Busy Days

The past week and the coming weeks have been busy for us as a family.  As I blogged about, we just had Jeyson's parents here and now this weekend (Thurs-Sun) we have a rather spontaneous little retreat with our mission base in Venezuela.  One of the perks of being a small team is this retreat could be planned so easily and last minute since it happened to work with the flight calendar and everyone was available.  It was only officially decided on 2 days ago!  We'll be staying in a hotel across the boarder and just spending quality time together as a team.  There isn't a formal speaker, just one person sharing each day and lots of time down time together.  Hopefully it will be a truly restful retreat.

Then, on Tuesday Elijah and I will be headed for a trip to visit my family in Arizona.  We normally don't travel nearly this much to the US, but this year has been rather unusual.  First Christa's wedding and now a trip to Arizona.  Some of you may know about the health issues going on in my extended family, and that is a big part of the reason for the trip.  Please be praying for a meaningful time with family during this trip and for smooth traveling with a wiggly almost 2 year old...4 flights there and 3 flights back!  Oh the poor people who will sit next to us!

While I'm in the US, Jeyson will be working with the other mechanics on the first time through a very involved new mandatory inspection process.  I don't know all of the details, but it seems it's really big and involved and new for everyone.  There is a lot of thinking and planning going into it and it will probably be at least a week from what I'm gathering.

Ears have continued to be on our radar as Elijah still has fluid in his ears after another round of antibiotics.  The doctor who can put tubes in his ears is on vacation for another month so we're treating with antibiotics until we can get in with him again.  This whole thing makes me feel like sitting in waiting rooms is my new full-time job.  Between waiting for to get a hearing test done, then an x-ray for the sinuses, then a follow-up with the doctor, Elijah and I have spent 7 hours in the waiting room just in the past week.  Not to mention actually having to physically GO to our insurance company office to get every test and procedure approved (more waiting) and then returning to pick it up once approval is given.  Sigh.  Good thing God created us to automatically love and want to sacrifice for our kids.

I just got a neat email from a lady who is interested in getting together with me for birth classes.  She is really interested and pursing the idea even though she is not expecting yet.  But she had such a discouraging experience with her last pregnancy/birth that she's really looking into being more proactive this time.  It's neat to see how God is opening doors just through word of mouth.  I am working on creating a little space in our office that can be a nice place to meet with women.

Well time to pack some bags for our trip to Venezuela.  Such a spontaneous trip makes it really not seem real, so I'm having to force myself to take it seriously and get packing!

Oma and Opa's Visit Wrap-Up

We had a great week with Jeyson's parents.  During the week, Jeyson worked at the hangar,

Lots more things to work on than just airplanes around here!

 But then on the weekend we went over to Venezuela.  We stayed with missionary friends who live about 5 minutes from the boarder, so we went over 3 times to do some shopping, sightseeing, and eating.

We really enjoyed lunch, which was traditional Venezuelan arepas, a corn pancake type bread that is stuffed with cheese, meat, etc.  Yum!   

 And my special cabinet at home reserved for special foreign (American) treats is now filled to the brim.   And products are SO cheap there...or maybe they are just NOT cheap here in Brazil, but either way we stocked up.  Tortilla chips, thai sauces, cranberry apple juice, all bran cereal, and large pantene pro-v hair products that were only $1!  Very fun!  But definitely the best part was having extra, loving grandparent hands to help with the little squirt.

As soon as we got home, he started showing signs of yet another ear infection :(  Tomorrow we go back to the ENT to get some antibiotics, but it sure looks like tubes will be on the horizon, and a welcome relief!  

Thanks Jonas and Iria (aka Oma and Opa) for coming up to have a great week with us!

Our First Boa Vista Visitors!

We have Jeyson's parents here for 10 days and have really been enjoying taking them around.  On the weekend we hopped over to Guyana and on Sunday we went to a little aquatic park near a mountain.  During the week Jeyson has been working so we've been more low key during the days, and having fun together in the evenings.

We popped by the hangar one day

 And one evening grilled a fresh fish and last night we went to the central plaza to eat this typical soup, tacaca.  It's a really strange soup and you eat it with this long, pointy stick.  You use the stick to stab/pick up to eat the shrimp and to eat the green leaves.  You drink the soup from this typical bowl that is made out of a gourd.  And if all of that weren't interesting enough, the leaves make your mouth/tongue numb!  So, it makes conversation around the table pretty fun :)

With Jeyson's parents here, I have even gotten the chance to leave Elijah for a bit to go do a few things I haven't been able to.  Like get to this market which is a pretty intense farmer's market.  Tons of stands - a whole one of these covered areas just for people selling bananas, another for people selling watermelons, etc.  

 And there was this guy who was selling fresh coconuts and cell phone credit for prepaid cell phones.  What a combo deal :)  

Iria made us some typical Ecuadorian soup today for lunch, which they don't have the ingredients for in central Brazil but they do here.  It is made using green bananas and it was amazing!  Tonight our mission team is coming over for dinner made my Iria.  Then, this weekend we're planning to go to Venezuela, though we'll see how that works out since we hear that a group of native Brazilians closed down the road between Brazil and Venezuela so no one can get through :(  We'll see!  

It's so nice to have family around.