Valentine's Day

Yesterday morning I woke up and looked over to the night table and saw a rose. Underneath it was a letter from my Sweetheart, on pink paper. Nate, who loves all holidays, came bounding in and gave his daddy the gift we got for him and Hetee and I gave the kids theirs. It was so fun to see the look of excitement on everyone's faces!

Then Hetee and Nate headed off to get the car tuned before we go to UB for the lunar new year on Sunday. Abi, Kenny and I stayed hom and cleaned up and made granola bars. When Hetee and Nate got back I finished up in the kitchen and mentioned that I needed to take a bath before going out for dinner. Hetee asked if I would like him to run my bath water and I said, "sure". As I sat back in a tubfull of wonderfully warm water, somthing caught my eye. On the shelf by my head was another rose and another letter! I read it and smiled to myself. What a great guy!

Then around 6 we went to the Texas Pub for dinner. Hetee brought my favorite CD and asked them to play it. Everything was very romantic until the CD started skipping. We laughed.

After dinner we went to the store to pick up some snacks because we were having some friends over. There was a Coca-Cola promotion going on and with the purchase of about $7.00 USD of Coke products they were giving away cool tote bags. Now, I go goo-goo over tote bags and Hetee knows this. He looked at me with a crazy look in his eyes and said, "Do you want to do something stipid?" I said, "Sure, why not?" So we got $7.00 worth of Minute Maid O.J., about 6 liters (we don't drink coke). And I got my totebag. =)

Our friends came over and we talked and played a board game called "Settlers of Catan". I got another rose before going to bed and woke up to yet another present on my nightstand this morning--a small box of potpourri.

Thanks for the best Valentine's so far, Sweetie. I love you!

Boof sprouted his first tooth yesterday! I had a feeling it would be soon since the poor fella' has been so miserable and fussy the past few days.



Onto another bit of good news...We're moving! In a week or 2 we will be renting a house with a real yard. We are all so excited and can't wait! I've lived in apartments since coming to Mongolia 9 years ago and am soooo ready to get into a place that's on the ground and has a yard so that the kids can run around outside and we can enjoy the fresh air and sunshine!

Here's a list of things I will NOT miss about living in an apartment:

• having to walk up (and down) 5 flights of stairs with 3 kids, Abi's bobby, a backpack, a laptop, and 4 bags of groceries.
  
• noisy neighbors beating each other up next door and scaring the kids
• stinky smells coming from the 4th floor
• frozen loogies in the entrance in wintertime
• entrance smells
• people knocking on the door asking where number such and such is

At the same time I feel a bit sad leaving this apartment. Abi and Kenny were born here and we have Nate and Abi's heights measured on the doorpost in Kenny's room. Thousands of wonderfully blissful and uplifting memories fill my mind when I think about our 5 years here as a family. It will be difficult to leave but I am looking forward to the experiences my children will gain from having a yard with a garden, 40 black currant bushes, a greenhouse, a playhouse-gazebo and other Missionary children (A Brazilian family working with YWAM lives next door) in close proximity. Nate and Abi are overwhelmed at the thought that they will be able to go out and play whenever they want. They're not able to do that now because of the busy street and strange neighbors.

Anyway, here is a picture of the house! I'll post pictures of the interior once we move in. We're taking care of some repair work but should be done in a few days.


I'd better sign off for now. I had a little "accident" tonight. I was brushing the kids' teeth and went to put something back on the bathroom shelf when the index finger of my right hand slightly brushed against my make-up basket. When it did, a piece of the wicker (or whatever you call it) went under my nail all the way up to the cuticle. Go ahead and shudder... It hurts like crazy now and it's throbbing. Makes it hard to type!

Is it just me or is she super cute?!