We celebrated Anna’s birthday this month, starting with her birthday countdown calendar (based on The Borrower books). As part of the calendar, Anna’s birthday movie was The Wizard of Oz (a book they’ve heard many times) and she received small gifts, a flute lessons, and flowers as part of her daily calendar surprises. She also made her own chocolate cake with almost no help.

We delayed Anna’s birthday dinner one day so Josh would be finished with teaching at the Pastor’s Bible School out of town. Anna chose tacos for dinner and a panda cake. We had a fun evening of dinner, gifts, cake, and then watching a slideshow of pictures from Anna’s 9 years of life.

Anna is a fun loving girl who loves to play and is very helpful with her siblings. She has done very well with her Khmer lessons this year and is growing in her ability to communicate in Khmer. We’re very thankful for Anna and look forward to this new year with her.

We celebrated Holy Week from Saturday to Saturday this year, since Josh had to leave Easter Sunday to travel to teach at the Pastor’s Bible School from Sunday-Wednesday. We started the week with setting up our tree and starting our nightly Lenten Lights readings.

We did Palm Sunday on Saturday night, since Sunday nights are too busy. And then we took a break Monday to have Josh’s birthday and did our reenactment of Jesus cleansing the temple on Tuesday.

Wednesday night we had our Easter Egg hunt (we like to keep that separate from Resurrection Day). The kids had a blast finding eggs – they each had their own color. It’s always fun to watch the youngest find eggs. Then we had a store where the kids traded their eggs for goods. Prices: water guns & bags of balloons – 3 eggs each; instant coffee, shampoo, face mask, pack of gum, Oreo cookie pack – 1 egg each.

Thursday evening we had our Maundy Thursday service with feet washing and remembered the Last Supper. We have the older wash the younger’s feet – and Micah washed Josh’s.

Saturday morning we did gifts. Then we had a special lunch with some other missionaries from Ban Lung. We ended the week with a short Resurrection service in the evening. We thank God for the resurrection of His Son and what that means for us.

A side note – Sometimes people comment about our traditions and how nice they are – true. But it often comes with whining and complaining – the singing is not always peaceful. It’s hot season, and it’s hot and sweaty. Our younger kids are really tired by 7pm, so adding anything extra is hard. I’m often enduring and not so much enjoying, while I try to keep the youngers happy. The night we had our resurrection both younger boys fell asleep in my lap, and it was so peaceful. Anyway – there’s a little view into what the pictures don’t show. But it’s all worth it. It’s not all easy, so if you want to try things like this….be encouraged. It can be hard and tiring work – but you are planting seeds and giving your kids a way of living life that is so worth it. Thanks be to God.

April 3rd we celebrated Josh’s birthday with homemade hamburgers and all the toppings and baked beans. Dessert was strawberry cake. Afterwards we had a piano recital in honor of Daddy’s birthday. This was Clara’s first time to perform in our piano recital – Becca is teaching Clara piano. All the kids did beautifully. Afterwards the kids gave cards and gifts to Josh, and we ended the evening with the cake.

It was a hot day and evening, as we’re in the swing of hot seasons, but even so we all had a good time celebrating Josh’s birthday. We’re thankful for him and all he does in leading and loving us.

The owner of the Nature Lodge directed us to a waterfall that was not a tourist attraction and a perfect fit for our family. The kids were able to explore and swim, and we didn’t have to deal with being a foreign attraction to the other tourist. There was no one else there both days we went. So relaxing.

The second day we went we built a fire and roasted marshmallow. Josh took the older 4 kids to climb up the waterfall several times. There was also a swimming pond. The little boys enjoyed throwing rocks in the water.