If you're interested...

More pictures of the kids can be seen on their online photo albums. The link is http://www.elsamorrell.shutterfly.com/ .

Flying!

So with kids anything is a photo-op...including a dreaded plane ride. On our flight from Denver to Grand Rapids, we were fortunate enough to have two empty seats by us (a huge blessing as anyone flying with two lap-babies could testify), and Ezra did us a major favor by conking out on one of the empty seats. Elsa was entertained by crawling through obstacles created by Caleb's legs, a huge sandwich, and by watching "Little Einsteins" on our new portable DVD player (THANK YOU, Mom and Dad!). Feast your eyes on these cuties.

Christmas Cookies

"MORE!"

On one of our last nights here in Colorado at Mission Training International, we had a Christmas party. Elsa got to decorate Christmas cookies for the first time ever and it produced such great photo-ops that I have to post a few.

Elsa tasting the fruits of her labor. Elsa showing off the fruits of her labor.

Elsa's First Friend

There are kids a-plenty here at Mission Training International...I think there are close to 30 adults here for these three weeks, and I think something like 15 kids under the age of 10! So there have been lots of playmates for Elsa and Ezra.

Elsa immediately took to this little girl. Her name is Emerson, and is about 6 weeks younger than Elsa. I think this is truly Elsa's first friend. She and Emerson love to play together. They chase each other, tickle each other, give each other hugs, get into trouble together, and basically just have a great time. This is the first time I have seen Elsa and another kid really interact the way they have. It has been so sweet to see.

Emerson will be living in Argentina. Her mama and I are going to try and keep them in touch from across the globe. Elsa has her first pen-pal.

Generations

We've been in Colorado for the past week, attending a pre-field orientation near Colorado Springs. We have our weekends free from the program, so we took off right after the afternoon session on Friday and headed south to Canon City. Caleb's Grandma Morrie has lived in Canon City since she and Grandpa Bob retired nearly 20 years ago. It was a sweet visit with Grandma Morrie, especially at this time in our journey when we're about to leave for the home that she left so many years ago. Caleb spent hours looking through old pictures and reading some of Grandma's great books on Ethiopia and the OMO. He can't get enough of things like that!

The stomach flu hit Elsa on Saturday night, so we were up a lot of the night with her, you can pray that it doesn't get passed on to Ezra or to us.

We are headed into week two of our three week orientation here. It has been great so far, the kids are doing pretty well in their classes while Caleb and I attend the sessions. We have met a lot of great people and the sessions are really good, so we are feeling like this is time well-spent.