Two + Weeks in One Post

We have been home for a week now and are feeling rested and back to 'normal'. Boys have been going to local school in the mornings, I have been studying, we've started up homeschooling, and are out visiting with neighbors again. It has been good, although I will admit it took a few days to be truly thankful to be back in this culture again. (We were definitely hit with some 'bad culture days' our first couple days back.)

We had two packed family days our first two days out of town and then spent most of the rest of it with others in a structured setting, along with a few days traveling. Here is a super quick picture replay of some of our memories.
It took us two days to get to our first destination. Here is Emma the morning of the second day, really not wanting to wake up. I don't blame her, it was 4am and she was going to have to sit on three airplanes!

During one of those flights.

Once we got to our destination we usually took trucks to get around town. Basically a small pickup truck, with a cover over the back and bench seats. We just hopped in, stroller and all, super convenient.

Our first day we went to the zoo. A first for Jacob and Emma, and the first time for Josiah that he remembers. This particular zoo involved a lot of walking between exhibits. I think we saw just as much exotic (to us) natural wildlife as we did animals in cages. Josiah found more caterpillars, crickets, beetles, anything that moved, than he has seen in his entire time of living here in our city! We saw lots of these spiders.

A shuttle bus took us between exhibits. This picture actually has our entire family, Emma strapped on my back, and Jacob squished between Jared and I.

We fed deer, elephants, and hippos. When I say 'we' I guess I should say that it was only the 'men' that actually did the feeding. Emma and I were in charge of the camera.

The first day we also got in some swimming. Josiah and Jacob actually got to swim every day that week.

The hotel we stayed in for the first 10 days was wonderful! We had two rooms that connected and our good friends were staying next door. We were able to visit long into the night. It was super clean and we ate good food. Our rooms also looked out over the pool below and across to hills of trees and blue skies.

We definitely unpacked and settled in. It doesn't take much to make a place a home.

In the evenings we ventured out with friends and were able to eat at lots of different local restaurants. I think we ate Mexican four times, and lots of Thai food. This place was just down the street from our hotel, a few kitchens and tables set up on the street with great, cheap Thai food. We ate there a couple times.

Our trip back into country, to the large city near us, was a long tiring trip. We ended up needing to take four different flights in order to make the trip that day. Between every flight we also had to exit the terminal, recheck in, and go back through security, four times, in four different cities. Our kids are becoming extremely knowledgeable in what it takes to exit a plane, collect baggage, navigate back to check in, and go through security. The story of our trip is long and was very tiring. I will make it short...Emma did not once sleep on an airplane, Jacob had trouble keeping food down, our third flight was delayed and we missed the fourth flight, we had to wait 24 hours before catching another flight. I will allow you to imagine the rest :). Here is Josiah waiting in an airport, with a baggage tag around his neck (in case we lost him :)).

Emma loves the running around the airport part, not so much the sitting on my lap or strapped in the ergo part.

We did arrive at our hotel around midnight, endured the most difficult taxi situation we have ever faced, got a good sleep, and were up the next morning ready to spend a few more days with friends.

Check back later for pictures from the boys' birthdays.