November is always a busy family month for us. Thanksgiving is Dana's favorite holiday (I think it's because of the Pumpkin Pie!) and her birthday is November 23. But Stori's birthday is November 22, so that week gets a bit crazy. This year, Dana hosted a birthday party for Stori, on Dana's birthday, so her's kind of got missed. But when some of the other Moms found out it was her birthday, they insisted on taking her out for dinner that night... So, here is a brief run-down of November in photos.
We already posted photos of Kellton's kindergarten graduation, but lest you think he's all serious now, here is a photo of them as we tried to have them be presentable for attending the ballet presentation of some of their classmates.
Stori's birthday was quite the event. Birthday parties are huge events here, and we tried to balance a need to keep it affordable, with a wish to bring others into our home and continue to develop relationships. But I can't take any credit for this (not that those of you who know me might even begin to think I had anything to do with it!), as Dana pretty much single-handedly pulled this off.
But we can't forget Dana's birthday in all of this. Thanks to some of her friends here, she actually got to have a little celebration. In fact, I'd say it was more than she was bargaining for when they took her out. It's not everyday you have live entertainment while eating at a Pakistani restaurant in South America...
Hopefully you saw our pictures last week, as we also spent some great time in planning and preparation for 2014. If you haven't seen this yet, I encourage you to revisit that blog post as well. But we also had a Board Meeting in advance of that retreat, which quietly introduced a very important stepping stone. Dan Collins, a missionary from Oregon who started EM, resigned from the Board, to move the Board to being 100% Bolivian controlled. I believe this is a very important step in achieving sustainability and making sure locals are in control.
And finally, Thanksgiving. We were pretty sure we were going to have to forego to traditional Thanksgiving. Between the general lack of availability of some foods, no set plans, etc. we were preparing to stay home and eat rice. But no, not only did we celebrate Thanksgiving, we had Thanksgiving three days in a row! We started on Thursday with a full turkey dinner at the house of some family friends, then Friday we were invited by our Bolivian neighbors to dinner, where they also cooked a turkey and served a huge meal. Finally, Saturday, our team got together and celebrated yet again! (We even let the Canadians participate, although their Thanksgiving was last month.)
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from Bolivia!
