Flowers Blooming for Jesus: Celebrating independence Day in Haiti and Caleb turns five!

We were blessed to have two July 4th picnics with our American and Haitian friends. July 3rd we enjoyed a supper of hotdogs, homemade baked beans, potato salad and pasta salad. Later we had brownies and homemade ice cream with pop and ice! Those are rare treats here! Our ice cream did not set up because we did not buy enough ice but we thoroughly enjoyed ice cream soup ;o) our missionary friends to the island of LaGonave were visiting, Yben and Laura Dalla and her sister, Tiffany, who flew in for a visit from the States.

Celebrating the 4th

Our yummy meal. The' hotdog buns' are actually a type of bread here.

We had a fun time visiting with each other and then the next morning we took Yben, Laura, and Tiffany to the boat docks so they could go home to the island of La Gonave. After telling them goodbye we drove another hour to the village of La Croix. Our friends, Elwood and Anita Martin are missionaries there and we enjoyed visiting and staying overnight with them. Anita does a wonderful job of running a clinic there and it was interesting to see where she sees the patients. The Martin's fixed us delicious hamburgers on the grill, coleslaw, fresh veggies and Doritos..yummy! We have missed Doritos! Then we enjoyed Anita's wonderful homemade brownies :o) It was a nice relaxing visit and we all enjoyed getting away from the noisy, busy city of Carrefoure. Thank-you soo much Martin's for hosting us in your lovely home! We really appreciated everything!

Enjoying our cook-out

Mrs. Anita had a willing helper with the dishes.

Our happy group with Reggie, their dog.

Elwood & Anita Martin

Reggie and Caleb hanging out

Abby by a huge tree in the front yard of the compound.

Next big celebration was Mr. Caleb turning five. He requested pancakes for his breakfast. I have learned how to make them from scratch and the syrup too so we enjoyed pancakes. Later in the day we made a big cake with Abby & Caleb's help. He wanted a jungle theme cake so using what we could find such as Abby's Pet Shop's and some very cute palm trees that Ben made out of straws and construction paper we were able to deliver a jungle cake! We were quite happy with how it turned out and so was he :o) We made homemade chocolate ice cream and invited Don and 9 of his boys over for a fun birthday party. We brought some decorations from the States and Caleb's siblings had fun putting up crepe paper and making the kitchen look festive. Everyone enjoyed the cake and ice cream and then we passed out some glow sticks we had left over. Then everyone went outside and had fun tossing glow sticks. It was a fun night! You can visit our Face book page for lots more pics.