A few photos...

When asked what she wanted to be this year Maggie surprised us with her response of "a bird".  So Traci whipped up a bird costume.

Abraham, who loves Pirates of the Caribbean, was Bootstrap Bill Turner.

Vivan made a beautiful Cleopatra

I'm sure many have seen this already because I put it on facebook but I figured it needed to be permanently fixed to this blog. 

One of Traci's friends here is a yoga instructor and she and Traci have begun co-teaching a kid's yoga class at our house.  They originally sent out an email just to see if anyone would come.  I returned home from work that first time to find 19 kids doing yoga in the house.  Strangely, future classes will most certainly coincide with me working late.

Every year the Marines, who act as embassy security, hold a Marine Ball to celebrate the creation of the Marine Corps. It is surprisingly serious business.  Traci looked spectacular.  The day before the party I found a place that would rent me a tux.  The last time I wore a tux was in 1989 at Rick and Lori's wedding.  Traci, who loves to dance and has been neglected by her husband for 13 years, finally got me to dance.  My half of our dancing was not pretty but it turned out to be a fun evening. 

Abe went on his first scout campout last week.  In the spirit of high adventure they camped on the soccer field at the embassy.  Certainly the most secure campout ever.

This one's for Lance.  A couple of weeks ago we had the day off because it was the El Salvador version of Memorial day.  We thought we'd head to the beach.  Soon we found ourselves in the heaviest traffic that we've seen here.  We soon learned how seriously Salvadorans take visiting the cemetery on that day.  Every car on this road, except us, eventually turned into the cemetery or parked on the road to enter by foot.  This traffic was about two miles long.  We were glad to finally get past the cemetery and be the only ones at the beach.

Simon and our new puppy, Blue, are like twin brothers.  They have a special relationship in which they take turns making disasters all over the house.  They fight constantly.  Simon will walk up behind him and pull his hair or approach from the front and kick him the face.  Blue will often walk up to Simon and just bite him as he passes or he'll just knock him over for no apparent reason.  We've taken to calling Simon "brother dog".

Big brothers are responsible for teaching little brothers the finer things in life.

When we first saw the size of this bath tub we were really excited.  It's size, however, makes giving Simon a bath rather difficult.  While trying to rinse Simon's hair Traci leaned a bit too far and ended up like this.  I immediately came running to help, with the camera.

Took this yesterday.  El Salvador has it's problems. Beauty isn't one of them.