We celebrated Father’s Day this past Sunday, after a week-long countdown calendar sponsored by the kids. The celebration started with an book written by the kids. Isaiah begins the story and then each child (including Micah) adds a following page. It make for a very interesting storyline. The kids also gave Josh a game – Dixit – except they made all their own pictures. We played the game the Wednesday night of that week. Thankful for Josh and the wonderful daddy he is to all our children.

In other news, we attended the Kanes’ graduation celebration last Friday night for Sophia and Hugh. And here’s an interesting caterpillar picture – you don’t want to touch of of these little guys!

Two days after Isaiah’s birthday celebration we headed to Phnom Penh for a week of errands and visiting. When I asked our kids what they wanted to eat in the big city, the only answer I got was “rice.” Guess our kids are not impressed with all the city options. 🙂 We did eat at Brooklyn Pizza on one of our shopping days. The first thing on our agenda was dentist appointments for 7/9 of us. I was concerned with how Ezra would do on his first visit (with a cavity too), but he did great. The staff was very kind to him, and he didn’t even flinch. After our morning at the dentist we headed to Decathlon for shopping.

Friday morning the four older kids went to buffet brunch to celebrate Kolianne’s 12th birthday. They had a great time. They spent the rest of the day with the Nhoemvans at the guesthouse with us. Besides our travel days, the kids got to spend time with the Nhoemvans every day. Sunday evening we had cake for Kolianne’s birthday and then the kids watches S&S Esther.

Other errands included shots for the three younger kids, shopping, printing of home school materials, etc. We also got together with the Whitaker family for a meal and the singing of Christmas songs/carols. We got to visit with Kim C. and spend a little time with the Queys. Ezra especially enjoyed playing with Jonathan.

It was a good “work” trip, and we were able to check lots of things off our list. Sadly Clara came down with some sort of virus, and then I came down with something too, so we weren’t able to do everything we wanted to, but on a whole it was a good trip and we accomplished lots.

We now have two teenagers in our family! We had a fun time celebrating Isaiah’s birthday starting with his countdown calendar which included a bike ride with Daddy, game afternoon with Mommy, swimming, movie night (Captains Courageous), fresh OJ, and other things. Each day Isaiah had to do a math problem to figure out which door to open next. The week before we celebrated Isaiah’s birthday, he was sick and quite lethargic for three days. We were thankful that he recovered in time to celebrate his birthday.

We ended up celebrating Isaiah’s birthday on Monday, since Sunday isn’t a good day for us to do anything extra. He had the most unusual birthday cake we’ve ever made – a white layer cake with minimal frosting. But that’s what he wanted, so we made the cake together on his birthday. For snack on Isaiah’s birthday we made pancakes. Then the girls played Monopoly with Isaiah in the afternoon. Isaiah chose tacos as his birthday meal – including freshly made chips. After dinner we did gifts and had cake, then we ended the night with Isaiah’s birthday slideshow.

Isaiah is a fine young man who is helpful and enjoys his siblings. He likes figuring out things and making things with wood. He’s faithful with his chores and does extra things like grinding the coffee beans and preparing the coffee at night for the next day. He has been a good student and always expresses thanks for the help I give him with his work. We’re thankful for our first-born son.

May 30th we celebrated the end of our 2024-2025 school year. We’re very proud of how hard all our children worked to complete the school year by the end of May. We didn’t take many breaks, since we started later than normal, due to coming back from the US, and no one complained. They were all ahppy to get the year done.

Our graduation meal was steak strips. We had to delay starting our program, as we waited in the dark for the flying termites to stop swarming at our lights. After our program we had apple pie for dessert and then had a slideshow reviewing the past school year.

During our program, each of our children recited a poem or section of Scripture:

9th Grade – Becca – Judges 4-5
7th Grade – Isaiah – Acts 7
5th Grade – Anna – The Book of Ruth
3rd Grade – Clara – Northwest Passage by Robert Lewis Stevenson
K-6 – Ezra – The Elephant by Arnold Sundgaard
K-4 – Micah – Busy by Phyllis Halloran
Maria – an original composition

After the recitations, I gave out diplomas to all the kids, including a Big Girl Potty Award to Maria. After Micah recited his poem he wandered over the couch and eventually fell to sleep with a slight fever. He kinda woke up for his diploma but then went back to sleep.

One funny story about Micah – when he saw the chalkboard sign I made, he asked to make a sign as well. I left him up front with all the necessary supplies. He really took things to heart and made himself a personalized graduation sign.

Very proud of all our children!