What's up?

Things are ticking along nicely at the moment. We are really feeling like this is home and where we belong right now.

We found a restaurant that does some non vege food so we did a family outing the other night. It was nice to go out all together. The place was a somewhat on the grubby side and we were led up an ally way to a small concrete room with two tables in it. They had about 6 of these rooms and they all have a curtained doorway. Obviously word got out that there was a foreign family in a cubicle and we had people pulling back our curtain and standing and staring. It was quite funny really. DC would ask "Can I help you?" but they would just smile and take photos. The food was outstanding though and we have had a few days to test that our stomachs did not get upset either. I would definitely go back again. Pepper chicken and chili chicken was divine.


The kids (+Dad)  are busy building a tree hut while they have 2 weeks holidays and the boys continue to.... well.... just get muddy. The weather has cooled off a bit and we are getting a bit of rain which is nice but we are still awaiting the coming of the real monsoon.

Bubs is doing all the right things as far as I can tell... moving well, belly getting bigger. Overall I am feeling really good. Here's a pic of my belly at 25 weeks as requested by my little cousin who is also expecting. It's been a tough road for them having kids but now they have a cute little adopted boy form Korea and a baby on the way... I am so happy for them.

Blink and it's gone

Another week has flown past all too fast and yet not fast enough. I love the fact that every week that goes brings us closer to the arrival of bubs and that excites me. My parents are booked to fly over on the 20th October so hopefully bubs will stay put until they get here. I am looking forward to showing them a different side of India.

DC and I have taken on more responsibility here at the girls home. We are now keeping the accounts, organising the budget, paying the wages and general money business. I have been doing a bit of training with the staff on leadership but in a pretty relaxed way. It's more of a topic with discussion and it has been going really well. We are really seeing the heart of the Dorm mothers now and they are becoming friends. There is a real feeling of "team" and working together. No hierarchy, just healthy encouragement and learning how to deal with issues or conflict in a biblical way. We are seeing more smiles on faces and the atmosphere of the place has really started to change.
DC has also been asked to start some bible teaching and worship with the older girls. He has not begun yet but it is something we are looking into so that it can be done in a fun and meaningful way and not just another "tick the box" because we and the girls have to do this. Everything can become so structured and dare I say, religious, if we are not careful.

Son 2 fell from a tree a few days ago and is now the proud owner of a cast on his right arm. He's already finding that it is not so fun after a while. We were very impressed with the quick and efficient way the staff at the orthopedic clinic dealt with him. No waiting for hours at an A&E. Sometimes the many little clinics seem to be better than one massive hospital.

We also enjoyed a day in Mysore earlier this week as we celebrating one of the volunteers birthday. We got to indulge in some pizza and coffee from a real cafe. We came home after our day out and had some peanut butter sandwiches on non sweet bread we purchased in Mysore and peanut butter we also picked up. Who would have ever guessed that a peanut butter sandwich would taste like such luxury, Mm mm.

22 weeks preggy shot

All is going well on the baby front. Here's my weekly shot. (Someone needs to tell me to stop slouching) I am the biggest I have been in all my pregnancies at 22 weeks and I look more like I normally do at 27 weeks. It must be the Indian food :)

We have been advised to get a reverse osmosis water filter as the nitrates may be high in our drinking water and the current UV filter will not help lower the nitrates. It can cause problems for the baby called blue baby syndrome. So now that we know we will get ourselves our own filter and a good friend who we called on for his expert science mind has given us a do it yourself method of distillation. It might take a little too long to get the amount of water we need though hence why we will get a RO filter.  It's more of a precautionary thing really.