Fun Around the House!!!

Laura, admiring the neighbor horse!

Our friends Daniel & Nakisha came over to make us a delicious Creole dish called Sere- a fish soup consisting of green plantains, red snapper, fresh coconut milk and vegetables..mmmmm!

So delicious!

Nakisha is an expert at doing hair! She put in this pretty DOO while visiting!

Ashley & Amanda helped our neighbors by creating a website and taking pics of their adorable puppies for sale!

A few weeks being in Belize Grant got mononucleosis. It lasted about 6 weeks.. He was extremely sick for about 2 weeks.. the recovery process took months. In the process he lost about 10 pounds!

He's soo skinny!

Having fun taking Guard down for a drink in the creek

Ash teaches Maritza how to play the violin!

Grace and Laura help mama start some plant & veggie seeds

Grace & Grant do some exploring down at our creek!

...more exploring!

Just LOVE the broadleaf plants!

...I think this is called fire tail? SO beautiful!

These orchids were planted by the creek by the former owner of our property.. gorgeous!

A little piece of paradise!

The girls have so much fun with the sweet farm animals!

Happy Father's Day 2017!!

We enjoyed going to Cheers! for lunch. It was such a blessing to spend some extra time with Grady. We all were kind of dreading a few weeks later when both he and Ryan would be gone for 6 weeks to work the harvest in Oregon. Cheers is located in a great place! They have a playhouse and swingset for the children as well as being on a huge piece of property.. complete with gorgeous flowers and shrubs and horses!

With Dad! From left: Ryan 18, Grant 15, Ashley 25, Grace 9, Laura 6 (almost 7!!) and Mandy 23

Best Friends!

Laura & Ryan's Birthdays!

We enjoyed going to Countryside Park on Laura's birthday as a family. It was nice to have a little time just to ourselves. Later in the day we headed back to AV for a combined bday party with our friend D. :-)

D and Laura shared a birthday party! It was so fun to all celebrate together!!

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful 7 year old little girl in the world!!!

We love you sweetheart!

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Ryan's 19th Birthday!!

Since Ryan was heading back to OR to help with the harvest, we had his birthday celebration a few weeks early! It was a blast! Nakisha & Daniel helped decorate and cook. I found a pretty cake at a local shop for him. It was gorgeous weather!

The Harders arrive for the party on their quad!

Edwin, Grant & Ryan

Grace & Laura with 2 friends

More people ended up coming than what was originally expected! I laugh when I look at this picture because that's an AWFULLY small cake for how many people were there! We were able to portion it out to everyone though! :-)

                                             

 Our AMAZING and absolutely PRICELESS son Ryan!!!!!!

The girls sat & visited on one side of the room......

And the boys gravitated to the other side of the room to visit! It was a very fun birthday party!

Día de la Boda!

In our village we are blessed to have a Spanish family who delivers hot homemade tamales twice a week! They are handmade in their outdoor kitchen and delivered to their surrounding villages. We and the Kings have enjoyed getting to know their family a little bit. Last month the oldest daughter surprised us by inviting us to a double wedding to be held at the little Spanish church in our village. We so enjoyed spending the day celebrating and fellowshipping with the church and the 'tamale family'.

This little mini bride was absolutely adorable!

The wedding party looked so beautiful! The dresses for the girls and ties for the guys were all made from the same lovely seafoam green fabric

We all enjoyed watching the children play while we waited for the brides to come. In the Spanish culture here the wedding begins when the bride is ready. Sometimes wedding go-ers wait 2 hours for the wedding to start!

The wedding party lines up! The brides must be on the way to the church house!

The wedding party performed an elaborate march, setting up some ribbons which the maid of honor would end up cutting, making way for the brides

Here comes one of the brides!

We weren't sure but it seemed like the tradition here may be that mom walked the daughter up to the groom. Both sets of parents stood by the couples through the entire ceremony. We only caught parts of the sermon since it was entirely in Spanish of course.. but one interesting point he made was admonishing both new grooms to help his wife with the children to nurture and train them. That it is not only the job of the mother to raise the children but also the father's. Everyone thought that was a profound and good point for the pastor to make. Not common advice for fathers here, even within the church.

Loved these two ring-bearers! SO cute!

Off to the reception!

The happy couple arrives at the reception

The guests wait for lunch~the server was delivering one plate at a time. Our friend suggested that Ashley, Amanda and our friends daughter offer to serve the food! That was a blessing for them

The bride sent us home with a huge chunk of cake for the whole family!