Kohls in Cambodia...not anymore!

As most of you know we have left Cambodia and headed to Nairobi, Kenya.  I'm not really sure what do to about the title of this blog now.  Do I start a new blog with a new name?  Do I just leave this as is as this is what people know?  For now, we've decided to leave as is.  If you have an opinion on this issue, we'd love to hear it.

We will have a final Cambodia post of some of the cool things we did before we left.  I'll be brief, because I"m thinking ya'll are tired of hearing about Cambodia and want to hear about Kenya.  I'll just throw up some pictures of the major evens and I'll move on. 

The photo below is of Emma at her First Reconciliation with Father Charlie.  She did great though I'm not sure what sins she confessed!

Next, we have Emma's 7th birthday.  She had a great time.

Emma at her First Communion.  We were so proud of her! 

Emma did such a great job for her First Communion.  She even did a reading and did a fantastic job. 

The little girl below is Emma's very best friend Sophie.  Sophie and her family came to Emma's big day to show their support.  Leaving Sophie has been the hardest thing for Emma this year.

The photo below is of Emma during her Guitar recital.  Again, she did an amazing job and was the only student playing the guitar.  Her photo was in the Cambodian newspaper!

This photo is of Mattie playing at a Benefit Concert for the people in Japan.  Here she is doing her duet with her teacher but she also had two solos.

The little ones sleeping.  They are really close!

The girls were just being sweet!

The photos below are of our trip to the beach.

 

The photos below are of our trip to Ratanakiri in Northern Cambodia.  We've been wanting to visit there and had a fantastic time.  We had to drive all day to get there but we managed to outfit all the children with headphones and they shared DVD players.  We're such great parents!

We thought this was funny because the statues had on reflector vests.  Not very culturally accurate!

The photo below is of a bachelor house in a village we visited.  The boys will move into these huts, just for sleeping when the are fairly young until they get married!

This is the house for the young girls before they are married.  

We also traveled by by canoe (yes, it had a motor) to a village to go visit their cemetery.  The villagers build these really cool totems and bury their dead in the jungle with these elaborate and beautiful markers. 

People always love to look at the girls!

The following photo is one of many of our friends in Phnom Penh.  A couple of the ladies had a goodbye dinner for three couples that were leaving.  We miss these guys so much and were so very lucky to have them in our lives. 

Then we had a lovely birthday for Phoebe who turned four years old.  Shte was so excited as now she feels like she's a "big girl."

The girls and their beloved nanny, Sopheap.

Then we headed back to the States for a VERY short visit.  It was so fast and we spent much of the time preparing for the move to Kenya. 

Bored at the airport.

 This is a photo of Grandma and Grandpa laying out the rules when all 7 grandchildren were in residence...which was most of our trip.  I think the gist was...don't burn down the house!  Have to thank mom and dad for putting up with all the chaos.

For all the major drought that was plaguing the Southern U.S. we got rained out at 4th of July.  You can see that we still had a great time. 

People from IJM through Shawn a wonderful going away party.  We really miss those guys.

This was our favorite restaurant in Phnom Penh.  The food was pretty good, but we loved it because of how kind they always were to us.  The staff of Freebirds was amazing.  This was our last dinner there...

This was the last morning we all spent in Phnom Penh.  We took this picture right before we took Shawn to the airport.  This is our whole family in front of the Palace. 

The next post will be very very soon and will be all about the move and Kenya.
CIAO!