Lao Houses

These are typical Lao houses in Khammouen Province. Pictures are from spending the day in a couple different villages yesterday.

Eva's sign language

Nathan is full of great ideas, and one of my favorites has been to teach Eva his own sign language for words he wanted her to say. When she was about 6 months old, he taught her to sign "i'm sorry" after she was disciplined. She meant it too... she wouldn't do the sign until she was really sorry; sometimes that was right away and sometimes it took more discipline. Almost always, she'd give a huge hug after she would finally make herself say she was sorry! Here she is patting her chest to demonstrate.

Here she's tapping her butt to say that she's poopy and needs a diaper change
This is the best one... she taps her head to say "i love you" both in response to one of us saying it first and also on her own. It's the sweetest thing. This is how she ends most days, by telling us she loves us from her bed!!!! So cute. :)

daddy and the kiddos... eva's bedtime

Eva's bedtime, 7:00pm. 

Bedtime is one of those things that we refuse to negotiate with Eva. It's bedtime. That's all. No arguments. She's been extremely responsive and now falls right to sleep, no tears at all... happily actually, except that period when we had to throw out her pacifier, but thankfully that's over! She LOVES her shower before bed, and the latest thing is to take the shower head and wave it wildly around the bathroom while she shrieks with delight. Then brushing teeth, pajamas, praying w/ mom and dad. And then she's out.. usually in less than five minutes! Elijah, now he's another story...

Check out those ears!! What a cutie!

lao or english?

Eva's brain is working hard trying to absorb the two languages she hears every day. So far, she's only saying a smattering of words in either language, yet her understanding of both Lao and English grows daily. We've started having her spend two hours each morning playing with our Lao helper who only speaks Lao and is hard at work to get Eva to begin speaking. One of these days.....

happy and healthy... 3 months old!

2nd cave

There was a waterfall inside this cave! We were able to walk through, though not always on dry land. This is our chemist friend Bruce, who is here helping us with our water lab 

Nathan and Eva. The water here actually had a surprisingly strong current
At the entrance to the cave, cool air pouring from the inside. Natural air conditioning! 

Caves in Tha Kaek!

Tha Kaek has some AMAZING caves, but until now, we haven't had time to see any of them. Over the weekend, our coworkers from the south came for a visit, and our big chance came!! Because of the rainy season, this first one was only accessible by boat. So we all climbed into two very wobbly and very small boats, including eva and elijah. What a blast! Some days I just can't believe that this is where eva and elijah are growing up.

Heading towards the cave


Dan and Anna, some of our coworkers in the south


Here i am, amazon woman in the boat.... never ever ever thought I'd be nursing a baby while floating through a cave in a wobbly boat like this one!


We passed a couple boats of Lao going about their day as we were passing through the cave


Leaving the cave

one more

The roads here during the rainy season are crazy!! Because they're mostly dirt in our city, they get huge pot holes and some are even too difficult to use! This picture is looking down into a section of Tha Kaek.

Roads around here