From the eyes of Alanna

our back/side yard

our back yard ( I actually took these two pictures since Alanna didn't take any of the back)

back "yard"

our "park" which includes a bench, 2 swingsets and room for soccer between the two is part of the mission yard just in front of our house. Miss Mary Lou is our neighbor just past the swings.

This is our neighbors house to the front of us. All of these houses are missionary homes.

banana trees in 0ur side yard

our side yard past the banana trees

our h0use

While we were outside today; Alanna wanted to try to take a picture of the butterflies, too. Then she went on a picture-taking frenzy and wanted to take pictures of everything! I think she took some pretty nice ones, especially considering she can only use one arm!

Alanna's pictures show the ordinary. Our yard, how close our neighbors are, what type of plants and trees we have. Things that you might not know if you've not been able to visit, so I thought I'd post them for you.

We hope that you enjoy her pictures - I hear that you many of you are having terrible weather there --- maybe these can warm your thoughts!

Oh, Let the Sunshine In!

Today we've had a beautiful sunshiney day! After a week of rain - the sun feels wonderful!

The sun allowed us to get a week's worth of laundry washed and dried today! Our clotheslines were full!

After class this morning, I took Kristina out to play. Alanna didn't feel like going out. So, Kristina and I picked her a bouquet of flowers. When she saw the beautiful flowers and heard us exclaiming about all the butterflies fluttering around them; she decided that she wanted to go out too! (She fell off of her chair at the dinner table over the weekend. I'm not sure how; but she managed to do it. I think it made her arm ache again. She actually fell quite a bit over the weekend; and had quite a gooseegg on her head Saturday night - because she couldn't catch herself as she normally would have been able to. She's having a rough time poor thing!)

While we were outside I tried to take a picture of the butterflies. I have a new appreciation for folks who have succeeded at that! I couldn't get them to stay in one place long enough to focus the camera!