Celebrations

Wow, sorry for the long silence! I was so triumphant about getting Wi-Fi thinking I'd be able to update all the time, but then these past few weeks have been packed! So let me share a few highlights of some different things we've celebrated over the past weeks.

We bought a car!!

At the beginning of August, after much research and visits to car dealerships by Kyle, we purchased our first ever brand new car. (Buying used cars in India can turn out with some very bad results sometimes, so new is the way to go...sorry Dave Ramsey). We took a taxi to the Hyundai car dealership and picked up our little red i10. Here's a picture from the internet of what it looks like, but this isn't our actual car.

It is bigger than a smart car, but not by much :)  And yes, the steering wheel is on the right side of the car!

Let me tell you, buying a car from a dealership in India is an experience. If dealerships did this in America, they'd sell way more cars! Well, maybe.

When you pick up the car, they take you out to it and have one of their employees come out and do a puja for your car. A puja is basically a Hindu sort of worship time, somewhat equivalent to what we would do as a quiet time, etc. in America. They light incense and put flowers on the engine of your car.

 Then they gave a little container of oil to Kyle to "anoint" each of the tires. He said that he and Landon prayed that Jesus would protect our car as we drove while he poured the oil on. :)

The whole time this is happening, on the loudspeakers they were playing a song that just sang "Congratulations" over and over and over. Then, they gathered around us with a big cardboard key and took a picture of us by the car. Then they had someone run inside and print a copy of the picture and framed it for us before we left (that's the top picture). They formed a little spirit tunnel around us and clapped and cheered and then about 6 people all shook both of our hands and told us congratulations. We felt pretty special.

Then we hopped in the car and Kyle drove us home! (for the record, he had practiced driving several times already in Scott's car, so this was not his trial run).

Landon, Layla and me in the back seat!

Kyle the chauffeur

And, the cream on top of the cake is that my incredible, incredible husband paid the extra money to get an automatic car. YAY KYLE!!!! He knew it would help me feel more comfortable learning to drive in India if I wasn't also worried about remembering how to drive a standard. He surprised me with that on the drive home when I noticed he wasn't shifting gears! What a gem of a husband I have.

I haven't started learning to drive yet because there hasn't been time, but it's coming soon on the horizon...

We celebrated Christina's birthday!!

We had a great day for Christina's birthday. I made chocolate chip banana muffins for breakfast and then we all went out for a VERY fancy dinner, and then came home and had a deep, dark chocolate cake I made (Christina and I share the same taste buds...the more chocolate the better!) We had so much fun at dinner and took the opportunity to take some pictures together since we all looked so nice.

The Fab Five! And the kids :)

Matching in our maxi dresses

First family pic in India!

We're so thankful to have Christina as a part of the team. I really don't think I would have survived the first month without her! We're glad we could make her day special for her.

 Landon started potty training!!

It has been an up and down ride, but Landon is slowly getting into the potty training groove. He's having fewer and fewer accidents, but there's still lots of progress to be made. But he's getting there! The price of diapers and wipes in India (expensive!!!) was motivating to get on the ball, and the marble floors have definitely been a huge pro over carpet in this instance.

So Landon has spent the majority of the last two weeks running around in just his underwear and sitting on towels a lot :)

Yes, he is wearing underwear in this picture

We'll get there eventually!

Five more members of our team members arrived!!!!!

The most  exciting celebration recently has been the arrival of 5 more team members! Collin, Chase, Laura, Jessie, and Meghan arrived on the 14th! They had the same flights we did so everyone went to pick them up from the airport at 5:30 a.m. (not me) and took them back to their apartments to shower. In the meantime I made some breakfast casserole and a quadruple batch of pancakes and everyone came over for breakfast and coffee at 9! It was so exciting to have more people here and we've hung out a ton since then. Now we're just waiting for one final guy, Drew, to arrive in early September after his brother's wedding. Exciting times!