Happy Birthday Abby!

This month we celebrated Abby's 7th Birthday! Where does the time go? We took a group of Abby's friends to the Museo de Niños, a.k.a. the Kid's Museum to celebrate her birthday in style! I could hardly keep up with the group, being the group photographer! Below is a picture of Abby with her friend Isabel.

Here's the gang in front of the kid's museum entrance, with Olivia.

Abby posing on the letter "A".

Olivia wanted me to take her picture so badly but couldn't quite reach the hole where you put your face! What a cutie!

We attempted to get everyone leaning the same way, and then staggering them, but we just couldn't coordinate 6 girls to get everyone in the photo! The girls are sitting on a painted ox cart - a traditional symbol of Costa Rican culture.

Isabel on tin can stilts.

A fun day at the museum! The museum itself is actually a renovated prison with other exhibits as well.

Abby opening a rainforest book I found here in English and Spanish.

Unfortunately, I made Abby's cake the day before while babysitting a friends three kids. One of the twins decided to turn all the burners and the oven knobs on high while I wasn't watching and burnt the cake! So, we settled for an overpriced Entemann's chocolate cake with a little sugar "bling" from Mom.

Happy Birthday Olivia

Olivia passed a few milestones this month - potty training, her third birthday - our little "baby" is no longer a baby! We celebrated by having a BBQ to say goodbye to our friends, the Depuys, who are leaving for Mexico after a year of language school. We also had a cake to celebrate Olivia turning three. Above, she patiently waits for the chorus of singers to finish Feliz Cumpleaños so she can dig in!



Olivia eyes her piece of choice and gets ready to blow out the candle. She changed her mind between Dora and Diego at the last minute so we went with Diego.



Olivia manages to beat the wind and blow out her candle first!



Livy's present from Grandad and Grandma - a talking rocket ship from Little Eintsteins. It was coveted by all!

From Grandma Rose - a talking "Jungle Book" book and a search and find Nemo book!

The weather was great so we broke out the kiddie pool and sprinkler for an awesome afternoon!

Fun in Florida

March has come and gone without an entry! Well, I thought I'd share a little about our recent trip to Florida to visit Grandma and Granddad. We were graciously invited to spend a week or so with Ron and Irene in Bonita Springs. A wonderful family gave them 6 weeks in their condo, free of charge, to escape the Indiana storms. We joined them for the last week, celebrating Aidan and Dave's birthdays at Disney World. Since they have a birthday promotion this year and Livy was still under three, we didn't have to pay for a couple of tickets either! We also had airline tickets we had to use from last year's mess up with immigration, so overall, this was a pretty inexpensive vacation - what a blessing!

Three generations of Graef men - Aidan, Ron, and Dave spending the day at Epcot!

The Graef girls - we spent the day at Magic Kingdom!

Here we are on the balcony of our condo in Orlando - a chilly and unseasonable 38 degrees! We went to Walmart the night before to buy some pants and warmer clothes!



We actually celebrated Aidan's birthday at the Zimmer's house on the way to Orlando. She made a great Mickey cake for Aidan and her kids drew us adorable pictures to welcome us. It was so good to see Kellie and her parents drove in also to visit with their former Pastor and his wife!

Despite the cold in Orlando, most of our time was spent in beautiful Bonita Springs. We enjoyed attending a Bible study in Spanish, watching the sunset over the Gulf, and the great weather. Mom and Dad not only spoiled Aidan, Abby, and Livy with Reese's Puffs cereal, Moose Tracks ice cream , and all their favorite goodies, they spoiled Dave and I as well. One of the perks of being so far away sometimes - coming home is always a celebration!