Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful. We have kept a "Give Thanks" jar since the middle of November (I wasn't together enough to have it before then), and ever since it's been on our dinner table, we write something we are each thankful for and put them in the jar. And the things we are thankful for range from elephants to juice to just the way our sweet children love and trust the Father. We really are thankful for so much! I was just thinking that I'm thankful for our whisk that truly makes my life just that much easier...And we have been so very very thankful for our family and friends. We have such amazing families back in the states, but we also have a surrogate family here that we are so thankful for as well.

So, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope your hearts and spirits are as full as we have felt as we've thought about thankfulness!

Rock Sea...

We keep finding cool places in the province where we live. The latest adventure took us to the Rock Sea really near our closest local friend's home. It was truly so fun--acres of rocks to climb on, a cave to explore, and there's so much that we didn't even do or see. There are places to actually rock climb (like the kind Johnny is really good at) and places to go caving. A bit too extreme for even a 5 year old, but someday...

And we didn't even have time to explore the bamboo forest that's right next door. So we're definitely going to have to go back!!

So here are pictures of our friend and his home and some contraption that cleans rice:

They may have had the most simple home we've ever visited. But they are surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery...

Our little munchkin wouldn't leave Jordan's side...I think he said Jordan's name about 300 times a day

And here are some pictures of the rock sea.....I took close-ups because it was getting dark and we thought we could go back the next day (but it was raining). But I think the rocks in the background still make a fun backdrop...

And that was our trip. We have pictures in this enormous cave we explored, but they aren't very good. It was really dark...Imagine that...

Here is my favorite picture we've taken in ages!!

Love from all of us!

Come one, come all to the greatest show on earth!

Note: I kept waiting for some other pictures our friend took, but we still don't have them so I'm going to go ahead and post this post...

This weekend (Oct. 30) celebrated the bringing of year number 5 for Mr. L! And we did it up big and had so much fun!! REally, since we can't just buy anything like what we wanted to do for his birthday--a circus/carnival theme, we had to spend our nights making stuff. So we did, and we invited 9 families to join us (all with boys Luke's age--we wanted to invite the girls too, but just couldn't...) in all the chaos of the circus!

We had cupcakes and a unicycling juggler and caramel apples, cotton candy, popcorn, peanuts--everything you'd find at the carnival! And lots and lots of games--Johnny even made a Plinko! (Besides the ring toss, can toss, bobbing for apples, etc). Some of the kids were even dressed up as clowns when they arrived!! We rented out a room and played for hours in the room! It was really fun and hopefully an especially memorable birthday party for our party animal...Mr. L.

PS Here's a picture of our cupcakes. I don't have any other pictures of the food tables/decor, but here is the one picture I took!!