Goodbyes

Phil's co-workers threw us a goodbye party. Phil's parents also came in during that same weekend to say goodbye.  

Birthday Ice Skating

Aunt Kami and Uncle Brian paid for our whole family to go ice skating for Anna and Kate's birthdays (in April & May). This was the first chance we had to go all together. Thank you, McKannas, for a fun night all together! It was nice to take a break from all our moving preparations and have a good time!

Haircuts

All of the kids wanted haircuts. Because we are moving overseas in two weeks, I thought haircuts were a good idea so we won't have to worry about that for a while once we get to our new home. Kate got hers cut too, but my phone died before I got any pictures of her at the salon. 

Anna's Apple Pie

Anna loves helping me in the kitchen. With very little assistance, she made an apple pie! 

Phil's Kayaking Trip

Phil was able to go kayaking for four days with some friends from church. They went 50 miles down the Current River in Missouri.  

House Sale

While Phil was gone on his kayaking trip, I decided to have a house sale to try to get rid of the rest of our house things. We have been selling most of our stuff on Facebook, but wanted to get rid of the rest a little more quickly.  We were able to get rid of a lot of stuff. Here are just a few pictures of things were were selling. 

Hanging with Kanani

Our friend, Kanani, lives overseas and comes back to visit in the summer. We have had such a great time hanging out with her at the zoo (It was super hot!), the pool (where we also saw other friends), Monkey Joe's, and in our kitchen. She and Anna made some cookies! We are always so grateful for the time we have with her.  

Mailing Our Passports

We received our letters of invitation and were able to fill out our visa applications. We mailed our applications, our passports, and some other forms necessary to receive our visas. We now wait. We also bought our one-way plane tickets for August 14th!  It will be here soon! We are on our second contract on our house and had our inspection last Friday.  We are waiting to hear if there is anything they'd like us to fix. We are set to close on August 9th.  We are slowly selling all of our things. Each of us will keep a bin here with things that are special to us. The kids also get to pick things that go with us.  They will each get two bags (50 lbs. each) to take. 

Training in Florida

Our training in Florida was very helpful, plus, we got to spend time with family that lives and works near where we were training. Our kids were in classes from 8-4 every day learning about how to live cross-culturally, plus, they got to swim, play games, and read books (all their favorite things). We ate all of our meals together, but then the kids went to class while Phil and I went to class to learn how to teach kids that live in a country other than the one they were born in. We were so glad we went and learned so much. The presenters were fantastic, the cultural simulations we did were very real-to-life in creating cultural stress, and the people we were with were inspiring. We spent time with Phil's sister, Vanessa, and her family in the evenings.  We all had a good week! 

John napped every day for two hours. He was exhausted! 

This was a favorite that we passed every day going to lunch and dinner. 

Yes, there were enough beds for the kids. They always choose to sleep all in the same room. 

Phil with his sister Vanessa

A family going to a new country

Cousin Izzy & Anna

Ms. Lynee 

Uncle Eric, Aunt Vanessa, Izzy, Andrew, & Matthew 

Ms. Kitty & Ms. Amy