“Mom, what vowels make the “g” say “juh” instead of “guh?”

So I was trying to think of some examples and thought of “genes” and “gigantic.”  Then I said,

“But not the kind of jeans that you wear, the kind of genes that make up your genetic code.”

Then I’m thinking, What am I getting myself into, trying to explain what genes are!? But I already started it, so then I said,

“Like the DNA code…”  And I looked at Jake and started to try and explain what DNA is.  But he stopped me, waved his little 5 year old hand in the air as if to motion me to stop and said,

“I know what DNA is, Mom.”

I said, “You do?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Okay, what is it?”

He said, “You know, they’re like the building blocks of life.”

I know this kid well, so I was only mildly surprised at his answer.  Mostly I was just glad that I wasn’t going to have to do any more explaining of a subject that I know nothing about, so I said, “Yeah, you’re right.”  Then he started thinking more about DNA and asked me,

“So is DNA alive?  Like a cell or a molecule?”  So at that point, I said the only thing I could say,

”I don’t know.  Let’s Google it and find out.”  He said,

“Google it?!  What’s Google?”

My little Jakob Hays Yoakum may be able to tell me what DNA is, but at least I get to teach him how to “Google” things!

So we Googled his question about DNA and then we Googled his other question from earlier that day, “Why is it called a “Jack-o-lantern?”

So in case you are wondering or have an emerging little gifted scientist on your hands like I do, here are the answers to his questions that we found…

DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid. DNA is not technically alive. However, it is contained in all living things. Even single celled organisms, bacteria, and viruses contain DNA. It contains genes that carry the information about a living creature. So, it carries the information that determines what a thing will look like, what diseases it may be more prone to, how the thing will function, and so on. It also is needed for an organism to create cells, proteins, and RNA. This is why DNA is often referred to as a blueprint. Though, as stated before it’s not technically alive.

AND

A jack-o’-lantern is typically a carved pumpkin. It is associated chiefly with the holiday of Halloween and was named after the phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called ignis fatuus or jack-o’-lantern.

So last Wednesday he went to his first day of Kindergarten at the International Christian School of Lima!  He was very excited and walked right in like he had been there a hundred times already.  His teacher’s name is Mrs. Mysheel Kerekes.  She is very sweet and can relate to the kids in a lot of ways, because she is a “third culture kid” herself.  She was born in Ecuador, but spent at least 18 years in the States going to school and working, she’s also travelled to other countries like, Hungary, where she met her husband.  There are 9 other kids in Jake’s class, and they also come from different parts of the world–Korea, Mexico, USA, Australia, South Africa, and Peru!  How cool is that?!  When we picked him up after his first day he said, “Do we have to leave? Can I stay here?”  I smiled and told him not to worry, he would be coming back the next day (and the next day, and the next day…little does he know he’ll be going back for the next 12 years at least).  :)

On his way to big kid school!

After school: Jake and James, his friend from Australia that we met several months ago.

On furlough we got to visit my good friend, Kimberly, in San Antonio.  She has three little boys and her sister-in-law made her a sign that she hung up in her house, and I absolutely love it!  Because the sign says it all,

“There’s these boys who stole my heart.  They call me Mom.”

There’s no way to describe how proud I am of my boys and how thankful I am to be their Mama!

Well, as the title says, there are whirlwind weeks ahead!  TONIGHT as I type this we have some short-term AFCers who are arriving here to work with our team for about two weeks.  Among other things, they will be doing some service projects and a VBS for all our kids next week when we go to the Peruvian Missions Summit in Arequipa.  Yeah!  We are so excited to have them here!  When we get back from Arequipa our family will have just a couple of days to pack, because visiting Texas is on the horizon!  It is time for our first furlough!  Wow, August 19 will be the 2 year mark of us living here in Lima!  We are looking forward to time spent with our supporting churches, family, and friends.

The next several weeks are going to FLY by.  And on August 3rd Wes and I will enter a new stage in life–kids in SCHOOL.  Like for real big kid school.  Jake starts KINDERGARTEN!  What?!  I know, I can’t believe it, either.

But let’s not focus on that quite yet.  We have a Texan summer to enjoy before that happens, and a little Derek who will be turning THREE on 4th of July weekend!  Fun times in these whirlwind weeks ahead!

Jakob told me he wanted to play Batman games, have a birthday cake (NOT cupcakes) with M&Ms and marshmallows on it, and he wanted to play home run derby at the park. Well, he got 3 out of 5 of those and seemed pretty happy! We had a great time celebrating him and he had a lot of fun with all his friends.

(We weren’t done singing, so Daniel was trying to keep him from blowing out the candles too early.)

And yes, he has three cakes.  I ran out of time.  My plan was to put the two cakes together to make one big cake and then cut out the batman symbol from the brownies to put on top of the big cake with yellow m&ms surrounding it to make the yellow oval.  But as Wes and Trevor say, “You do what you can.  You don’t what you can’t.”  (And since I had a sick kid while Wes was in the jungle the few days before the party, I don’t win the “Super Prepared and Un-Stressed Mom” award.)  :)

So the first thing we did was have them watch a short Batman cartoon, because we wanted to make sure they knew who Batman really was and who the villains are, too.

After that Wes led them through a scavenger hunt that the Riddler left for them. They had to follow clues that were hidden in certain spots and pop the balloon to get the clue. Jake loves all kinds of problem solving and puzzles so he had a blast. The first clue was my favorite (Wes made them up). It said, “When your face is all grimy and your hands are all slimy, this is where you go to get clean all the timey!”  Jake yelled, “The Bathroom!”  And off they ran to get the next clue.  The last clue led them to “Stomp the Villains,” (lots of balloons with bad guy faces drawn on them) and there was candy inside the balloons waiting for them.

Wes worked hard last weekend to get the playground finished (minus the slide, because we haven’t figured out where to buy one of those, yet). So, that was Jake’s present from us. You can see it in the background there behind Kyle playing tug of war with the kiddos.

And here are some more pics of the playground.

The climbing wall.

The sandbox and fireman pole. And the side where the slide will eventually go.

Not only do I have an incredibly gifted and amazing husband who is an awesome Daddy who can build anything and fix anything, he is also a talented artist. So of course I asked him to make a “Pin the Cape on Batman” game. Turns out 5 is a great age for that game. They loved it!

Wes explaining the game.  Yes, Batman is giving us a gig ‘em.

Friends!  Maddox, Jessica, Parker, Joel, Jake, Daniel, Sofia, Kellan, Derek.  James was in the sandbox.  And I’m not sure where Cailyn is.

Opening presents.

We are blessed!  We love you, Jake, and can’t believe how fast you are growing.  Thanks everyone for helping us make his day special!  Click here for more pics.

One of our interns, Kyle Westbrook, got broken.  Wes and the other Kyle made skimboards.  The first day they went to try them out on the beach Kyle W broke his collarbone.  So a good portion of February Wes was helping Kyle through surgery, recovery, and getting him back to Texas for physical therapy.  Going through something like that can be quite a challenge and leave it’s mark when it happens in another country where you don’t speak the language.  But Kyle is doing great, and he has a great attitude about the whole situation.  We await his return in the coming weeks.  You can read their blog for more details and xray pictures, etc.

Also, in February we were on the hunt for a different car.  We sold the Honda Stream back in November, so when we got back from our holiday vacation we had four interns to drive around, but no car to do it in!  In so many ways God has blessed us with a different 7 passenger car–a 2000 Mitsubishi Montero.  We no longer worry about those pot holes that come out of nowhere or the very tall curbs that we were so familiar with–You know, the ones that, among other things, could tear the bumper right off of that Honda Stream just two weeks after we got it.  And also, we have no worries about all the roads we will take from here on out that are not paved.  Wes (and Jake and Derek) are like kids in a candy store with a truck to roam around in.  We are such Texans.  Here in Peru this car looks like a giant.  But in Texas it’s just your average SUV.

What else?  Oh, the boys started back up at Nido (pre-school) three days a week.  They love it and continue to blow me away with their Spanish skills.  The other day Derek was playing in our backyard by himself and I heard him shouting different words.  Some of them in English and some in Spanish.  He overheard some of our neighbors on the other sides of our walls and was having his own little conversation with them.  And today, when I went to pick them up from school their teacher was telling me about Jake’s dancing skills.  I was like, “What?  Where did that come from?  Surely not from us.”  She asked Jake to show me.  He then proceeded to start break dancing.  Oh! OKAY, that explains it!  That would be Wes’ kid.  Love it.  I’ll have to get some of that on video.  Jake is full of surprises that just crack us up.  Last week he was pretending to play the guitar and REALLY getting into it.  No joke, it was impressive.  We started laughing and Wes said, “Jake, when did you watch Back To The Future?”

The boys are both very into super heroes right now.  Derek especially likes Superman.  And Buzz Light Year.  Jake likes Spiderman, Batman, and also Star Wars.  Jake is about to turn 5.  FIVE.  Wow.  He loves to make things (with the trash, I mean treasure, that we collect in his “making box”), build with Legos, play outside, swim, and go to the beach to play in the sand.  Derek also loves to play with Legos, and is getting better at making his own airplanes out of them.  Jake will spend more than an hour following the directions to make an airplane, a helicopter, or a boat out of his Legos.  It’s seriously amazing.  I help him find the pieces and he puts the whole thing together by himself.  Derek loves to swing in the back yard on the swings his daddy made, he wants to go the beach every day, and he loves to play outside, too.  Since it is summer, often I hear him say, “It’s a sunny day, Mama, can we go to the beach?  Pleeease?”

We looked over at Jake one day and this is what we saw.  It was awesome.

Here’s a pic of Derek as batman.  But this picture is oh, so much more.  Did you notice the q-tip in his ear?  He came up to me with that in his ear, tilted his over to one side, looked at me grinning and said, “Can you hear me, Mama?  Can you hear me?”  I died laughing.  Cutest thing ever.

We had a great beach day last week.  We tried a different beach and it was really cool.  The waves were HUGE.  And scarey.  But we survived them and came out with sand in every nook and cranny of our bodies.  We also got to swim just about 15 yards away from dolphins!  It was a much needed day off and day of fun.  The Thompsons got some great pics.

Our new house

We love our new house and feel like God hand-picked it for us.  We feel more at home now, are saving money with this smaller house that is the perfect size for us, and are already enjoying watching our boys grow up here.  We are praying that God is using our new location and home to further the ministry here.

Saturday morning football with Daddy

A couple of times this month we have enjoyed a relaxing Saturday morning together as a family, watching ESPN with Daddy.

The first week of October I had the chance to go to Brazil for a women’s missionary conference.  It was everything I had hoped for and more.  Relaxing.  Encouraging.  Nurturing.  Challenging.  A time of praise and worship, and fun.

The conference was held at Maresias Beach.

Representing Peru–Jennifer from Cusco, Me from Lima, Rachel from Arequipa

Jake and his creative tool belt.

Jakob is so much like his Daddy in a lot of ways.  He is always creating something, building something, working on something, or asking questions about something.  His mind never stops working and asking questions!  Really, it doesn’t.  Tonight while putting the boys to bed, in between singing songs and saying our prayers, Jake asks randomly, “What happened to dinosaur skin?”  What?!  He usually asks some kind of question that comes out of no where just before falling asleep.  Well, anyway…This particular tool belt came about for two reasons.  Jake had been watching Wes walk around with his tool belt, building the play ground in the back yard.  And he had also been watching Go Diego Go on the TV rescuing animals.  So, naturally this tool belt he made was used for building things needed to rescue animals in trouble.

Carving pumpkins.

Jake's, Wes', Derek's

Okay, I HAVE TO tell a story about Jake carving pumpkins with Wes.  When I came home from the grocery store with three pumpkins Jake could not wait for Wes to get home so they could make jack-o-lanterns.  Finally, the time came and Jake designed the face on his pumpkin.  Then it was time to cut them open and clean them out.  Jake was a bit surprised by the pumpkin goo–the stringy, slimy, gooey mess that erupts from inside the nice, clean, orange pumpkin with a face drawn on it.  Wes asked him if he wanted to help scoop out the goo.  Jake said no.  Wes asked again.  Jake said no thanks, he didn’t want to touch it.  Wes asked again and said, “Oh come on!  It’s fun to get all gooey and messy!” and then he grabbed Jake’s hand and put the slimy, stringy goo all over Jake’s hand.  Jakob literally GAGGED and almost threw up, he thought it was so disgusting!  We laughed so hard and I was wishing I had it on video!  Don’t worry, he recovered after that, and said that maybe he’d be ready to help clean out the pumpkin next year.  Hilarious.

Costumes.

Jake was Spider Man.

Derek was a Boxer.

Since the Fletchers had these great extra costumes for us to borrow we didn’t have to think of anything creative and at the last minute last we did the last two years:

The Incredibles (Halloween 2009 in Lima)

Mormons (Halloween 2008 in Costa Rica)

We didn’t go trick-or-treating on Sunday, but Sofia hosted her class party and we crashed it.  It was quite the party and the kids had a great time and still came home full of sugar and with plenty of candy to stash.  Check out the Fletcher’s pictures if you want to.  You can see Jake in line for the Limbo.

Well, that about wraps up October.  November is already starting off with a bang.  I am in my third straight week of intense language school (5 days a week, 4 hours a day) and Wes will be back soon from the jungle (Pucallpa).  More updates to come and hopefully some pictures from the jungle.  Maybe some snakes, crocodiles, and the Ucayali river (one of the major river systems that makes up the upper Amazon)!

And now congratulations are in order again.  Because my 4 year old has been brainwashed by all the recycling commercials he sees on TV.  When he sees me throwing away anything paper or plastic or metal or glass or anything that looks like it should be recycled Jake asks, “Mom, can we recycle that?” or “No, Mom, don’t throw it away, we can recycle it!”  Well, his persistence is working.  My kid is turning me into a tree hugger.  After we move into our new house I will figure out how we can start recycling here in Lima.

But not only that, lately he doesn’t want to throw away anything at all.  Nothing.  I’m not exaggerating.  Now, I’m sure this probably has something to do with the slight instability in our house right now.  The movers are coming tomorrow to load up our stuff, and I’ve been busy for the last week getting things in boxes.  So our life schedule has been a bit out of whack.  Derek keeps looking for his toys saying, “Wear, wear, wear, r my toyeez?!”  Translation–Where are my toys?!

This morning Jake came running in the room crying hysterically.  I couldn’t tell if he was scared or hurt, but I thought for sure it had to be one or the other.  No.  He was crying because the trash men came and picked up some of our boxes that we left outside with the trash.

It continued throughout the rest of the day.  He didn’t want me to throw away anything.  He said we could recycle it.  He said he could use it to build something.  He said we could use it later.  He said he needed it.  I thought the day of not wanting to throw anything away was finally over when I started getting them ready for bed and got them in the bath.  Nope.  His band-aid got wet in the tub.  I told him to take it off and I’d give him a new one when he got out.  Fearing the truth, he started crying and asked me if I was going to throw away that used, wet band-aid.

Yes, Jakob, I am.

But I want it!  We can save it for later!  Use it again!

We are throwing it away, Jakob.

After the bath, I get him dried off and dig the band-aids out of the box that I already packed them in.  He puts the band-aid on by himself and when he pulls the little white plastic parts off the band-aid–you know, the part that sticks to the sticky side?–I kid you not, the boy asks me if he can keep those little white pieces and not throw them away!

No, Jakob, you need to throw them away.

This time there are no tears.  Apparently he was formulating a plan.  While I’m standing there next to him, washing my face, I see him from the corner of my eye looking for a place to hide them on the floor back behind the toilet!

No, Jakob, throw them away.

He steps outside the bathroom and just a few feet away finds a box that’s been taped up.  Very sneakily, he slips the two, little, white fragments of his band-aid into the crack of space under the flap of the box.

This is the part where I gave up, turned my head as if I didn’t see it, smiled real big and tried not to laugh out loud.

The new Seat Belt Nazi, indeed.  Makes me kind of proud.

Maybe the most noteworthy news item of late is that we had our first of hopefully many medical campaigns this July.

This deserves and will get it’s own post in the next day or two. But the short version of the story is that we had a group of thirty some odd visitors from all over Texas and Tennessee… Among them we had five doctors and five nurses. Those health care professionals plus all the other amazing visitors we had really made our first stab at a medical campaign go about as smoothly as it could have possibly gone… way smoother than I ever expected.

The other big news of late is that we’ve had family visit! First, Stacy’s brother, aka Uncle Ben, is a doctor and came as part of the aforementioned medical campaign.

And then, this week we’ve had Stacy’s parents visiting. The boys have just been beside themselves with Gran and Grandad here in the flesh and not just a picture on the computer via Skype. Unfortunately, grandad had to leave already, but we’ve still got gran here until Wednesday night. Our days have been full of going to the parks around town, visiting the zoo, etc., etc.

Of course our car broke down the day before they got here. So, we rented a car for a couple of days while it was in the shop… we got the tiniest little Fiat you’ll ever see. It didn’t even have power steering; but it was the cheapest thing they had and it got the job done. I also promise more details from the Gran and Granddad visit coming soon.

Oh yeah, one more thing… We’re moving… Again. Of course. If you know us well enough to be reading this, then you probably didn’t just fall out of your chair in shock. But, this isn’t what we expected to be doing when we moved in to our current house almost a year ago. Anyways, this certainly deserves its own post too. So, more to come later in the week.

Yeah, yeah, I know you don’t believe me about all the updates I’ve been promising… But really it’s going to happen. Really.

I’m glad that Peru has a lot of the same nationally recognized holidays as you do in the States.  Mother’s Day and Father’s Day being the most recent ones.  We had a great Father’s Day weekend and even started celebrating how great of a Daddy we have around here a little early.  Like last Thursday.  I asked Jake what he wanted to make Daddy for Father’s Day.  He said, “A paper tree.”  Okaaay.  I’m thinking, How am I going to either get around this one or figure out how to make this doable?  Well, we found an idea in a craft book (borrowed from Alison just in time) and we made it happen.  We made a paper palm tree!  Daddy loves palm trees.  I think they are his favorite kind of tree.  For the trunk we used a Pringles can, and for the palm leaves we traced Jake and Derek’s hands on green paper and cut them out.  Inside the trunk/can we put candy, because Daddy loves candy.  Jakob helped write a note for him and he signed his name!  He’s so big, it’s hard to believe he can already write his name!  And Derek left his mark, too.  :)

Jake LOVES to make things and had so much fun with this project that he couldn’t hold it in.  So Daddy got his present on Thursday before the big day.  We love you, Daddy!

Yesterday we went out to eat for our Father’s Day lunch.  Mark went with us and we had a good time and ate some amazingly yummy food at Benihana.  Yes, there is one here and we are very thankful!

Well… let’s see… right now I’m sitting in bed.  It’s 5pm and I’ve only been out of my bedroom once in the last, oh, 17 hours or so.  I’ve got some kind of stomach bug or something.  Not cool.  But, already feeling better… I just ate some toast!

Obviously, I’m not going to be able to get you all of the details of life since the last post.  So, lets go with some highlights.

Work here has continued to go well and life seems to fly by at an uncontrollable pace sometimes.  We have tons of new friends and relationships that we are continuing to develop.  It’s hard to complain when people say things to me like, “My friend is having a really hard time right now… I told him he needs to be praying and he needs God in his life.  I also told him you would be happy to read the Bible and pray with him. Was that an okay thing to say?”  We’ve been helping a friend rebuild her “house” in a poor neighborhood… which has been a sobering blessing.  In the process I was reunited with a long lost friend that I haven’t seen in months, Ephrain!  And we’re continuing to make lots of preparations for a medical campaign in July.  Our plates are full.

While most of our friends and family in the states are now enjoying warm sunny days of baseball and hamburger cookouts, we’ve begun the long overcast and dreary winter of Lima.  Most days now are 100% overcast with surprising bone chilling temperatures in the low 60′s.  It’s hard to understand until you’ve experienced it.  But, when it’s 60 degrees in your house with 100% humidity it can be a lot colder than it seems.

With the end of Peruvian summer also comes the beginning of the Peruvian school year.. and we are mired in the process of looking for a school for our boys.  Peruvian public schools are horrendous and not even an option.  That leaves home schooling or private schools.  We’ve never had the desire or motivation to home school our kids… so, we’re looking for a reasonably affordable private school.  There is a lot more to this that will get it’s own post soon… let’s just leave it to say that this is our biggest source of stress at the moment and could really use prayers.

Another thing, my camera broke.  Again.  So, after waiting a couple of weeks I took it to the shop here… after keeping it for two weeks they told me they couldn’t repair it without a new part that would cost $400!  Well, I said no thanks and brought it home, depressed.  Then, just looking to see if it would work at all… it does!  I don’t know what happened but they didn’t charge me anything but it seems to be fixed… woo hoo!  That being said… not many pics of late.

Oh, a HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY! to Stacy.  Stacy celebrated her first birthday in Peru on April 23rd… wow… exactly a month ago.  Hmm… what else? Stacy’s been taking some new Spanish classes at a school here in Miraflores… that’s been good.

One more thing, we finally went to the zoo here in Lima.  We’ve always enjoyed going to the zoo as a family… not sure why it took us so long.  The zoo was small but pretty good for the most part.  The boys loved it!

Well, obviously, there’s so much more to share.  Just know that we’re alive and well… still kicking down here in the Southern Hemisphere.

For more… Click here for more of Derek being cute and here for more zoo fun.