Keeping Up With the Joneses - November 2021

And now they're 9!

APOLOGIES to everyone who actually still checks this blog (those of you on a mailing list I don't feel so badly about, ha ha). I thought I had published this way back in August. Instead I'm publishing in NOVEMBER - the month of their due date when they were expected to be only one baby! 😁 Forgive me! I don't know what happened to my brain. Blame it on having 5 very busy nine-year-olds or COVID coming (finally) to our area and requiring me to work way, way, way more than usual. Both of those is probably true. But the Lord is good, and we're on the other side of this wave (I trust/hope/pray), so here's the birthday post, at long last!!

August 9th:

God is so good, keeps going through my head. How far we've come! How kind He's been! How much we love these kids He's blessed us with!

Portraits by a very dear friend; clothes from our dear Aunt Mickey 💞:

Will Edward

David Stephen

Seth Jared

Marcie Jane

Grace Elise

We didn't want Isaac to be the odd man out! This photo is so perfect for his personality and silliness towards his siblings. They LOVE when he plays with them. He graduates in 18 months! 😫💙

With a brother from another mother (the photographer)! He fits right in! 😍

This was the birthday of the LEGOs for everyone except Marcie, who's our glamour girl! She got a fancy, long, sparkly dress. 

This girl loves her dress-up!

We had a waterslide party with all their friends. When the kids asked for How to Train Your Dragon cakes I had to enlist this lovely colleague to do it for me. These were not only amazing to look at but DELICIOUS: dark chocolate ganache and white chocolate peppermint!

Isaac is amused, Gavin mildly so, but the dog is NOT.

And a cool extra photo of the helicopter on Mt. Wilhelm. (Gavin was giving high altitude training to our newer pilots who are also great friends. We thank God for sending them!)

Summertime, and the living was easy (and fun!)

It's a joy to live on a beautiful, rugged island in the Pacific Ocean. Although we're in the Southern Hemisphere and should think of this time of year as "winter," we still call it summer break. Old habits die hard.

We drove to the beach and swam in a pool back in June:

Chicken fights between Will and David on Kori's shoulders and Marcie and Seth on Isaac's shoulders!

David loves hamburgers, and we all love eating by the water with palm trees.

We took a boat ride to a nearby tiny island.

We drank a lot of soda. (Marcie) It was hot there!

A gorgeous location for photos, but I think this was a former WWII battery.
If I recall correctly, there used to be gun mounts and stone walls to hide behind.

A friend of Isaac's explains storm clouds to Will. 

The kids loved kayaking in the bay!

Seth at our "campout" just down the hill from our house

Special friends, then and now, at the town nearby

And now everyone is happily back to school, but we sure enjoyed our fun "summertime" as a family! Thanks to the Lord for His kindness and provision of the rest and recharge we needed!

Keeping Up With the Joneses - June 2021

Takeoff from Maweroro

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A BIG bump!

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Isaac the Penguin

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Adventure Through the Dirty Water Gap

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School photos and the Joneses on Spring/Fall Break!

 Hi all,

It's "Fall" here, but Spring Break back in the USA. Either way, there was a school break we took full advantage of to get our kids off the mission center. We all had a blast!

But first, official school photos by my lovely friend Anita! Seth is in first grade (because of spending so much time in the hospital and hooked up to feeding and oxygen tubes the first year of his life); the other quints are in second, and Isaac is in 10th.

Swimming at the pool in Goroka, about 2.5 hours away by road. Seth is on David's shoulders!
The kids are big enough now to do "chicken fights" with each other. Gracie is on the left.

View of Goroka from a small mountain overlooking the city.

Eating in the restaurant. The young PNG man is Isaac's best friend and classmate Kori, and the lovely young PNG woman is our surrogate daughter and babysitter extraordinaire, Dilu. She's been a delightful part of our family for the past almost seven years - a HUGE provision and blessing in caring for lots of toddlers back when she was only 11 years old! (Isaac is pretending to be unhappy with me for taking a photo, the stinker. I didn't notice in time to take another one.)

Mom and Marcie, or "Me and Mini-Me," in our lab coats. She asked me to bring mine home from the lab so we could get this photo together. (Hers is from a play vet set.) I've been in charge of all the ordering of lab supplies and writing operating instructions for our many new machines. Busy but fun!

I've started helping out at a weekly Saturday "café" for our community. The roof of our house is visible in the far background, just right of center, so the café is very convenient for the kids and me! (Which of these children is NOT mine? Yup, the one in the blue hat. He might as well be, though, he's so essential to their fun! We love him.)

Easter Sunday before our "candy hunt" - no Easter eggs this year. Shipping has been really tricky during the pandemic, so things our store used to have are no longer available. My suitcases when returning in February had NO room for more than a couple of packs of candy per kid, so we hid those around the yard. Good enough!
That's not what it's all about anyway. He is risen indeed!

Easter seven years ago! Isaac was at his friend Peter's, of course, his weekend home. :)
Left to right: David, Gracie, Seth, Marcie crying about being held, and Will crawling

The Monday following Easter we drove a couple of hours off our center down a road we've never followed far before. Such adventures!

Exploring and sliding down a hill of pine needles

Marcie mid-jump into a swimming hole we discovered. We had lots of onlookers, of course. Will is standing behind Marcie and Gracie is on the dirt pile on the left.

Playing around the stream bed (Will, Gracie and David)

Gavin with one of our doctors, center, on a recent medevac following a bad dog bite injury. (The patient was already in surgery and is doing well, thank God, although we continue to pray for full physical, mental and emotional recovery!) This was at the Nazarene Hospital in Kudjip - an AMAZING place!

COVID has worsened in PNG, so the Kudjip hospital now has two full wards devoted to COVID patients and they are building more. All public schools are closed to try to slow the spread. Our school remains open, but temperature-taking and hand sanitizer are strictly enforced. 

At this very moment, as I post this, Gavin is up a tall tower installing an antenna.
It's a whirl of gaiety around here, ha ha! (Isn't he cute?!)

Thanks for your love and prayers!

Carrie

Free from quarantine and back into my blessed life!

 It's FULL ON being the mom in this family! I am ecstatically happy to be home again, but oh my, it's hard to breathe! Especially now that it's school break! Sorry I've been so silent. All is well - better than well!

Visiting from across the caution tape (Seth and Marcie)

Lovely after-church visitors! (Isaac and Marcie)

I broke out at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, 14 days after arriving! Gavin looks a bit happy.

The kids had a party planned, including a chocolate, mocha and strawberry layered cake (yuck). Will said he wanted cheese pizza instead of cake. So that's how we celebrated! In typical kid fashion we never got everyone looking at the same time. And the one in front looking like a dinosaur about to attack the cake isn't even mine (but I'd take her - she's adorable). Obviously neither is the little boy on my right in front of Seth, but he might as well be on weekday afternoons! We love our friends!

And here I am comforting Marcie, who got hurt in all the silliness. The look on my face is pretty expressive. Here we go again, but it's GOOD. I love these people!!

Thanks for all the prayers that the Lord honored in getting me HOME. I couldn't be happier!