Asa Turns 7

Our baby is 7!

All kids love their birthday, but this particular kid is insanely passionate about his birthday.  Asa talks about it for ages beforehand, he regularly reminds us what he'd like for a present, and he counts down the months and weeks and days leading up to his special day.  Thankfully, this kid has a mama who likes to make birthdays memorable!

Asa wasted no time on Friday.  As soon as he was awake, everyone else was awake because, ahem, it was time to begin the birthday fun!  In a former life I used to be a morning person, but that life is so far gone I can scarcely remember it.  Being woken up before I'm ready is not on my list of life goals, but when a Birthday Boy pounces on you at 6:15am, and when he's brought in the cavalry so all children in the house are also pouncing on you, there's not much to be done except try to find your voice and whisper a gruff "Happy Birthday" to the overexcited little imp.  And then, somehow, you have to get up lest Mom and Dad's bed turns into a bounce house.

This ball of energy is now 7 years old!

We always start birthdays with a present or two.  Who needs breakfast when there are presents to be opened?  Asa has asked for a watch for the past several months.  His BFF Jack acquired a watch earlier this year and the melody of jealousy has rung deep in Asa's soul ever since.  He had to wait quite awhile, but he finally got a watch.  And the Lord was gracious to let me find a dinosaur-themed watch in Nairobi recently, which makes it all the better!  Asa faithfully told me the time throughout the entire day, and he hasn't stopped since.

I always do a small photo shoot with the boys on their birthdays.  We don't have school photos like so many other families, but we have birthday photos.  It's what I can do.  I took a ton, but here are a few besides the photos at the top/bottom of the post.

A visitor from the States earlier this year randomly brought us a cake mix: Funfetti Oreo!  Caleb declined it for his birthday in May, but Asa was all about it.  It tasted pretty good!

He wanted a jungle cake, and I was gearing up for some fancy frosting maneuvers, but all he really wanted was to put a bunch of animal figurines on top and create a jungle scene.  He picked out the animals and foliage and even told me exactly where to put them.  It was the easiest cake I've ever done!

We invited the "boy families" to join us for cake and it was a simple, lovely celebration of our son.  He was a very happy kid!

The next day we did a "boys trip to the bandas" to continue the fun.  We hadn't been up to the mountain in a few months and I'd been wanting to do a boys trip for awhile, and this was the perfect opportunity.  We invited two of Asa's buddies to join us and we piled them into the car and went on an adventure.

The road to the bandas (i.e. the Chogoria Gate for the Mount Kenya National Park) is a well-maintained dirt road straight through the forest all the way up to the foothills of the mountain.  It's been raining off and on, however, and some sections of the road were bumpier than usual because of ruts that have developed.  The boys had a grand time as the car bounced down the road.

Other sections of the road were super muddy and had deep ruts from other vehicles passing through, and one particularly bad section saw us barely making it ourselves.  The car couldn't get through all the mud and we had to back up and put it into a lower gear to try again.  That didn't work either so we had to back up really far and get a good running start.  By God's divine grace, Eli somehow maneuvered the car through the thick mud and slimy ruts and we got through to make it to the end of the road.  God was so gracious!  I was praying in the front and the boys were praying in the back, and Eli made the car work super hard to get us through but by golly he did it!  We were even more thankful as we later went down the road and encountered two cars completely stuck in the mud, unable to go forward or backward.  A group of people had cut bamboo branches to lay down and give the wheels some traction, which eventually worked for one of the vehicles.  Other people had given up trying to get through and had just parked their cars further down and were walking the rest of the way up the road.  It was a long walk for some folks.  We were extra grateful the Lord allowed us through with five little dudes in the car!

We had a marvelous time at the bandas.  The fog was thick at first, but eventually cleared away and the sun even popped out for a time.  The boys ran around and climbed trees like usual.  They even got to do some archery - something a new restaurant offered for outdoor entertainment.  It's a boy's paradise up there!

So it was a wonderful weekend of celebrating our Asa Bubba.  He is a definite extrovert and he reveled in the social time and the extra attention.  He wants to be in the middle of all the action, whether it's a game at the table or cooking in the kitchen or playing dodgeball in the yard.  Asa is a courageous and confident kid.  He's actually over-confident, but it's still charming at this age.  He's energetic and expressive.  He loves to sing and hum, and he's a snuggle bug if ever there was one.  He loves to read Calvin & Hobbes comics, and he thinks all reptiles are God's greatest creation.  He still can't stay awake long at bedtime and usually falls asleep while we're doing devotions, with his snuggle blanket ever shoved in his face.  He is a bucket of joy, filled to the brim and splashing out onto everyone around.  We are so thankful for this precious son and continually pray that, like his namesake, he will do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord and have a heart fully committed to Him.

Happy Birthday, Asa!

Back to School

Apparently it's Labor Day in America.  All of the "First Day of School" pics on Instagram probably should've given me a clue.  I usually try to remember all our holidays so our kids, being American and all, have a reference point and won't look like ignorant fools someday by asking seemingly ridiculous questions like "What's Labor Day?" which is exactly what they asked me this morning.  But because some of our holidays have no impact on us over here, I sometimes forget about them entirely.  Which is what happened with Labor Day this year.  Ironically, while every kid in the American school system has the day off today, we started our new school year instead.  So much for remembering and honoring our American holidays!

This year, 2/3 kids were ready to start a new school year.  And 0/1 homeschool moms was ready.  It's been a weird summer, to say the least, and I've been in survival mode for awhile, and starting a new school year just wasn't on my list of top priorities.  But because we had to start sometime, and because I really don't want a repeat of last year's never-ending school year (we were still doing school into August, folks...) I knew we just had to get started again.  We have great potential for a normal school year this time around, and starting on time is the first step in attempting to achieve said normalcy.

Despite the fact that we're still trying to finish Caleb's and Kai's 4th Grade math and language arts, we now have two 5th graders and a 2nd grader!

We had a slow start this morning, which was always the plan for the first day of school, and by God's grace we got through everything smoothly and finished at a decent hour.  Even the 4th Grade math book (who is not exactly my best friend these days, but we greet each other in a sort of forced alliance) didn't push me off the ledge.  I could tell people were praying for me.

So here we are, entering a new homeschool year and figuring out a rhythm by ourselves, a rhythm that was never supposed to be.

We are alone as we start the new school year.  Although there are many kids around the compound still, most of them attend the local public school during the day.  The two Kenyan homeschool families on our compound are doing their own thing and follow the Kenyan calendar, and the two other expat families are not here right now, so we are on our own.  That was not the plan, but alas, plans have a way of refusing to cooperate, fickle things that they are.

This entire summer felt rather fickle.  Twists and turns abounded, and there's been a lot for me to process.  I had a list of summer projects - a list that felt very reasonable, mind you - and hardly anything on that list has been accomplished because life happened and the summer flew by and we were often holding on by the seat of our pants.

But we held on somehow and even made some good memories in the process.  I'm thankful for the things that anchor us.  Things like campfires, finding chameleons, hiking to the waterfall, playing at the river, and the persistent sound of hornbills.  These are the things that keep us steady when everything else seems tipsy.

That list of summer projects?  It stares at me most days, and I usually stare back before returning it to the back burner.  It's hard to squeeze things into the cracks of a full life of home and ministry.  Kinda like it's hard to remember and celebrate every American holiday while we're living in Kenya.  We have to choose our battles.  Labor Day did not win out today, but a successful first day of school with only half the people ready to start did win today.  The Lord is gracious and compassionate and it was His kindness that covered us today!