Happy Birthday USA!
So, it's the 4th of July, and we haven't posted in a while. It seems that all our friends decided to wait until the last minute of our time in the US and then all invite us over at once! Unfortunately, having not yet mastered the art of warping the time-space continuum to the point where we can be in two places at once, we're limited to just one at a time. That's kept us quite busy, with lunch and dinner invitations most days. And while it's been really good to catch up with people, I think next time we'll be more proactive about inviting ourselves over to your places a little earlier in our visit! :)
Anyway, on to the pictures:
One of our first stops since our last post was to visit our friends Rich and Lydia. We had a good evening catching up with them. After dinner, they invited some friends from their family group over for dessert, since they had some orphans from Belarus staying with them for the summer. Anyway, the idea was for us to chat with them in Russian some, which we did, but somewhere along the line it morphed into a giant pillowfight that threatened to consume the living room decor. Sorry, Lydia! I guess you'll know better than to invite us over again.
One of the neatest things about being back in the US has been getting to see our boys and grandparents getting to know one another. J's family has had us over to eat and spend time quite often, and we've been living with B's parents, so we've gotten to see both of them quite a bit. In the above picture, Steven's Aunt Kellie is taking him for an airplane ride of sorts.
He seems to really like his grandmothers (and really, who doesn't like their grandmother?). Here Steven sleeps on J's mom's chest while we visited with some friends from a local family group.
While we were at the same people's house, we decided to try our best to get a decent family photo. Unfortunately, we didn't get anything that great, and due to cropping and recropping this picture turned out a little weird. Of course, I've only played with it for a minute or two, so hopefully we'll have a decent family picture soon with both kids in it for all of you.
We also got over to see our friends Mike and Martha last week, and our friends Dan and Valerie came over as well with their little boy Cooper. It wasn't as chaotic as you'd think with three toddlers in the same house at the same time, but it wasn't relaxing either.
B's sisters took her out to dinner the other night just to spend a bit more time with her before we leave, and here's a pic of them dressed and ready to head out.
Of course, the boys' maternal grandparents are worried that they might not turn out culturally as "American" as they'd like (what, you mean like me?), so they're doing their best to expose them to the culture here. ;-)
Last night they took B and Matthew to a minor league baseball game while I got to go waterskiing with some other friends (sorry, no videos of that bit of contra-athleticism exist to humiliate me later). To me it looks like Matthew has the look of a football/soccer fan being forced to watch a baseball game - utter and complete boredom. Maybe he'll turn out after all!
They even tried to get him to dance to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"! Disgusting!
Of course, today was the 4th of July, which requires that you celebrate with what else - food! Hamburgers, hotdogs, chili, fixin's, tea, ... you know, the essentials.
Of course, since your humble narrator's birthday is coming up soon, I got to pick out the cake. The cake on the right was my choice (the hand is there just to give a sense of perspective) - a punchbowl cake complete with layers of chocolate cake, chocolate pudding with Amaretto flavor, whipped cream, and crushed Heath bars. Heavenly!
My cousin Daniel managed to teach Steven the art of giving him 5, and here he's displaying his new skill. Ah, the challenges of raising a boy-genius! Seriously, though, it is funny to watch kids learning things that you've taken for granted for longer than you can remember - they take so much joy in simple things.
