A Father and Son Project

The weekend was pretty quiet.  We had one trip down into Tegucigalpa on Saturday to meet with our lawyer to work through some financial details, take care of some paperwork, and to get copies of a number of documents so we can travel with the children up to the coast for a week at the beach.  We have enjoyed spending a lot of time around the house, getting to know one another and learn how to communicate.  I think we are forming our own "Crossgrove Spanglish".  We have spent a lot of time playing, we have had school every day, and today we had our own time of church.  We read through the story of Daniel and Goliath, sang some songs together (they were taught many Christian songs at the home where they had lived), and then we prayed together.  Although there has been a lot of laughter and smiles and of course some ice cream...we have had some melt downs from each of the children...I even had a melt down the other evening as we were working through some of the details with the adoption...Pray for Alicia as she deals with all of our meltdowns.  Actually, we are learning that Alia's meltdowns are the stiff-body-tantrums, and Ashton's are the go-away-and-sulk.  The language barrier makes it harder to work through these times, but we are learning how to work through these times with them.  If you are wondering, my meltdown results in a lot of complaining.  I really have to work on that.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

 The bike that Ashton and Alia have been riding did not have air in the tires and the tires were dry and cracking.  With them riding on the bike, the tires have been getting torn up, so we bought two new tires and tubes and an air pump.  I had my first father/son project with Ashton this morning as we fixed the tires on the bike.  He loves riding around the porch and up and down the yard.

 The kids took our two umbrellas and made themselves some shade to enjoy an afternoon snack.  And the next picture is when Alia saw me with the broom, she wanted to sweep.  I figured she would sweep a bit and give back the broom, but she ended up sweeping the entire porch. 

 We walked down into Santa Lucia for lunch, and walked by the lagoon, which is inhabited by a ton of turtles.  We stopped to try to count them, but eventually gave up.  We walked through the main part of town, and found a great restaurant for lunch.  Alia tried a sip of Alicia's cappuccino, and had a look of surprise, disgust, and yet wanted more.  It reminded me a lot of when Ariana was 7 years old at her uncle's wedding rehearsal and had a sip of cappuccino...it was the same look.

Alia and Ashton have both wanted to wrestle and play.  My arms are sore from throwing Alia in the air, but I love the smile and the giggles that come with the game.