our spring.

I absolutely LOVE springtime.  The warm weather after the long winter, and all the green coming back to the trees and grass--I just love all of it!  Springtime is something I will definitely miss when we live in the PNG jungle heat--365 days a year.  So for now, we are enjoying our springtime :)

While we still have plenty of linguistic homework, we have been able to have some fun times with friends and our kiddos!

All of us Ling students have really meshed well together.  Everyone is so like-minded, all of us working towards the same goal.  We love our classmates.  There aren't many of us (only 8 ling students, plus spouses who aren't taking ling), so we can get together at each other's houses for fellowship.  Every month someone prepares a devotion for the group, and we pray for and encourage each other.  Nathan and I are really enjoying these sweet times of fellowship!  And the kids all love to play together, of course :)

(some of our ling group)

The girls having fun together :)

Something else we have enjoyed is Sonic!  We have gone there a couple of times this semester--it is definitely our family favorite.  Except for Daisy.  She continues to vote for McDonald's.  But she is only 3, so we can overrule her ;)

We have had a couple of good thunderstorms this spring.  Missouri really has some awesome thunderstorms!  Here, Daisy and I are watching the lightning.

I had a day of working in childcare, and I was able to be in Layla and Daisy's preschool class!  It was really fun to help teach their class--and get to see how they interract with their friends.  There is a really sweet group of preschoolers here :)

Here is Layla with her good friend  :)

And Daisy and her buddy--doing their "mean" faces :)

Something really cool that the training center offered us--some training for our kids!  

The MK (missionary kid) Education Center did a four-evening series for our kids (and other families with "older" kids).

 It covered lots of topics, such as:

• moving to a new place
• learning a new culture
• trying new things (like food, etc)
• being uprooted and "planted" in a new place (they planted flowers at that one)
• making a "memory box"
• how to say goodbye to friends/family
• how to adjust well.

They geared it for our whole family to do together, and we loved that!  Our kids really enjoyed it.  And Nathan and I loved that it gave us some great ideas of things to continue talking to our kids about, and ways to help our kids as we move to a new culture.

Halle filled out her worksheet about where we will go, how long it will take to get there, etc.

They had picked out kids' books for our family to read together, about moving to a new culture.  Here Nathan is reading a great book to our kids, called Hudson On a Mission.  

They also had family crafts to do together :)  Thank you, MK Ed Center, for doing this for our family!  We all loved it.

We love you all!  Happy Spring!