February Birthdays

Clara and friends!!

February we celebrated Clara's and S.'s birthdays! Danyelle and Hannah brought up kids from CDA to share Clara's special day. Clara's best friend Gracie was able to come up too. They first went down to the river. Clara's favorite spot!!

Clara- 10 years old!!

We all had enchiladas and coleslaw dinner! It was delish!

What is a party without a piñata? Clancy and Clara made this "Snowman" below! I thought it turned out great!

Snowman Piñata

S. breaking it open!

Me with precious A.

Clara requested a ice cream cake that we call "Mud Pie". It was so frozen that they had to use a drill to make room for the candles!!

Drilling in the candles

"Make a wish and blow them out!"

The birthday girl enjoying her cake w/ S.

 Our second birthday is S.'s. He was turning 3! We took a giant chocolate cake that was super yummy!

S. and his big bro and sisters!

Ruth with A. 

When Life Hands You Lemons...

We have started a new chore plan at the Booher house. Without Tia coming to help me each day the kids are picking up the slack! Each child has the same chore for a month, so that they get really good at it. Clara had the chore of "laundry"! This included ironing two shirts a day! Our iron that came with the house has trouble getting hot enough for the cotton shirts. Clara made good and sure that the iron was hot, by waiting a long time for it to heat! She actually had gotten quite good at ironing, so I assigned her two shirts of Rudi's to do while we were out doing some paperwork stuff for the adoption. I thought that I had explained to her that with a shirt made out of rayon, she needed to iron it on a cooler setting... I guess I wasn't clear enough! We got a text from Emily on our phone that Clara had burned a hole in one of Rudi's shirts and was crying her eyes out! We assured her that it was fine and it actually wasn't Rudi's favorite anyway. I was expecting a nice little hole, so you can imagine my surprise when I got home and saw a hole the size of the iron! Clara was a good sport and let me take a picture of her with the shirt! Thankfully, the material, that was now like hard plastic on the iron, chiseled right off and the iron looks perfectly normal. Unfortunately, nothing could be done for the shirt, not even in Bolivia where they fix EVERYTHING!

Clara and the ill fated shirt and iron!

"Look, Mom, I can almost put my head through"

 And here is where the lemon part comes in... We have a lemon tree right across the street that has HUGE lemons. I sent Clara out to pick some lemons and she came back with a jumbo one. I decided to do a photo shoot and blog out of the event! For how big the lemon was it was a bit of disappointment to see how small the inside part to juice was...

Jumbo Lemon!

Really, this small inside?

...Make lemonade!

It was a BIG lemon!!

"The Twins"

Ruth and Paula with their pals, The Twins!

Look who we got to see! "Our Twins" Katerine and Alison are now almost five years old and are being adopted by the Mitchell family. They are doing great! They are jabbering away in English and are still as cute and busy as can be! It was a delight to see them again. We haven't stayed in touch nearly as well as we could have, or should have. I hope that we get to spend more time with them this time around in Bolivia! Our girls still talk about how much they miss them and love playing with them. It is so rewarding to see these girls in a forever family and to have been a small part of their lives!

A favorite picture of the Twins with Paula on their third birthday!

First Campout

Our boys have started getting together Monday nights at Jake and Jen's house for Boy Scouts!! Jake was an Eagle Scout, so he knows all about how to get a group going. We heard about Jake doing Boy Scouts with his three boys back in November. Jake graciously said our boys could join in! We weren't able to get them to the Monday night meetings until January, but to say that they are loving it would be an understatement! Myles is the Senior Patrol leader and is helping out with teaching and leading the group. He takes studying to teach very seriously and can be found with his Boy Scout Manual during most of his free time! Boy Scouts has been a huge blessing and something for the boys to look forward to. They now have goals to work toward, both mentally and physically. Thanks, Jake for letting our boys take part!

The boys first campout was the day before Clancy's birthday and started the day Clancy got his braces on! 

On the way to the camp out!

 Rudi and our boys headed out early to get Clancy to his dentist appointment and then to run errands, before meeting up at Jake and Jennifer's house to head out to the camp site. The camp site they had planned on wasn't open, so they ended up camping just right above our house at Parque Pairumani! It is a good thing they did, because our kitchen faucet came apart after lunch and Rudi had to go to the hardware store twice for parts to fix it. We would have been totally without water if they hadn't "rescued" us! After all isn't that what Boy Scouts are for?

Getting loaded up at Jake's house!

The boys ready for adventure 

Clancy with his new ORANGE braces!

Setting up camp

 Myles was in charge of teaching a skill to the boys. He started with how to properly carry and use knives, hatchets, etc.

Myles teaching tool safety!

Joel demonstrating what he learned!

Jake giving Michael the low down!!

Clancy demonstrating tool safety, too!

It rained pretty heavy during the night, so some happy, but soggy boys got home late morning on Clancy's birthday! The laundry was as fun as I thought it would be!! They are already talking about their next campout with their troop, "Condor"!

Clancy with his siblings and cleverly wrapped gifts!
Happy 12th Birthday, Clancy!!

Little Visitors For New Years!

Over New Years we had some little visitors come to our house for a visit! It was a little less than a week, but it was awesome to have S. and A. with us, in addition to E.! 

We stopped by Tia Techy's house and couldn't find S. when it was time to go! We found him on top of Javier's car! What a little monkey!

Our little monkey S.!

S. and Clara going out to hang the wash!

 Of course, they all needed baths and haircuts and such! I love to get everybody spruced up. What can I say, I just love Bolivian babies!

E. gets a bath!

....and S. gets a haircut!

Little E. was a bit of a cry baby when he first came, but he grew on all of us and we enjoyed having him around!

Out for sun!

 A. brightened all our days with her big smile!! She gets cuter by the minute!

Big girl, A!

Our kids did a play for us while the CDA kids were visiting! Rudi didn't think it was blog worthy, but I thought it was pretty cute!

Audience for the play!

The Cast: "Pirates" Myles and Clancy
"Damsels in Distress" Clara and Ruth

 We took a walk around the block New Years Day... I took my camera along to record the walk! In the picture below we tried to get S. and A. to look at the camera. By the time they looked at the camera Ruth and Paula were looking at them!!

Pa and Ma with baby E.

Rudi with A.

 We also had Tia Techy and Javier and family over for a barbecue. The company was great and the food was amazing, as usual!

E. getting smilier!

 Tia Techy had a couple girls from Hogar 3 staying with her. They had fun making crowns from flowers. They turned out amazing I thought!

A. showing off her workmanship

E. pigging out!

 Our kids and Rudi performed for our visitors. They have learned the Whippoorwill song in Spanish and do a great job of it. It is called "Canto del Guajojo" in Spanish!

Performing for the guests!

All to soon it was time to take the little rascals home! We are thankful we could have a few days with them...

Paula, A. and S.... So Cute!

"Christmas Tour" Final Part

We haven't had internet service since the beginning of the year, hence the long wait between posts... Apologies!

Our last week in Camiri found us busy around the farm and in the house. The girls had a great time frosting cookies one afternoon. Rudi and Emily were able to learn how to make ice cream from a lady in Camiri who owns an ice cream business. We, of course, had to sample some each day to decide which flavors we liked best! 

Frosting Cookies

Some of the creations!

Christmas Eve day Rudi, Myles, and Clancy went with Mark to pick up Christopher at a young people's retreat that was located up over the Inca Huasi Mountain range. This is the road we came over the last time we visited Camiri in April. We ladies remembered its perils and did not sign up for the drive! Thankfully, it was not rainy and so the road was not pure slippery mud this time. It still is a three hour trip one way to the campout spot! 

The Road over the Inca Huasi

Rudi really enjoyed seeing the New Tribes Mission base where the retreat was held. The Depue family has lived here for years, while they do Bible translation work. 

Some of the young people at the retreat!

 After lunch they headed back in time to be home for Christmas Eve dinner. Myles read his book most of the way home in the back, while Rudi and Clancy stood and enjoyed the scenery!

Bookworm Myles!

 For Christmas Eve dinner Carol had prepared a delicious ham, scalloped potatoes, corn on the cob, and a fruit jello, that reminded me of cranberry sauce, kinda! It was delicious.

Enjoying Christmas Eve dinner!

In Bolivia there are lots of traditions surrounding Christmas Eve. One of those is that everyone stays up and lights off fireworks at Midnight. We headed for bed around 10:30 after playing with some fireworks that some visiting children very kindly shared with us. We woke to what seemed like a battle scene. I have NEVER in my life heard or seen so many fireworks in my life. I told Rudi that someone with Post Traumatic War Stress would have died of fright. As it was, it was a little bit much for me! Some of our kids, unbelievably, slept right through it! 

Christmas morning Rudi and Myles helped Mark put up some awnings they had made to help keep the rain out! Myles accidentally broke one of the small window panes in the kitchen window. With in minutes Mark had found a scrap of replacement glass, cut it on his glass cutting machine, and had it repaired. This is one thing that I love about Bolivia. They fix everything themselves and get it done. Not much gets thrown away, it gets used up!

Installing Awnings!

 We then had a most unconventional Christmas Day. This worked out great for us as we are pretty unconventional about it all anyway!!
  Carol fixed us a delicious picnic lunch and then we all got into their truck to drive up to the picnic spot about 45 minutes out of town. After driving up to the picnic spot I was thankful we hadn't driven our car! Check out the river, I mean road below!

The Road Less Traveled!

Loving it!

Picnic Spot!

 For lunch we had baked potatoes, chicken, carrot sticks, potato chips (Rudi's contribution!), and watermelon for dessert!

Emily and Myles serving up the food!

 The picnic spot was right next to a small river. The children all had fun exploring the various waterfalls and swimming holes! It was a gorgeous, hot day, perfect for time in the river. It was considerably cooler where we were than down below in the city of Camiri.

Every kids dream spot!

Check out that HUGE mushroom!

Serving up dessert!

Ruth and her watermelon slice!

There was a spot where the water came right out of the side of the mountain above. Clara and Ruth went and collected some bottles of it for us! Delicious!

Ruth and Clara "Fetching the Water"

We all went home tired, but happy from a great day in the great outdoors!

Paula sacked out in the back of the truck!

 That evening we sang and shared for the last time on our trip.

My kids LOVE to ride this motorcycle with Mark!

Friday we headed for home, staying the night in Santa Cruz again at the New Tribes Guest house. We were able to do some laundry and just relax, before the grueling trip home to Cochabamba.

We had heard that there were gas shortages on the way back home, so we bought a five gallon tank and filled it with gas in Santa Cruz. When we saw the LONG lines on the way back we were glad we had brought it with us. Our tank got us all the way to shorter lines! We felt very resourceful!

The men filling our tank with gas!!

Thanks for coming along with us on yet another adventure in Bolivia. We are always thankful to get back home to Cochabamba. It is still my favorite place in all of Bolivia that we have seen so far!! I think it is the lack of bugs and hot weather!!