Parties, Plants and Percussion

Yesterday, I celebrated my 29th birthday. I'm officially in the last year of my twenties. It's been a great decade so far! I'm looking forward to what the next year will bring. This last year was pretty sweet with the arrival of our little Ezra. :) Each day is such a joy to see him learn new things and explore the world around him.

I started out my birthday with a team meeting at our house! This is our team: Sarah, Craig, Ezra, Matt, Josh and Jennifer (L to R). Right before they came over, though, our buddy Munhuu stopped over and gave me a beautiful birthday card, a book, ice cream and candy. It was super sweet of him!

For lunch, I made my mom's fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. But come to think of it now...I forgot the gravy! No one could ask if there was more (little family joke there)! I must have been a little preoccupied. Oh, well. Jennifer also made homemade buns (their family's secret recipe)! Mmmm...

 And Sarah made me a birthday cake! I actually got two birthday cakes! Jennifer made a chocolate cake for supper. Our team had supper together at our pastor's house. Two chocolate cakes in one day. Hard to beat that!

And in between chocolate cakes, I spent some time in my garden. Here is a picture from just 3 days after I planted my seeds!

  Now, the two little sprouts in front of the 3 day picture is in one of the big pots on the right at only 9 days old (it's squash!). I spent the afternoon of my birthday re-potting some of my new plants.

Just about all of them have sprouted now except the lavender and garlic chives! In my garden I have: chives, garlic chives, cilantro, rosemary, oregano, savory, Thai basil, sage, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, squash, zinnia, lavender, aster, and Sweet William. Should be interesting!

And I found a bonus plant that was growing alongside a dead bush in our apartment. If anyone knows what this is, please let me know. :)

So, for my birthday I got a new ivy plant, a bunch of "dirt bags", and new plastic pots for my little seedlings.

I also got this beautiful blue pot. It caught my eye and looks great with the doily that Mama Betty made.

We ended the day with a birthday serenade from our pastor's daughter! Check it out!

Thanks for all the birthday greetings! It was a great day with my sweet little family and dear Mongolian friends.

Spring is Here!

Some of you may remember from last year that I had quite a little greenhouse going. I didn't think I had any survivors, but sure enough! My geraniums (that were supposed to be gerbera daisies!) survived with the help of my dear teammate Pam!! She just brought them back on Friday. I hope they like their new home, cuz they were doing so well at Pam's. :)

  I also received a little gift when we arrived in our new apartment of some cuttings that I just put into pots, too.

Anyhow...I was inspired with warmer weather on the way to plant some more seeds (which, by the way, today it got over 50!). So, here goes another shot at making the place a little greener. 

I brought back a little greenhouse help with these starter disks. Hopefully they work out ok. The dirt here is a little hard, so I thought it might give them a good jump start. First, you add the water and watch the little pots grow like Chia Pets. :)

Then, you pull back the mesh.

And last, you fluff up the soil and add a few seeds.

As I was doing this I was reminded of the parable of the sower and the soils. Please remember to lift up the "soil" of those we meet that they will be fertile and receive the implanted Word. We look forward to giving you updates as we watch new life sprout. :)

Our New Home!

We love our new apartment! Just wish we could have you all over to visit and see it in person! Enjoy!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

 Wow! What a view! (click on picture to see more details) This is the view out our new apartment. It's looking straight east. All our windows are on the east side. As you can see their doing a little construction, so we might not have this amazing view of the mountains for long, but we'll enjoy it while we can. :)

Ezra and I decided to go to the grocery store and take a few pics of the neighborhood. He's such a good little helper.

This is the front door into our apartment building. There is a large fence around the parking lot out front with a guard station that has someone in it all the time making sure no one gets in that isn't supposed to be there. No bums in the stairwell this year.

This is the mini supermarket that is just to the left of our front door above. It's in the bottom of our building. It has a ton of items. Even has a few Up and Up brands imported from Target! There are many more imports here than last year and in more common places.

This is the street that our building door faces, just out the fence to the left. This is looking south towards the mountains.

This is the other super market that is about 5 minutes or less walk from our front door. It is larger than the Fresh Market and between the two places I can get just about anything I need (except meat, cheese, green beans, broccoli, peanut butter and olive oil - I have to go to my old place down town for that).

Here we are inside the Orgil Supermarket. Ezra loves to peek out and help me shop. Of course, the people working there like to check him out, too.

And here we are back at home with our Kruger bag full of groceries. This is our apartment door. 

Next post, we'll give you a tour of the inside!!! So, check back again soon!

Our Little World Traveler

I can hardly believe how well our little Ezra did on the trip to Mongolia. God was so kind in giving us such a calm and adaptable little baby. We had so many people on the plane say, "Wow, I didn't even know there was a baby on board", or "He was such a good baby". 

Ezra is a natural at making new friends. This is Steve. He was so sweet to Ezra and loved playing with him on our long flight to Beijing. Ezra was melting hearts left and right with his big smile.

We were blessed to have the seats with extra leg room and a little bassinet to put our little buddy in for the long flight. Unfortunately, he was a little big in the shoulders for this particular one so he only slept a couple hours in it. But he did get lots of naps on Mommy, which helped Mommy sleep, too.

It was nice to be able to get up and stretch from time to time. He had some sweet cuddle time with Daddy, too.

Here we are at the Beijing airport. He's peeking out of his new "car seat". He loves being close to Mommy and falls asleep whenever he's in it. You can see our sweet stroller on the right, too. That was a big help in toting all our carry-ons through the airports.

We had breakfast in Beijing at the Pizza Hut. Yes, Pizza Hut serves eggs and bacon at 6:30am! This is our second visit here for breakfast and becoming a new tradition.

Our final leg of the journey...hang in there, Buddy! This was definitely the hardest leg, simply because I think the whole being-stuck-in-an-airplane thing was getting a little old for Ezra. But he did get a little nap in before we landed. We used EarPlanes and fed him or used a pacifier during take off and landing and his ears seemed to be ok. On our first leg from MN to LA they might have bothered him a little because he fell asleep during the landing and once we landed and he woke up, he started crying because his ears weren't popped yet.

Here is Ezra's first look at Mongolia...the frozen tundra! They had just received a fresh coat of snow for his arrival...imagine that! The snow king strikes again.

Gerlee and Orna were so happy to finally meet him! 

He's already making the girls go crazy!

 He's made lots of new Mongolian friends! And we look forward to making lots more. Everyone that passes by on the street notices our little bundle under our coats. When they stop to look they say "Ямар хөөрхөн бэ?" which means "How cute!?". 

Thanks for all your love and prayers. We could tell many were praying for us. We're so happy to be here, even though it was so hard to leave our dear friends and family. 

We love you and miss you all!!