Hi on Sunday morning as we look over the ocean

Hi Everyone - Hannah and I are down stairs in the restaurant eating breakfast. Peter and the boys are staying back in the room and having pb & j sandwiches for breakfast instead. We are leaving in a bit for church and visiting with our lawyer Gordon and his family. We are looking forward to that.

The pictures above are from Saturday afternoon. The lady is Hannah's birth mother Annie. The 4th kid is Hannah's 1/2 brother Joshua. But to explain the pictures - I have to back track. We ran some errands yesterday morning, and returned our rental car for one that was almost 1/2 the price. Well - sometimes you do get what you pay for. This current rental car is so tiny - you just have to laugh. And it is a stick shift which Peter never learned - so I'm trying to drive it without giving all of us whiplash. The front seat passenger can't get out of the car without someone opening it from the outside, because the inside handle is busted. The back seat passenger on the driver's side can't get in the car because the outside handle is broken. It feels like you are driving in a big empty tuna can.

After our morning errands/shopping (bought some beautiful woven handicrafts for home) - Hannah had a headache and a fever. She and Boston stayed back in the room with Peter and both napped. Jacob went with me to get some more groceries (there is a small frig in room so we can't buy much at once and bugs come on any food that is out) and pick up the tuna can rental car. We had just returned to the room, H & B were still sleeping and we had a knock at the door. Hannah's birth mother Annie, her husband and her 3 year old son Joshua stopped by. Annie brought Hannah two beautiful gifts (a vase made out of shells and a big beautiful sea shell) which is the first picture above. Then they stayed and visited for hours. You can imagine that the visiting is especially interesting with our language barrier and with 8 people in a hotel room! But we did learn several Marshallese phrases which have already helped us communicate with Boston. Eventually we all went to dinner, then we stopped by Jacob's birth family's home to reschedule our visit with them for another day - since it didn't happen yesterday. Then back to the hotel for bed. At the store earlier - I had purchased a snickers bar for myself and a kit kat for Peter - a taste of home. I ate mine last night in the dark with a cold Diet Coke in a can while Peter and I were talking about the day and the kids were already asleep. Simple pleasure for sure! I told Peter I needed that snickers like someone needs a drug!

From the second picture - you can see that the kids had a great time playing together. In fact - since there are kids around everywhere here, our kids are playing with kids everywhere. In the morning, while I was looking at the woven handicrafts, and Peter was standing outside the store with the kids (since Boston didn't get the look but don't touch idea inside the store!), the kids made new friends and played for those few minutes. And as you can see from Hannah's silly crossed eyes in the 2nd picture - she was feeling fine again after her rest. Maybe she was just overheated earlier from being out in the heat in the morning. Jacob and Hannah both complain about the heat here at times.

Okay - must finish this and get upstairs and packed up for the day. Kommol tata - which means thank you in Marshallese! Love, Lois