different people to not only provide a way for the ladder to get down to the missionary, but God also provided grass for the church in the process. In the moment all these issues seemed a hassle and frustration, but God's timing is perfect and he provides abundantly! "Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? . . .  for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:28-33

The ladder! 

The grass they picked up on the side of the road when getting the ladder. You can see it completely filled the back of the van.

On our flight home we got a kick out of the rule that  Boaz needed to be buckled. Kids don't need to be buckled in a car, but do need to be on an airplane :)

Camping and Club

Sorry the pics are a little out of order. Hope it all still makes sense :)

3 kids in camo!

My 4 blessings on the beach. Poor Abby was napping, but I really wanted a pic of all 4 of them so we laid her in Davey's lap.

Abigail and Cousin Elliott.

Abigail and Boaz playing in the sand. Bo loved grabbing handfuls of sand, and eating some of it too.

Nana and Boaz. So glad Nana and Grandpa were able to come out for a couple of days and visit!

We have had such a fun past few weeks. Last week we had our annual 4th of July camping trip. It was so much fun to be able to spend a whole week with family in beautiful Santa Barbara. The kids loved getting to play with their cousins and go to the beach everyday. The kids loved riding in Papa's boat, playing in the water, and building sand castles with Papa. They also loved going for walks around the campground, especially when they were going to the rope swing, which was a favorite for all the kids. In order to make the most of our time there we decided to let the kids skip nap. This made for a fun week, but also some tired kiddos coming home. It was a long day flying home and the kids slept most of the way.

Building sandcastles with Papa.

Me and my boys!

Most of the family, just missing beautiful Abigail.

Boaz loved the beach!

All the cousins! They all had so much fun playing together.

Cassia at the rope swing.

Nana brought kites to fly. At one point Cassia accidentally let go, luckily Dave was able to rescue it.

Cassia and Owen enjoying the boat.

 After spending the weekend at home catching up on sleep we had the joy of having Kidz Club at our house every morning this week. This is like VBS in our front yard. A team of youth kids from our church and partner church led the kids in games, skits, and gospel message every day. We had a great turn out with a handful of kids from our bible study and a handful from our neighborhood. Every day this week my kids have been taking forever to eat their lunch because they are too busy telling me everything that happened at kidz club. I think their favorite part was the game yesterday during Water Wednesday. They played duck duck goose with a cup of water. The person who was it would say drip, drip (dripping a little water as they go around) and drop (dumping the whole cup full, instead of goose). Davey got the cupful quite a few times and they all loved how Hudson was in the mush pot and had the huge bucket of water dumped on him.

Cassia getting a cup full of water dumped on her.

Boaz enjoyed Kidz Club too. He liked playing with Jackson's cups.

 Unfortunately this week the girls came down with a fever. Monday evening Cassia wasn't feeling well and by the time we were half way done with our monthly shopping trip at Costco she had goosebumps all over and was crying from being cold and achy. Dave took over the shopping and I took her home. Tylenol got her energy back, but she still had a fever the next day so she didn't get to be apart of kidz club on Tuesday. Cassia was asking me how she got sick and how she got germs. She then proceeded to tell me she thinks the germs came from Abby because she had been giving Abby lots of kisses. Surprise, surprise, Tuesday after nap Abby came down with a fever. By the next morning they were both healthy with all their energy and both talking nonstop. It was weird that there were no other symptoms than a fever, but I am so thankful that was all it was.

Poor sick Abby. This was taken a little after nap and she wanted to rest more on the couch. This is how  I knew she wasn't feeling well. I have a hard enough time getting Abby to go down for nap let alone wanting to rest even more after nap.

Sweet Boaz! Davey wanted to share his hat with Bo.

Food and Fun!

My 4 monkeys!

This is how Abigail "holds" Boaz. She sits behind him, wraps her arms around him, and squeezes. Needless to say he isn't a huge fan.

 So, my plan to blog every week hasn't worked out yet, but that is still my goal. These past two weeks we have had a few things going on, but mostly have been enjoying our normal routine. And speaking of routine, Boaz is starting to get on a good sleeping routine. He has been going to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 and not waking up till 8:30 the next morning. He has been nursing once in there, but has had a few nights of sleeping all night long. It has been great to finally start getting full nights of sleep again.
 Boaz also started solids. All last week we have been doing rice cereal. Monday went great. He opened his mouth and swallowed it right down. He didn't thrust the food out with his tongue. He did enjoy holding the spoon with me while he was fed. The next few times didn't seem to go as well and he didn't seem as interested as Monday, but last night he ate it all down and I even had to make up a second batch of it. He is starting to get the hang of it.

First bites of rice cereal. Yummm

The Women's Bible study I am a part of is taking a break for summer, but we are getting together for play dates every week. This week we went to our town's splash pad. All the kiddos loved it at their differing levels. Davey and Cassia love running all through the sprinklers of all the varying heights. Abigail ran around the sprinklers and would run up to stick her hand in it. And Sweet Boaz had a blast sitting behind it and sticking his hand in the sprinkler. I was worried he wouldn't like getting splashed, boy was I wrong. He loved  the water and loved getting wet.

At the Splash Pad. Abby isn't very happy with Boaz spraying her :)

The boys at the splash pad. Boaz would not look at the camera he was too intent on the water.

 Today Davey finished his first workbook in our Hooked on Phonics kit. It is a huge accomplishment and I am so proud of him. He knows 30 sight words and knows all his short vowel word families to read any word with only short vowels. His last lesson was on compound words. When he read pigpen and backpack he was super excited that he is reading BIG words now! This week we will be finishing up his workbook and of course he is excited to start the next workbook after we get back from our annual 4th of July camping trip.
 Tomorrow we are flying to Santa Barbara for our camping trip! We are all so excited the kids were telling everyone how they get to go camping with cousin Charlie next week. They are also all looking forward to building Thunder Mountain in the sand with Papa. Since we will be camping I wont be able to blog next week, but will be sure to post pics and stories of our time the week after.

Ready for a walk to the park early in the morning to beat the heat.

Abigail and Davey running ahead of Mommy.

Cassia and Davey walking hand in hand.

Fun Times In Texas

Kids chatting with Aunt Jean on her patio.

 Over Memorial weekend we had a mini family vacation to Dallas and Fort Worth. Saturday we drove up to Dallas and visited the Kennedy Museum which is in the building where the man who assassinated Kennedy was perched. From there we went to my Great Aunt Jean's house to visit with some family and enjoy dinner together. Then we stayed 2 nights in Fort Worth. We visited the Stockyards, which is an area of town with historical/cowboy shops, restaurants, longhorns to pet, and daily cattle drives. We even got to see a Wild West Show. The cowboys came out full blast on their horses and started shooting their guns. Poor Abby was not expecting that and started running screaming every which way trying to get to the safety of Dave's lap. Talking with the kids the show was their favorite part of the trip. After a full day of walking around the Stockyards we drove around for the kids to take a little nap and ended up in downtown Fort Worth at the water gardens.

What a crew! Waiting for the wild west show to start.

Kids got to pet the horses after the show.

Mommy and Bo at the wild west show!

At the water gardens. There were steps that you could walk all the way down to the bottom of the waterfalls.

Another pool at the water garden. It was a hot day, but the spray from this pool felt like air conditioning.

Abby and Bo playing while Daddy took the big kids down to the bottom of the waterfalls.

This is a water wall that all the kids liked touching, especially  Boaz.

 Since coming home from our vacation we all came down with a little head cold and haven't been doing very much, just our normal routine. Davey keeps us on track with school. Everyday he wakes up from nap and asks to do school. He will pester me till we get to it. He really impresses me with how much he has learned. After the kids' long vacation I was wondering if he would have forgotten some of what he had learned, but he didn't and is doing great with both reading and writing. The next task to conquer is learning to tie his shoes. He is adamant that he has to learn how to tie his shoes before school starts.

Davey doing his writing.

Sweet Boaz watching brother do his school work.

We planted carrots a couple of weeks ago and they have started to sprout. Silly Davey said it was too bright to open his eyes.

Our carrots sprouting! The kids were so excited when they went out to water the carrots and found this!

 Nap time has still been a bit of a struggle for the girls. It is just too much fun sharing a room. We finally got Abigail to sleep in her bed. For so long she would sleep on the ground right at the door and not get a good night sleep. No matter how many times we would pick her up and put her back in bed she would continue to get out and lay at the door. Even at 3 in the morning after feeding Boaz I would put her in bed and by morning she was on the ground again. So, we moved Abby's bed right next to Cassia's and since then Abby has loved sleeping in her bed and we haven't had anymore nights with her on the ground. However, they do end up playing a lot more at nap and nighttime before they fall asleep. It isn't a horrible issue as I love hearing them having fun together, but I do end up having to be the bad guy often so they can get a good rest.

Nap time Fun! I went in to sternly tell them to go to bed and couldn't help laughing at this sight.  They had shoved every baby and stuffed animal they could fit in Abigail's shirt and Abby was dancing on Cassia's bed!

 We also just sent in an application for Boaz to get his passport. Dave and I are going to be going on a mission trip with our church to Peru at the end of July. Since Boaz will still be nursing we are going to bring him along too, which will be an added joy. Some of you may remember we were planning on going on a mission trip back before I got pregnant with Abigail and felt like it might have been leading to a long term mission God was calling us on. It was a surprise when I got pregnant with Abigail and we were actually trying to wait to get pregnant so we could do a mission trip. Finding out I was pregnant I felt like that meant I couldn't go. Then God impressed on my heart that He would work missions into our lives regardless of pregnancies/children and that I shouldn't try to plan pregnancies/children around missions. Because of this I have such a peace and excitement to serve with Boaz. God ended up closing the door for a mission trip back then, but has opened the door for now and we are so excited God has finally said yes to going on a mission trip.

Couldn't help putting another pic of Boaz. He just makes me smile!

On a sad note, we had to say goodbye to our good friends the Vicks today. They are moving back to California to start a church in Claremont. They have been a huge blessing to us and helped make Texas feel like home. They are such good friends and Texas is not going to be the same with out them. It is very bitter sweet as we will miss them, but are excited for the work God is going to do in them and through them.

Kiddos with our good friends Levi and Judah Vick.

Boaz's Miracle

 With all the fun to share from our California vacation in the last post I forgot to share what has been going on with Boaz. When the kids were with grandparents Boaz had his 6 month Dr. appointment. At his check up the Dr. found that he had a hernia. The Dr. showed it to me and had me feel it. It was a hard lump on Bo's right side and his left side was squishy. He explained that this is fairly common in boys and is just something that happened when Boaz was created in my womb. It is something that wont go away on its own so we need to make an appointment with the pediatric surgeon to set up surgery. Upon getting the news we have been praying and asking family and friends to pray for God to heal Boaz before the meeting with the surgeon. God healed Bo's belly button and we had faith He would heal his hernia as well. Not only did we want Bo to be healed so we wouldn't need to do surgery, but for the miracle to be a witness for us, others, and Boaz (when he is older to understand) to show God's glory, that He is real and performs miracles in our lives today. Yesterday was the appointment with the surgeon. The dr. couldn't feel the hernia, but he could feel secondary signs of a hernia. He told us that when those are present 98% of the time there is a hernia, but if we would like we could get an ultra sound to confirm. So we went straight down to have an ultra sound. The ultra sound showed that there is no hernia! Praise God that he completely healed Boaz of the hernia. The surgeon called today to explain the ultra sound. He confirmed that there is no hernia. They did find extra fluid around his testicle, which is called a hydro-seal. We have known he has had this since it was seen on an ultra sound before he was born. Every nurse, pediatrician, and ultra sound technician has told us about it followed by how it is no concern, fairly normal, and will just be absorbed into Bo's body. The surgeon also said that it will most likely be absorbed, but if it hasn't by a year it could be a sign that something else is going on and would need surgery to repair it. We will just wait and see what God's plan is for the hydro-seal. We pray it is nothing and will be absorbed by his body and time will tell. We are so thankful and in awe of the greatness of God in healing Boaz, and overjoyed to share in this miracle. Praise God!
 Here are some pictures of our sweet Boaz. Cassia also had her last day of dance on Tuesday. I am not able to upload the video of her dance on here since it is too big, but I will try to upload it to facebook. It is so adorable you will have to check it out.

Boaz in a bucket with a ball!

There is a turtle in our front yard so of course we need a picture of Boaz with it.

Boaz is getting better about sitting on his own and is enjoying playing even more with the other kiddos. Cassia was cooking for Boaz and continued to bring him lots and lots of food, which he did chew on.

Cassia with Miss Sunnie, her dance teacher and good friend of ours, at the end of her last dance class.

The greatness of the news above makes other stories seem little, but I do have a funny quote from Davey to share. Earlier this week Davey was playing with Boaz on the floor and he told me " Mommy, Bo has REALLY big knee muscles!" Our kids are constantly talking about how big their muscles are and how they drink their milk to get big muscles. So, it is a huge compliment even if Boaz's "muscles" are just his chubby thighs.