I love my long hair. Or rather, I should say, loved. I love it when we visit live in California, where it rarely gets over 75. Here, however, it’s just plain hot. The weather here has been amazing the last three months. It’s been cool in the evenings, we’ve even been wearing long sleeve shirts and sleeping with a blanket! But, somewhere a switch was flipped about a week ago, and it’s warm. Thankfully, it still cools off in the evenings, but it scares me that we are already entering into summer! With all that being said, I’ve been wanting to cut my hair for a while. I begged and pleaded with Brandon, hoping he would just chop it all off for me. He said for the betterment of our marriage, he could not! I was pretty bummed until Curtis and Danielle got here. I casually mentioned the idea to her, seeing how she would feel about it, and she was up for the task!! I kept reasurring her, that because I wanted it cut SO bad, I would happy with no matter how it turned out. Turns out, it was a good thing she did it! She thought we should research a bit, and we ended up watching a very informative video about how to cut hair at home. With our utube video under our belts, we set off for the task. I had four pairs of scissors for her to choose from. Turns out, they all sucked. She picked the best of the worst and set off! I was so excited, I could hardly stand it.  She did such an amazing job, and we took off about seven inches!! She left a little room for Kelsey, my sister in law, to fix it whenever we come home next. Brandon’s sister does such a great job with hair! She won’t be happy though, cause a few years ago I tried to cut my own bangs, and it took months for her to fix it. I did promise her I’d never cut my own hair again-which I didn’t! Danielle did such an amazing job, and I’m so so so thankful!!

Oh, what a wonderful week! Our friends from our old partner organization, in Port de Paix, came to visit us. They live in La Baie, and they made the long 9 hour tap tap drive all the way here just to see us and the new city we are living in! We have fun with them no matter what we end up doing, so this last week was a blast. It was so great to visit with them, and discover Cap Haitian with them (since we haven’t had much time to do that so far). The best part is they have lived in Haiti for three years, and so all the silly and little things that we love about Cap Haitian-they love too! They can totally appreciate little things like grass, restaurants, paved roads, cucumbers, sliced meat, street lights, and all that stuff too!

Monday we took them out to see a few old forts that are along the coast line. There are actually three in a row, with the third one being the largest and most in tact. It was amazing. There were cannons and canon balls lying around, an old well, spooky staircases and everything!

Later that day we walked around downtown together. Brandon and I have seen most of the main streets, driving around trying to find things we need. But this was so fun to walk the cobbeled stone streets. This church was so cool, right in the middle of the town square. It felt very European too, which does make sense since the French did occupy Haiti for a long time. We wondered around for a while, and the people  we talked to in Cap Haitian were really nice too. I actually found a very cute pair of sandals and a fun new tank top! The first clothes shopping I’ve done since living here!

She is still alive. The chick who was almost pecked to death by her own mom. Turns out, mama chickens will do that when more than three days passes between hatchings. Since she had four chicks, and then about four days later Aretha showed up, she didn’t think it was her chick. And Aretha needed a mom, so she followed her around everywhere. Well, mama chicken didn’t like it, and would ignore her, and finally decided to kill her off.  And so, since she made it through the worst, I decided to name her. Her name is Aretha. She’s black. She can sing. She is pretty cute. Oh, and she’s one high maintenance chick!

Our high maintenance Aretha would wake up chirping in the middle of the night cause her light went out! We changed the battery about five times each night! Brandon didn’t wake up much, and only cared when just yesterday the tiny flashlight bulb burnt out… the special bulb he has to order online, and can’t get here easily. Thankfully, now that she is a bit bigger, she only needs one battery to keep her warm all night now. (I somehow talked Bran into letting me use his spare bulb for her!!) We tried to think if we could give her away as a gift, or put her outside, or something. She needs to be out in the real world! And yet, every time I take her outside with me, and let her roam around, the other chickens come up to her and try to peck her. Basically, since she has no chicken mama, they think she is fair game. Her mean mom even dive bombed me while I was holding her-and of course I won the battle since I am bigger. I think Brandon will hopefully build her a little pen soon….