Since I’m a huge fan of the birthday week, I thought there is no way I could not do the birthday week for Brandon’s big 30. It is a little tough though, since he’s not a huge fan of birthdays in the first place. But I can’t support that. For his sake, over the years I have toned down some of my birthday hype. Well, the mutual agreement we reached was I will play down his birthday as long as he still plays mine up! It seemed like a fair trade off really. We both wanted to enact how we felt about birthdays on each other (aren’t we so guilty of that? Doing for others what we want… even if someone else really doesn’t want it! I mean, this could be the case where the phrase, “do unto others as you would do unto yourself” doesn’t really apply. Side note: hence why there are so many books about love in marriage, love languages, and all that. We tend to love our spouses the way we want to be loved, when really we need to learn how to love them and show them love the way want too. But as it pertains to birthdays, we’ve agreed to disagree and celebrate them accordingly.

Except for this year.

I mean, it’s 30 for goodness sake. That is huge. Three decades. We are children from the 80’s. That alone just sounds old. And so, as I set up our house for another birthday celebration, Brandon wandered into the room shaking his head at my strange obsession with birthdays. I sternly told him, “I don’t care if you don’t like birthdays. This is 30, and we are still celebrating. Our friends are coming over, we will have food and fun, and you will like it!” He laughed, rolled his eyes, and ended up enjoying every minute of the second birthday celebration! And the best part-seeing the absurd presents our friends came up with! Necessity is the mother of invention, and the gifts that some people gave were hilarious!

And our families were able to get a few packages to him for his birthday too! He was so surprised that they sent stuff just for him, for his birthday!  The good and bad news too, is since getting stuff here can sometimes take a very long time…I think this birthday week could be extended to a birthday month since a little bird told me there are more packages from family on the way!! I’m all for continued celebrations!

LOVE birthday celebrations!! A huge thank you to all of you who sent stuff, packed stuff, used your checked bag to bring in birthday stuff. All of it made Brandon feel so loved and special on his big day!

I love Fall. I love everything about it.

I love the crisp clean air.

I love the amazing burnt colors that the leaves turn into-orange, yellow and red.

I love that fall kicks off a time of baking-I love to bake!

I love wearing scarves and drinking a warm beverage in the afternoon.

 

And seeing as how there is no fall season here, it is something I am missing terribly! But, I have still found ways to celebrate fall, even if they are completely made up and don’t really reflect the season of cool weather, scarves, and bundling up with hot cocoa. Just the other day we were out for a walk, and I found a few leaves on the ground that were a beautiful yellow/brown. The kids around me couldn’t understand why I ran over to it, picked it up and proceeded to take a photo with this dead looking leaf. And just a few days later, an amazing package came from my sister for Brandon and I. And wouldn’t you know it, it was filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies-and all things fall too! She packed in cute little gourds, the funky multi colored corn, fake fall flowers, and a delicious fall candle. It was too much!  Not to mention all the other goodies that she (and even some of her friends!) put together to love on us and spoil us. Thank you sister!

 

The first Liquid Church team was actually the first team to be drilling with the rig. And it was fun to go to the same church/school every day because we got to know the kids, and the kids got to know the team too. The week wasn’t without its challenges though, and halfway through the week the rig broke. Something overheated and a gadget was blown. My handy dandy fix it husband fixed the necessary pieces, but it still wouldn’t work. We prayed over it, slept on it, asked people for more prayer…and the next day we showed back up to the drill site, started the engines up, and it worked perfectly. To God alone be the glory on that one!!!

So the team was able to finish up drilling, but that meant that we lost a whole day. That, coupled with the fact that we were drilling through some tough formations and rock, and it took longer than we anticipated to get the hole drilled. That just meant that the New Jersey team gave up their last day, which was supposed to be a fun cultural day, to finish things up.  The good part was, we found water and were able to set up everything so this school could have a new well. And an unforeseen cool thing? The next team that came-just one week later (also from Liquid Church) and so they finished up the well and had the dedication ceremony! It was pretty awesome to see one team finish up the work from the other team.

Here are some more photos of the rest of the week: