Friday June 19, 2009

Good morning on Friday. It rained this morning, but has already cleared and the sun is shining as I type. We had a terrific day at Laura Beach yesterday (top picture). One of the odd things for us here is how public everything is...and Peter and I are pretty private people. So we drive up to that chain link strand that is the gate to Laura Beach, and Hannah and I got out of the car to pay the lady our $4.50 for the entry fee. Then the questions start - the lady asks me if Hannah is Marshallese, and then asks me who her birth mother is. I'm thinking come on - we are an hour from the downtown of Majuro, 30,000 people live here, she was born six years ago - you can't possibly know Hannah's birth mother...but she was sure that she did!!

Here are some other random pictures - sorry some of them are not zoomed in better - it was so bright on the beach - I could not see much on the camera display! Hannah (above) was in the water the whole time - couldn't be bothered with eating lunch until we were on the way home, and then she promptly fell asleep in the back seat after she ate a sandwich. Boston was saying something very serious to us in the picture below as he ate his pbj sandwich. He really enjoys eating and that has been fun. Just two nights ago at dinner - he saw the cup of soup I had ordered for myself and ate it all. The soup of the day was chicken vegetable, but when it arrived the server said it was really beef tomato. Whatever you called it - Boston loved it and all the veggies in it. So then last night we ordered him soup again - it was "beef noodles" soup and he ate it all. Fun to see him enjoying new things. He really likes chicken (bao) and rice. He uses the chicken pieces like my Armenian Uncle Abe used bread at a meal - as a utensil almost. Boston takes a piece of chicken, scoops up some rice with it, kind of balls it together and then puts both things in his mouth.

Jacob had a great time at Laura Beach swimming, jumping off this fallen tree, throwing a coconut like a football in the water, etc. He was the first one to sleep last night - four hours playing in the ocean tired out even energetic Jacob!

At one point when all five of us were in the crystal clear water - Peter said this was the most fun he's had the whole trip so far - and I had to agree. We had the beach to ourselves for almost the whole four hours we were there. And you might have noticed that the kids always have shirts on - the custom here is to swim in your clothes... We just throw tshirts over swim suits to get the same effect.

I tried uploading a video from yesterday, but it is still uploading after 30 minutes. I will try again another time to post it here, maybe when I have a faster connection.

Today we are taking Boston's birth family to lunch. It's been 5 days since we have seen them. Boston will be thrilled to see them, and then sad to leave them again, but this process seems to be working as he adjusts to our family. Bye for now - Love, Lois