What the Swiss are Hiding

It's chocolate.

Did you really think I was going to talk about politics? That, like riding motorcycles without a helmet, and eating bleu cheese in the evening, are strictly prohibited.

By my husband. But he is away.

But I will be good.

Back to the Swiss: a dear friend here (who happens to be Swiss) invited the kids and me for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Those of you who know my dislike of long conversations will be surprised that I can talk with this woman for hours. I don't even know what we talk about. I just know I enjoy her company immensely. Her husband is a missionary pilot who is sleeping in the bush somewhere tonight, so we felt an immediate kinship since my husband is sleeping in a nice hotel somewhere tonight. But I'm not bitter about that.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening. Looking in her refrigerator as we prepared dinner, I noticed a slightly orange glow coming from the top drawer. Where most people keep yogurt, or leftover salami. But don't keep them together, or the salami will make the yogurt taste dodgy.

Much to my delight, the glow was caused by the chocolate pictured above. When I asked to take a photo of it, she covered up some other chocolate that was not Swiss. "Someone sent it to us" she apologized for the lesser cacao delight. I found the whole experience hilarious, and made a note to include eating Swiss chocolate in my "things to do the next time I'm a place where Swiss chocolate is available."

In other news:

The kids and I were in the banda this morning, reading and playing Dolch word bingo (if you've never played Dolch word bingo, you're missing out! It's never too late to start.) and playing a few rounds of Rory's Story Cubes.

After a few minutes, we saw this bee:

Although we just studied insects after finding another dead bee, we took a moment to study this one.

I flipped it over with my finger after a few minutes, to show the kids its wings.

And to our dismay, it started crawling around, and flew away. I kid you not. It's a miracle!

Our friend Esther came to play in the last week; she and Henry had fun feeding our rabbit. His name is Flopsy Hopsy and we inherited him from some friends who left recently.

We call him Flops, or just Flop, most of the time. We are all about syllabic conservation here.

One of my favorite things we brought with us was this hammock. It's made in a village in Mexico, where they grow cotton and make amazing hammocks from long, thin cotton threads. Pay no attention to the grammatical errors on their website. You may not fully understand this until you live in a country where you have the language of a two year-old. The hammock is amazing. And strong. All four of us can fit in it, and the kids enjoy cocooning in it while I swing them to and fro.

Henry picked some fruit from one of our trees. I can't remember the name of it (see language deficiency reference above), but it is safe, and tastes kind of citrus-y. Here he is washing the fruit before we gobble it up.

We've been following the Bible curriculum of The Gospel Project. We recently talked about Adam and Eve, and sin, and repentance (what parent of a five year-old doesn't talk about this weekly?). Here is Ruby's interpretation of the moment Adam and Eve realized their sin in the garden. At the bottom, Adam and Eve are in heaven. It is very important to Ruby that stories have a happy ending. I love that girl.