Hello there! Hope you all had a great Christmas, celebrating Jesus' birth. We had an awesome time caroling in the mall on the 23rd and 24th. It is so neat to watch the varied responses of the people in the 'audience'. Some smile shyly, some boo, the ones with video phones use them to take pictures or record us singing. It is also really interesting to see people's mouths moving to the music, some singing the same lyrics and some not at all. Noah kicked a bunch, or maybe he was dancing, as we were singing. I'm sure he is getting anxious to enter the world, and is running out of space in my belly. Only 8 more weeks little guy!
On Christmas Eve we went to the Reimers and exchanged gifts before going to the 4:00 candlelight service at church. Cody and Jeff gave each other the same thing, very funny for us all. Debra gave me a watch. We had a nice time together. When we got to the church, it was packed so we stood in the back (I had a chair given to me because of my 'condition'). I noticed the man next to Taylor had his plate on fire so I mentioned it to Cody since I couldn't get there that fast. He was blowing it out and the man looked at him weird and still didn't realize that it was on fire until he looked down. The blowing Cody did didn't help so the man frantically blew and it went out, leaving a bunch of smoke in its wake. The usher commented that they were worried about the kids!
After the caroling, we came back to our flat and called Cody's mom, then opened our Christmas gifts. We all felt extremely loved and cared for as we opened the gifts from friends and family back home. Thank you everyone who gave to us this year! We love and miss you all.
On Christmas day we spent the day at the home of our friends from church. We had a great dinner and some dessert and then came back and spent time as a family. It was a very relaxing holiday for us all.
Right now we are babysitting (minding) the pastor's children while they are at a conference in Turkey. We started this morning and have one of the 8 days done with. They are pretty good, so besides a few squabbles, they played nicely together and are very respectful of us. It is fun. As Cody mentioned in his blog, Iran has given us the green light and so we are waiting now for our export license and visas to be issued. I only have 4 more weeks in which I can fly, so hopefully we will come in under that window of time, and that means I will deliver Noah in Tehran, Iran. If not, then I will have to wait and have him here in Bahrain. I have been seeing the midwife here and saw the birthing room with the big tub for the water birth and am very comfortable with all of that. I trust that God knows where we need to be and we will find out soon enough. I am in the process of finding a midwife in Iran and have sent several emails out to various medical professionals and am waiting to hear back. Well, hope you all have a great New Year, or a nice Eid, depending on your part of the world.