It's so nice to be outside!

Here are Martina and Anneka at the little playground next to our building. It's really nice for Anneka to have such nice playmates right next door! Today I was at a playground with Rebecca and we met a lady who lives very close to me (even though we were across town). She was very interested in getting together again and took my phone number and gave me hers. She has a little boy who is 4. She even spoke a little English! I'm looking forward to seeing how that relationship may develop.



Ella likes Martina's phone because it plays music. Here, you can see she was very possessive of it when Matty came close.



This weekend we went to the river to celebrate Dave's birthday and the kids loved playing in the water. They especially loved finding garbage in the water and pretending it was fish. Nathan is normally very clean and tidy. Anneka may be rubbing off on him... much to his parents' chagrin. The little pond area at the left of the picture is one that Heidi collected water samples from for a science experiment. Her older brother and sister collected water from various places and never got much to grow for the microscope. But Heidi's sample from this water source was FILLED with beautiful specimens!



Ella and Anneka probably make each other laugh and make each other angry more than with any other person. It's fun to see their little personalities together. Thankfully, the anger moments aren't too common. =)

And a cool story: a girl who was on the mountain climbing trip with Leif will be teaching Russian in Montana where our friend Stephanie works with Campus Crusade for Christ. Both are such neat people and seem like they'll connect really well. I just love when God shows us glimpses of how He's at work on a bigger scope. And it's a reminder that He keeps track of people much better than we can!