A trip to the ZOO!

This past Tuesday we had a wonderful trip to the Moscow Zoo! It was a beautiful sunny fall day and we enjoyed every minute. Our friends the Hunsuckers were able to meet us with their two children Jaan & Raia. Caleb & Jaan are only a month apart and I call them the 'Best Buds'. I enjoyed watching them together more than the animals :)


Jaan had just celebrated his 3rd birthday so although it was a bit late we had another cake with candles for him... I asked Caleb to go over and stand beside Jaan so I could get a picture of them together; Caleb got up from seat went over and serenaded Jaan with his own version of 'Happy birthday..' - it was so cute!


Here's Raia (L) and Johanna together - they both have blue eyes and blonde hair and so sweet together!


One thing that struck me was the difference between the zoo in San Antonio - in the States everything is in their *natural habitat* and you can hardly see the animals. In Moscow we were sooo close to the animals with just a concrete valley and simple iron fence. Believe it or not I hardly used my zoom to get this picture.. it was that close! When I was tucking Caleb into bed that night he said the lion was his favorite.

Caleb feeding bread to the ducks


Not the best picture, but I have a picture of Caleb on his first birthday sitting on this same walrus.



Caleb & Jaan watching the monkeys


Rachel thought it so wonderful that Raia was walking already. (she's a few months older than Johanna) She told me on the way home that we 'had to work more with Johanna to get her to start walking.. it's just so fun to walk when they hold on to your finger.' :)



Caleb & Jaan were just tooo cute together in their matching dog hats!

They're ENGAGED!!

I'm happy to report our dear friend Chris Brudi (we both knew Chris from back in 1995 when we were both single - I was actually friends with Chris' sisters) and the lovely Camilla are engaged! Camilla is from up in Siberia, but has been living in Moscow the past three years working as the translator for Joyce Myers television show. She is an amazing young lady and seeing how God brought Chris & Camilla together just further deepens my awe of God's Sovereignty. They have so many common interests; and yet are such *opposites* in personality that they wonderfully compliment each other. Yes, if anyone needed a 'help meet' it was Chris (hee hee!) and God brought along someone just perfect! We are mainly excited (selfish motivation!) because Chris & Camilla are planning to live here in Nara-Faminsk for about 4-5 months every summer to help do camps & ministry. Please pray for Chris & Camilla as they have many major decisions to make this next week - mainly where to marry; and all the lovely visa paperwork to submit.

In other news.. it's been raining here for 3 weeks now!! I mean torrential rain.. all.day.every.single.day.every.day.every.hour Okay, the kids have major cabin fever but we have gotten off to a good start in school, so yeah for that. Rachel was to be baptized on Sunday, but due to the rain it was cancelled and we hope to have it this Sunday if the weather is nice. Last Sunday there were exactly 40 for the Bible study!!! Poor James doesn't know what to do.. I mean that's a lot of people to fit in a one-room apartment. He and Andrei are trying to figure out a way to have more home Bible studies during the week in apartments scattered around the city - be praying for wisdom for them!