First Day of School

 How can I have a SENIOR in high school!? We’re so proud of our young man, Isaac, and our big kids who are now third- and fourth-graders and will turn 10 next week(!!!). [Seth is a year behind because of being in and out of the hospital and on tubes so much the first 18 months of his life. He’s a smart little guy who couldn’t start learning as soon as the others could. And he LOVES having his own teacher and class and friends!]

Gavin and I are unapologetically thrilled school is back in session, and the kids couldn’t be happier either! We had a wonderful long break, though, and lots of special time as a family. Thank you, Lord!

Foot update; pray for rain!; snakes and other animals

 Trigger warning: If you hate snakes, you'll hate some of these photos taken recently at a small "petting" zoo.

First, Gracie's foot: We were able to get her an MRI, praise God! They found four broken bones (three metatarsals and a cuneiform bone) and some residual swelling in the cuneiform bone. It was nice to confirm that there was a very good reason she was still having trouble walking, and also great to know that it's NOT a Lisfranc fracture. None of the fractures was displaced and all are healing nicely. Thanks for all your prayers! (Especially yours, Mikayla, granddaughter of Julie! It's so precious and touching that all these kids were praying for Gracie and for Cheetah Speed. 😀) We appreciate prayers that all the residual pain will resolve and that she'll be able to walk well again before school starts two weeks from today.

Speaking of prayer, our valley and surrounding areas desperately need rain. The ground has huge cracks in it and the crops are failing. Some of our friends, colleagues and neighbors have no more water in their tanks (we drink filtered rainwater from the roof), although that's less devastating than ruined crops in a society so dependent on subsistence farming. We appreciate your prayers that it will RAIN soon!

Now for photos (I'll stick the snake ones lower so you can avoid them if you wish):

You can see the crutches were still in operation. She's discarded them now and is hobbling around.

I've always adored parrots. I've had/cared for them throughout my life.

This snake actually bit Marcie twice, but as it was non-venomous and had tiny fangs we all thought it was pretty cool! Her grandkids will be very impressed when they hear she was bitten twice by a snake. The puncture wounds were tiny and hardly hurt at all.

This was a sweet snake who did NOT bite Seth.

Bonus pics: 

Off to dive and snorkel!

Wish this rain was in our area . . . 

A giant geode!

Will makes a darling and dashing co-pilot

This is how Will frequently reads! He's a big percher and voracious reader. His favorites are history and fact books.