Almost Thanksgiving?!

Did I say that Jude is being difficult on my last post? Well, I meant it! What a tough age! The beauty of blogs is that they have archives, and I went back and looked at friends'/family's entries when their kids were around this age, and confirmed that 1) He's developing normally and 2) We'll need some extra patience for the next stretch of time. My sister put it like this, "Every 6 months your kid will become emotionally unstable for a while." Great. That makes 2 of us now in this apartment, so hopefully Ted can manage us! Despite Jude's newfound "emotions", he's still sweet as pie most of the time, and growing little blonde curls, so its hard to be upset with him:) He still gives us the giggles.

We've had visitors from the US for the past 3 weeks, off and on. Our last guest leaves this coming week, and we'll be sad to see them all go. We've really enjoyed having Samuel here for 3 weeks...he's a consultant and has been helping Mike and Ted with the business end of the ministry, and he even lives in my hometown, Franklin TN! It was a busy week last week, but fun. I went to Chapare last Friday, which is the jungle/rainforest part of Bolivia about 4 hours away. Ted and I have to switch off doing this trip since its all day, out the door at 6am and home after Jude's bedtime so one of us has to stay home with him. We checked on the construction of a new orphanage and brought supplies. There's a family living there while its under construction to keep an eye on it, and there aren't any doors, windows, or furniture (which makes me think twice about my complaining!) We stopped by a monkey sanctuary on the way home, too. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but the whole thing freaked me out a little...it was just an area outside with monkeys jumping around and the guide told us they yank jewelry off and steal cameras so...no pictures! We did some hiking and exploring and it was neat to be truly in the jungle, with monkeys swinging from the trees overhead and running across our path!
Yesterday we made Christmas ornaments with the kids at Frutillar and they loved it! Well, the girls loved it mostly:) And you can be a proud owner of said ornaments if you are one of the first 50 people to order coffee in December! We'll have more details on the website soon: www.BoliviasBestCoffee.com.




We had our teeth cleaned last week (for a whopping $14) and afterwards we found an awesome cafe that serves....American breakfast! Mostly. Scrambled eggs and bacon aren't easily found here, so this was huge. Multi-grain Cheerios get old after a few months, so we were totally excited to receive the "tip" and go indulge in a huge, delicious breakfast! It was no Grand Slam, but we'll take it:) And one of the best cappuccinos ever (my no-caffeine rule during pregnancy has taken a hit here, as there's no decaf in restaurants). Last night we had dinner with our friends Ana and Jose and the rest of their family, and the feast continued with enormous amounts of meat on an equally enormous grill. Ted explained to me that language barriers don't really exist when there's meat to gesture at.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we'll be celebrating at the Timmer's house, along with lots of other American families. Everyone is bringing a dish to pitch in (I've got green bean casserole). I'm sure Turkey Day will be a little different in a foreign country, but we're looking forward to it. I'm sure I will miss family an awful lot this year, though (and my dad's dressing!) Everyone be safe as they travel and remember that the Mosey's are SO VERY THANKFUL for each of you.