Whirlwind Days

We've swung wildly between laughing and crying. We're so tired we can barely string more than 2 sentences together. But we're so thankful and glad! Among very many other things - we recently had the fantastic opportunity to see the plane land for the first time on our airstrip! It's surreal...

 Here is the mission plane. In OUR corner of jungle. Our pilots came over for lunch. And then flew home. This airstrip will change our current travels into our location from 1.5 days of mud, road rage and sneaky truck problems to (take a deep breath) 1 hour. That's it. 1 hour from our village home to the mission home in town.

Mind boggling!

I never thought I'd feel so sayang toward a teeny little plane. (sayang: darling, endearment, sweetheart, treasure) Things still need some refinement, and a few more trees need to come down. But for the most part, our strip is ready to use! Praise the Lord! What an enormous answer to prayer!

In other news. Nadia's kitten got run over by a truck. We all cried (a good indicator of how weary we are... even Phil had to hide himself away for a few tears). It broke Nadia's heart - which then also broke mine. 

Then Quinn began vomiting (the same day, but 2 unrelated events). Then Nadia woke up in the night with vomit as well. After a night of little sleep, we also are feeling sore, belly-body-head achy. Here she is getting a bath and washing her hair - fun times.

And THEN. . .*sigh* As parents we all hear things from time to time that fill us with dread. Today, we heard something like that. She said, "Um. Guys, i need to tell you something." At the moment, we were both working with a slippery, wet 11 month old boy who had just puked all over himself and the porch - and who also had a runny-buns diaper full. We were trying to clean him off, while not losing our own lunch when T3YO informed us that there was something she needed to tell us. "What?!?" we both replied, a bit at the end of our collective patience. "Um. I sort of... accidentally ....dropped-my-dolly-in Quinn's-puddle-of-puke".

blink.

blink.

blink.

"You.... did WHAT?!?!?!" At this point, neither Phil nor i could even muster the energy to say anything. We did all we could to not drop the baby on the bathroom floor while we howled with laughter at the sheer insanity. How could this even be possible!?!? How could she "accidentally" drop her doll...exactly THERE. We just laughed and laughed until the tears were streaming down our faces. Quinn was all soapy and bubbly and reveling in his nakedness, kicking his fat little legs and trying to get free. T3YO was still on the porch, staring at the scene of the "accident", asking us over and over again if we heard her. We couldn't reply. We were laughing too hard. "It's just too ridiculous. This can't be happening..."

Here is the doll - lying in a pool of our son's vomit - right after our 3 year old "accidentally" dropped her exactly in the middle of the puddle.