Marcus' 6th Birthday!

I have to make a quick entry.  Yesterday was Marcus’ 6^th birthday.  We had a great day!  We got up and went over to the orphanage.  For a birthday gift for Munchie—the orphans caught him a frog.  There couldn’t have been a more fun gift for him.  He loved it!  We stayed there for the morning.  Doug, Matt, Sam and the older orphan boys prepped the ground for concrete.  They had dug out the area for the chicken coops and since there was no gravel available, they used broken bricks and used those.  They took a sledge hammer and broke them up even more.  Marcus loved to help with that.

I took the girls and went over to Yaya’s hair salon.  She is Botevy’s daughter and has a hair salon around the corner from the orphanage.  Yaya is a sweetheart.  We just love her.  Then Linda, who is another volunteer staying at Botevy’s home, went with us and she was teaching the orphan girls how to apply makeup while Yaya curled Emmy’s hair.  Linda is another sweetheart.  What a blessing it has been to be here with her.  She came over here on her own and is working with the orphans teaching them English.  She just fits in with our families.

At the salon, they all had a good time.  I stayed with them for awhile and then headed back to the orphanage.  When I got there, I got a snack for our little boys and then made up some bead bracelets with the little orphan girls.

Just about lunch time, we headed back to Botevy’s house to start school for our kids.  We had a quick lunch and then went to work.  I worked with Ashton & Marcus and we spent some time working on sight words, numbers & patterns, writing our letters and counting.  Matt worked with Tyler and Cole.  Doug taught seminary with the older kids and Allyson was busy doing our laundry.  It takes a village and we love it! 

Then we had a fun surprise.  We both used the same travel agent—Luke.  Ally had told us about him and we have used him several times in the last year or so.  Anyway—he showed up at Botevy’s house!  It was a riot.  We knew that he was coming to Cambodia and we were going to hook up sometime—but it was still a surprise.  It is funny to spend literally hours on the phone with someone and then it almost feels like meeting an old friend for the first time.  He called Botevy and asked how to catch up with us and was so sweet to go and pick him up.  It was a fun visit and I think he might end up helping with the chicken coops.

We visited with him for awhile and then for Marcus’ birthday, we had planned on going to the market for the kids to do a little shopping.  We took off and the kids loved the market.  We gave each of the kids $10 dollars in Cambodian money and they had fun buying little souvenirs.  Marcus’ big score was an Angry Birds t-shirt for $2.00 and Emily’s Angry Bird underware for $1.00.  Crazy kids!  Marcus was excited to do that for his birthday.  After that, we asked Munch what he wanted for dinner and of course, he wanted chicken nuggets.  That wasn’t available—so we got hamburgers. 

I have to tell you a funny story about chicken nuggets.  We were in Korea and they served us some interesting food at a restaurant.  Marcus was really hungry and didn’t want to eat it at first.  Then I heard him turn to Ashton and in a serious voice say, “Let’s just pretend it is chicken nuggets.”  I thought I would die laughing.  That has turned into a classic saying for us—“Let’s just pretend it is chicken nuggets!”

We finished off our celebrations by coming back to Botevy’s and eating by flashlight because the electricity was out, which is a pretty common daily experience!    We had cake and he opened his few little gifts.  A pretty simple birthday—but he loved it.  It was a fun day.  Hard to believe that my baby is six years old.  What a birthday to remember!