Valentines Girl

This Valentines Day, Andrew had 2 very appreciative recipients of his floral gifts! This was the first year that Ieva was really old enough to grasp the concept of this special day of love. She & her babysitter made us a card & the word LOVE in Lithuanian (MYLIU) in playdough letters for us to find when we came home from work. Ieva loved that she got a special rose that was all her own & I loved my gorgeous red & white tulips! We're thankful to have such a great daddy/hubby to take care of us!

daug myliu (lots of love)


We've also had a good bout of snow in the past couple of days, so Ieva & her Daddy made a mini snowman on our balcony wall!

Ieva's first balcony snowman was a success!


Such a happy valentine!

Fabulous Florida

Kim's trip to Florida was a fantastic one! The Institute on College Student Values was a very insightful and educational conference experience. We were happily surprised to discover ACSD colleagues from Taylor University there, including past LCC Study Abroad student Kyle who is now in Taylor's master of higher education program. It was also exciting to see Arthur Chickering, a very well-known researcher and author in Higher Education as he was there with his wife. The topic of the conference was creating moral conversations and it was very interesting to see how diverse the spectrum of morality could span. Casey & I presented on the topic of developing programming to foster moral development in college students using LCC as a primary example, and in general it went very well. We also had fun wandering around Florida State University's campus where the conference was held.The 2nd half of our trip was spent in St. Petersburg with past LCC colleagues Tim & Barb Wolter and their kids. It was wonderfully refreshing to spend time with the Wolters, visit the Christian school where the kids go & where Tim teaches, visit the different campuses of St. Petersburg College where Barb works and attend their church, Living Hope Community Church of Pinellas. We were blessed with great weather, and lots of challenging, encouraging & enriching conversations!American Cheeseburgers & IBC Rootbeer with Barb - yum!

Kim's going to Florida!

Please pray for us as Andrew & Ieva stay here in Klaipeda for the next week & as I travel to Florida to present at the Institute of College Student Values. To read about the institute or see the abstract of our workshop, click here. I'm excited to present in a new venue, as I've never attended this conference before. We're also hoping to make some good recruitment connections for LCC.

As much as I'm excited to get some Florida sun in the middle of a cold, dark Lithuanian winter (and to gain professional experience), I'm not excited about leaving my precious family here. Thankfully I'm traveling with our colleague & friend, Casey, so I'm not making all the bus, taxi & rental car rides or flights alone. But Andrew will be back here flying solo with Ieva.

Thanks for your prayers for babysitting. We still don't have a full-time person, but have found 2 students who are giving significant hours of their week to Ieva. One is here for a bit every day & the other is here every M-W-F afternoon. 3 other girls fill in the rest of the gaps. We're so thankful & hope it continues to work out (and that Ieva remains flexible).

I'll write more when I'm back in Lithuania again!
Sunshine, here I come!!

An Oregon Angel

Thanks to so many of you who have prayed us through our recent difficulties with the miscarriage. God has truly healed our family & is daily opening our eyes to what He has in store for our future!

The support & prayer we recieve from so many faithful friends & family makes our ministry here in Lithuania so much more meaningful! Ačiu Labai! (Thank You in Lithuanian)

We thought you'd enjoy some recent photos of our joyful Oregon Angel! Ieva loves to wear her ballerina skirt & shoes and her angel wings & halo and then dance to music like a "dancing princess" (her words - not ours)!

Her Daddy is her biggest fan!

A rough start to the new year...

It's with great saddness that we share our most recent family news with you. On January 3rd when we went to my doctor for my (nearly) 3-month pregnancy check-up (I was at 11 weeks), the doctor discovered that we had lost our baby. From the ultrasound the size of the fetus showed that it stopped developing somewhere around it's 6th or 7th week...somewhere around the 1st week of December. For some reason, my body hadn't given me any indication that the baby wasn't alive & I still very much felt as if I were pregnant.

Because of that, the news came as quite a shock to us. We spent the next few days reeling & processing with family over skype. Telling Ieva was difficult - probably one of the most difficult, yet tender moments we've had together in our small family. Since her favorite line to proclaim to everyone has been "Ieva's a big sister!!" we explained that the baby in mama's tummy isn't there anymore, but instead is in heaven with Jesus. She looked into our tear-filled eyes & asked sincerely "Ieva big sister??" "No..." we told her. "Not now. But you will be later." In the days to follow her new line has become: "Mama & Daddy so sad...baby in heaven with Jesus...Ieva big sister later." It's pretty precious what our two-year old is able to come up with, and this loss makes us love & appreciate her all the more.

This past Tuesday we went to Vilnius so I could have the D&C procedure done at the Baltic American Clinic. We continue to be extremely impressed with the care & skill used there, which is what keeps us driving the 3.5 hours when we have major medical needs. The same doctor who delivered Ieva did my procedure & was very caring during the entire experience. She gave me a good report after it was all done & we were on our way 5 hours after coming in! I was pretty nervous about my recovery...how painful it all might be, how long it would take to feel normal again, how I might feel emotionally...but it really has gone amazingly well!

We've received loads of encouraging emails & phone calls from friends & family, all ensuring us that they have been & continue to pray for us. And we are convinced that it's only through those faithful prayers that my recovery has gone so smoothly. Physically I feel pretty good & emotionally I am in much better shape than I anticipated being (and than I was last week). Truly, we praise the Lord for this!! He has shown Himself faithful to us once again through this difficult process and is even beginining to open my eyes to some of the reasons why He may have allowed us to experience this loss.

So for now, we will continue to covet your prayers as we readjust our plans for the future and settle back into a new semester of work at LCC. If you could also add the loss of our nanny to your prayers, we'd be thankful. I'm currently writing on Friday evening & we're scheduled to both be at work full-time starting Monday and don't have a replacement nanny lined up yet. We've got a few phone calls to make over the weekend & are trusting that God will continue to show us His faithfulness to our family has He has so many times before. Thanks for joining us in praying for this crucial need.

And thanks again family, friends & faithful blog-readers, for supporting our life & ministry here in Lithuania is so many ways!! We truly could not be here, doing what we're doing, without you. Labai Ačiu.

Happy 2008!

Here in Lithuania, the New Year is welcomed with celebrations & fireworks equivalent to our American 4th of July. Evey city does a massive fireworks show, but many pedestrians do shows of theirs own that still offer quite a lot of pizazz!!

We started our evening with dinner at our friends home - Gregg & Sharon Brubaker & their boys, Erik & Augenijus (who are Ieva's good friends). Around 9 we took Ieva home to put her to bed and around 10 our friend Chad came over. We played games until 11:45 and then went out on the balcony to see what we could see in the sky. It's days like this that we are SO thankful to have a balcony (many people don't)!! We lit sparklers & waved them around while watching at least 8 different firework displays going off in all directions around us. It was extraordinarily loud (but amazingly quiet in Ieva's room - it didn't phase here a bit!) and extraordinarily beautiful. I really think the States needs to adopt this tradition of fireworks on New Year's Eve. What an explosively colorful way to start the new year!

Happy 2008 to all of you! We wish you a year full of God's unexpected & fabulous surprises!

Our BIG news!!

For those of you who haven't heard yet, our family will be expanding next July! Here's how we told our family last week:



So...Merry early Christmas to you all!

Ieva's first Christmas Performance

Yesterday our church, International Christian Fellowship, had it's first children's Christmas program (largely because it's the first year we've had more than 1 kid in the congregation)! We did a 'Living Nativity' with our co-pastor Becky narrating and different members of the congregation coming to the stage dressed as different characters of the nativity. The kids, of course, were the main event - and the only members of the cast who had any speaking parts or solos.

The first to go on stage were our 3 angels: 7 year-old Alexandra & Sarina and our Ieva. I had made her a white, fluffy tutu just for the event (if any of you want to know how to make them, I found the EASIEST idea online!!) and Becky found glittery halos & real feather wings that all 3 wore. Ieva was so excited to be an angel with the big girls! And she did a great job. All they had to do was stand up front for the 15 or 20 minutes of the program, but seeing as how Ieva is very much 2 and has never been on stage like this, we weren't sure how she'd do. She stood next to the big girls the entire time & aside from starting to flip her lip over & over with her finger (you know, making that "brrrub, brrrub, brrrub" sound), she did a great job. Anytime Alexandra took the program to read or sing something, Ieva had to pick one up & look at it, too. It was too cute!!

Our friends Andrew & Alene were Mary & Joseph with their 1 year-old daughter Charlotte as baby Jesus. At one point Ieva walked over to them and tried to put her halo first on Charlotte, then on Alene. It was hilarious. Sarina's 3 year-old brother Ezra was the only shepherd in the show. LCC's president Jim was (very appropriately) one of the wise men, along with 2 other faculty members Dan & John.

All in all it was a great time of telling the story of Jesus' birth in a way that made it come to life for the kids! And we think Ieva did a stunning job in her first on-stage performance.

Sad Goodbyes, but Happy Hellos!

Today was Ieva's last day with her nanny Aurelija, who she's spent every weekday of the past 16 (of her 26 total) months of life with during the days. It truly was a sad goodbye, as Aurelija has become a member of our family. We're happy for her as she pursues this next stage of her life in Vilnius, but she will be missed here.Ieva loves Aurelija!

Thankfully, God has answered our pleas for a new nanny with Rasa - an LCC Lithuanian alumna who is not only good friends with Aurelija, but who is also very involved in the local Free Christian Church and is a committed Christian. Rasa has agreed to fill in temporarily and will stay with Ieva until our Christmas break begins, on December 22. She has plans to find a job outside of Lithuania, but we're praying she'll postpone her plans until May of 2008 & continue working for us during the spring semester, too! Please join us in praying that she enjoys being with Ieva enough to stay on after Christmas.

Aurelija, Ieva & Rasa being silly together!

What makes Rasa an even bigger blessing is that Ieva already LOVES HER!! She came over earlier this week to spend time with Aurelija & Ieva together and they were playing together wonderfully. When I came home, Ieva even led Rasa by the hand into her bedroom and closed the door, leaving Aurelija & I in the living room so she could play alone with Rasa! We all thought that was very cute & are hopeful the relationship will continue to blossom.

Thank you for praying for our nanny situation! God has (once again) surprised us & given us something better than we could have hoped for. Now we're shifting our prayers to include keeping Rasa through April. Please join us!

Thanksgiving Blues...

Unfortunately this year, I'm feeling a little sad on the day I'm supposed to feel the most blessed.

For some reason, Thanksgiving nostalgia has hit fairly hard & I'm missing all the things I don't have this year. I'm picturing so many of you sleeping in on your day off, then pulling yourself out of bed in time to watch the Macy's Day parade interspersed with preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. (is the turkey ready yet?) Then you'll gather with family & friends around the table and allow yourself to eat yourself into a lethargic bliss, all the while talking about the many things you have to be thankful for this year. After your last serving of pumpkin pie, the men will retreat to the living room for an afternoon & evening of football & the women will head to the kitchen to clean up & chat about everything happening in their lives, followed by going through newspaper ads to figure out where they'll shop tomorrow. And isn't tonight the night The Sound of Music is always on TV? ...sigh... And then tomorrow morning you'll wake up at a ridiculously early hour to get some of the early bird specials & spend a good chunk of the day Christmas shopping.

I know it by heart. And this year I miss it with all my heart.

This morning in our Student Life staff meeting we all shared what we were thankful for. I had to force myself to come up with a few decent contributions to the list. I came back to the office to see someone had written a large & decorative "Happy Thanksgiving!!" on the office white board. It just made my heart heavy. I turned on my computer & found a beautifully sweet thanksgiving e-card that my mom & dad sent. I cried as read it.

Tonight we'll join other Americans for our annual LCC traditional trip to McDonalds on Thanksgiving evening. As lame as it may be, McDonalds is the only truly American institution we have here in Lithuania & we'll feast on chicken sandwiches & apple pie in lieu of turkey & pumpkin pie. The Lithuanian employees will think this huge group of foreigners is crazy, but we'll enjoy it nonetheless. It's our tradition, after all.

Update: We had the largest record LCC group having Thanksgiving dinner at Klaipeda's Mickey D's - 45 people crammed in!

And then on Saturday we'll have our 2nd Thanksgiving tradition here at LCC: a staff/faculty potluck where people bring everything from the turkey & gravy to the cranberry sauce and we'll sit with the closest ones we have to family on this side of the Atlantic & eat ourselves into that lethargic bliss and feel a little closer to home. And then we'll pull out the Christmas decorations & deck the halls of LCC together in preparation for our Community Christmas Program on the weekend of December 7th.

Update: The Thanksgiving Potluck went great with TONS of wonderful food (we even had leftover stuffing - yum!)

Aside from the fact that I'm coordinating the dinner & decorating event on Saturday and the inevitable stress that will go along with it, I'm sure it will be a fun day. It always is. How can you feel sad when your belly is full of turkey and you're hanging Christmas garland & lights? So I'm sure better days are ahead. Right now I'm just exhausted from a long, difficult semester and am missing the comforts & familiarities of home.

I truly hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving celebration today wherever you are!! And if you think of it, pray for those of us far away from the comfort of American traditions, that we, too, will remember all the many ways in which we are so very blessed.

Stories from Tallinn & Helsinki

We had a great Fall Break last week with the Kaethlers in Tallinn & Helsinki. In general, it was very relaxing which was just what we needed! We stayed in an apartment outside of old town and spent leisurely mornings in with afternoons or evenings out exploring.

Some of our memorable experiences were:

Eating at the fantastic African Kitchen in Tallinn's old town

Going to the Tallinn Zoo & seeing the world's ugliest animal, the warthog.

Eating at the medieval restaurant Olde Hansa in old town Tallinn

Trying to take the ferry to Helsinki, but discovering the ferries weren't running due to rough water on both Thursday & on Friday...and finally making it there on Saturday, only to discover (once we arrived) that it was a holiday & everything was closed! The ferry we took there was amazing - like a floating hotel lobby! Thankfully, the Finlandia Circus was in Helsinki & we got the last 4 seats under the big top!

Ieva's makeshift snow shield on her stroller in HelsinkiAlene & I keeping warm in the Helsinki snow!

The turbulent ride back to Tallinn on the only ferry running: the hydrofoil - presumably the one that is supposed to give you the smoothest ride! (not so much for us...)

Spending lots of good time together with Andrew, Alene & Charlotte

Staying at the funky Fontaine hotel in Liepaja, Latvia on our way home

Ieva & I in our fun "jungle room" - just one of the many individually-designed rooms in the trendy 400-year-old downtown hotel.

Fall Break in Estonia's capital city!

This week has been Fall Break at LCC & we are fully taking advantage of it! We decided to get out of town & drive north with our friends Andrew & Alene and their 1-year old daughter Charlotte to Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. We were here during our fall break in 2004 when we did the same trip with our friends Mark & Kim Hoelterhoff & their kids, but were only here for 2 days due to splitting our time in Riga, Latvia as well. Outside of cutting the 9-hour drive in half by spending 1 night in Riga, we're spending the entire week camping out in a cute little apartment just outside of Tallinn's medieval old town. This is a beautiful city with loads of history and things to see. Because of the girls & their nap schedules, as well as all of us being totally exhausted from the semester, we've been spending a lot of time playing games & relaxing together in the apartment. Just what we've needed!! And since the apartment doesn't have internet access, we don't have the temptation of getting online to check emails or do work - perfect!!


We tried to take a 1.5-hour ferry to Helsinki, Finland this morning, but due to stormy weather, the ferry was canceled. We'll try again tomorrow and if that doesn't work, we'll still have Saturday since we aren't leaving until Sunday. Ieva is excited to ride on the big boat & we're all looking forward to being in a new country for the day!

The week so far as been fairly overcast & drizzly, so we're hoping the end of the week gets better...but it isn't ruining our fun. The true R&R we're getting has really been just what we all needed!

We'll post photos once we're back in Klaipeda next week. Please pray that our long drive home goes smoothly! Thanks!

A last-minute staff retreat

The 07-08 Community Life Staff at LCC

from l-r: Keith, Maija, me, Michelle, Chad & Casey

This past Monday, Michelle & I had doctors appointments at the Baltic American Clinic (BAC) in our capital city of Vilnius. Nothing to worry about - Michelle just needed to be introduced to the best medical facility in the country (in my personal opinion). On Sunday evening, our friends Andrew & Alene graciously told me that we could take the rental car that they currently have to Vilnius for the day. But since Michelle has never driven in Lithuania & I haven't been able to get my license replaced after my wallet was stolen this summer - neither of us could drive!

So at the last minute I decided that my fabulous staff should take Monday afternoon off work & go on a mini staff retreat with me to Vilnius. Amazingly, they all were able to rearrange their schedules & agreed to come! It's a 3.5-hour drive each way, but we fully utilized the drive time to share about what is going on in our lives - both personally & professionally. We talked more in-depth together than we have all year and covered enough ground to cancel all of our individual & staff meetings this week! It was a great time of connection.

On the way there we stopped in Kaunas to see the largest aquarium in a mall in Europe. Yep - you read that right! There's a HUGE fish tank in this mall & it's also one of the 10 top tallest aquariums in the world! It's pretty cool...and we've got it right here in Lithuania!

When we arrived in Vilnius, they dropped Michelle & I off at the BAC and went into old town to wander around for a bit. Then they picked us up & together we had a fabulous dinner at Sue's Indian Raja across the street from the Vilnius Cathedral (you can't get Indian food in Klaipeda), followed by dessert at Double Coffee (also not in Klaipeda - YUM!!)

In general, our staff had a great day together, despite the fact that we were only in Vilnius for a total of 4 hours. It was fun to fly by the seats of our pants & get out of town at the last minute. A number of them mentioned that being in Vilnius felt like being in another country and all agreed that we need to do this again sometime. There is something truly therapeutic about getting out of town & being in a new place - even if just for an evening.

I am so blessed to have the privilege of supervising such a marvelous staff of competent, fun & caring individuals who all respect & appreciate one another a great deal. And most importantly, I'm thankful that I am not only their boss, but can also call them each a friend. What a gift.

Some more photos from our day:At Sue's Indian Raja for dinner

Keith, Maija & Michelle enjoying milkshakes at Double Coffee for dessert!

The team in front of the Vilnius Cathedral
(minus Maija who's taking the photo)

What a day!!

We have heat!!

This fall has been the most gorgeous of the 6 years we've lived here in Klaipeda. Low on rain & high on crisp, clear days. The temperature hadn't really gotten all that cold either...until about two weeks ago. And because we live in a post-Soviet society that still uses a few of the old soviet practices at the city level, we (along with the rest of the city) didn't have any heat. Despite how used to this we've become over the years, it's still not fun to be in a house with the indoor temperature in the 50's.

The city heating system works like this: in the fall "they" (whoever they are) wait until the outdoor temperature reaches a certain average over a 3-day period before they'll turn the heat on. If the first 2 days are cold, but it warms up on the 3rd, too bad for us! Once we have 3 cold enough days, certain buildings in certain parts of the city start getting heat. We know it's coming when we come to LCC & other colleagues start reporting that their heat came on the night before. Over the course of a couple days, the radiators in all city buildings will slowly warm up.

Then in the spring, the reverse will happen. They wait for a specific average temperature over a 3-day period & then turn the heat off. What generally happens is we have an early heat wave (like we did last March) and the heat goes off and the temps drop again. Brrrrr!!!!!

Over the past couple of weeks, our apartment has been C-O-L-D!!!! We pulled out the electric space heaters & thanked God that we live in a flat that has a door on the living room. When it was time for bed, we'd move the space heater into the bedroom & get that room toasty next. We are so thankful for the rice bag heater things that Ruth Cowles made for us this summer - after a few minutes in the microwave, those things were fabulous to cuddle with in a cold bed! Thanks again, Ruth!!

A few days ago, we came home to discover that we finally had heat. Hallelujah!!! There has been much rejoicing!! And now (of course) the outside temps have gone up a bit, so we're really VERY toasty in our apartment, but I'll never complain about being too warm. After living here with someone else's finger on my heater-button, I doubt I'll ever complain about being too warm again in my entire life.

A staff reunited!

Thank you for your prayers for Michelle - the RD on my staff who had to leave the country while she waited to hear if her Temporary Residency Permit (TRP) would get approved! After waiting in Riga for 9 days, she received word this past Wednesday that the migration office approved her TRP & on Thursday she was on a bus back to Klaipeda. We are thrilled to finally have our staff reunited again!

We're very thankful to have Michelle back with us. But LCC will continue to covet your prayers, as Michelle was only the first staff or faculty member to face these issues. In the next few weeks over 20 more new staff & faculty members will be in the same situation if they haven't received word from migration that their TRPs have been approved. All of them are in the process of developing a "Plan B", which - like it did for Michelle - will most likely need to include some time away outside of Lithuania while they wait for their answer.

It sounds like the migration office answered our pleas & made Michelle a priority in their decision-making. They technically have up to 6 months from the time each person processes their paperwork to make a decision, which puts most people at January by the time that 6-month period is up. If they did make an exception for Michelle, our prayer is that they will do the same with the rest of our LCC colleagues.

Please also join us in praying for the future hiring of LCC employees, as we now have to back up the recruitment/hiring process quite a bit earlier than it's been in the past, in order to give people ample time to get their TRP paperwork processed through migration. Recruiting quality staff & faculty at LCC is always a challenge...and having to make it happen earlier than normal is only going to add to that challenge.

As always, thank you for your continued support, prayer & encouragement of us as well as the ministry of LCC International University! God has blessed this place tremendously over the past 15 years and we trust that He isn't going to stop now!

Please pray for LCC

Dear friends & family, please join us in praying for God's divine intervention on behalf of LCC within the Lithuanian migration legal system.

Today, my staff & I took our colleague & friend Michelle to the bus station & saw her off to Riga, Latvia. Michelle is a Resident Director at LCC and has been in the country for 3 months. Due to some recent migration law changes, her visa (temporary residency permit) has not yet been approved by the national migration department. Technically, they have 6 months from the day she arrived to make their decision & due to how overworked & underpaid they are, we have no guarantees that they'll get to her file any earlier than December.The LCC Residence Life staff
(l-r: Kim, Michelle, Maija & Chad)

All expatriate employees have 90 days to stay in the country for free (without their visa being approved). But if those 90 days come to an end & the migration department hasn't processed your files yet, you have to leave the country until they do. We now have a number of new expatriate staff & faculty who are in Michelle's boat. Because she came in July to work for our Summer Language Institute, her 90 days (and 6-month visa processing time) began earlier than most (and, consequently, ended earlier than most).

Michelle is now staying with some friends in Riga temporarily while we all hope & pray that she gets her visa decision very soon. If she doesn't, she has no choice but to return to the States until she gets her visa approved.

This is a very difficult time for the University, as well as for my staff, the RAs Michelle supervises, and especially for Michelle. We are thankful that we serve a God of miracles. He has shown His favor to LCC many, many times in the past 16 years & we are trusting that He will do it again. Please join us in praying to that end. Thank you!

A wonderful month with Ama & Grandpa Buz

Yesterday, Ieva's Grandma & Grandpa Cliffe (whom Ieva calls Ama and Grandpa Buz) tearfully boarded a plane back to their new home in Oregon after spending a wonderful month living with their granddaughter. During this trip, the bond between grandparents & granddaughter was formed in a deeper way than it's ever been. Ieva was really old enough to internalize their place in her life and more importantly, their love & affection for her.














During the month they were here, Ama & Ieva spent countless hours working on counting, colors, ABCs, new phrases & started the potty-training process. Grandpa Buz or "Boo-Boo" as she also calls him, spent lots of time reading books together & tickling & giggling. As a result, Ieva can now confidently count to 10, can identify the primary colors, can pronounce her name properly (she had been saying it "Eye-Yah" until about 3 weeks ago), can show how old she is on her fingers, knows a lot more of her alphabet, and can finish sentences in many books & identify characters. Potty Training hasn't taken off yet, but Grandma's efforts definitely raised Ieva's awareness & interest in the entire process.

This morning after Ieva got up, she pointed to our closed bedroom door (where Grandma & Grandpa had been sleeping) and asked "Grandpa sleeping?" I explained that Grandpa & Grandma were now on an airplane flying back to Oregon now. Her face scrunched up & she let out a long, whiny "no-o-o-o!!"

This past month was a precious time for all of us, and the thanks really goes to the company my mom used to work for, Liberty Molds, who gave her & dad the airline tickets as a retirement gift. Thank you!!
We had a wonderful, marvelous time together.

Ieva turns TWO!

Tuesday, September 25th was Ieva's 2nd birthday, but this year the celebrations lasted for 4 days! They began on Sunday the 23rd with a fabulously crazy kid's party, hosted by Ieva's friend Charlotte who lives down the street from us. Charlotte's apartment was large enough to hold the 9 kids (all under the age of 7) who came. Her birthday poem invitation went along with this photo:

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom: My birthday’s almost here!
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom: It’s been another year!
I’m turning two and I’ve been told that even though it’s not that old,
I still can celebrate with friends and have a party that never ends!
So please come celebrate with me on Sunday, September twenty-three.
My good friend Charlotte is our host since her house can hold the most.
Her door code’s easy: x-x-9: and then you’ll be there right on time!
3:00, just up the stairs: Ramioji 8 – I’ll see you there!

More photos from her party:

The Queen of her table

Andrew & Ieva with Gina & Ema

Ieva & "baby Yarlotte"

Party Friends! l-r: Nike, Ema, Erik, Charlotte, Ieva, Heavenlee

Then on Tuesday - her actual birthday - we had a family celebration at home with Ieva, Mom & Dad and Grandma & Grandpa and opened a few presents together.

Busia & Papa (Ieva's Aunt Leslie's parents) sent this fabulous Noah's Ark!

The box Noah's Ark came in is almost as fun as the toy itself!

Then on Wednesday, September 26th, we had a special birthday dinner on the balcony for Ieva with Grandma & Grandpa, Rebecca & Pisey, Chad & Casey. Rebecca, Pisey, Casey & Chad are some of Ieva's favorite non-related adults! We always celebrate special Ieva-events with them since all but Chad have known her since her birth!Birthday dinner on the balcony!

Rebecca & Pisey gave Ieva this pretty Asian-style dress for her birthday!

Ieva & Uncle Casey

Thanks to the four days of celebrations, Ieva learned the phrases "birthday girl", "happy birthday to you" and when asked how old she is, she can now hold out 2 fingers & says proudly "two, two, two!" We're so thankful for all of Ieva's friends & family - far & near - who remembered her 2nd birthday!