Playing at night.

Cute as a Daisy
Playing with the camera at night.

Slower speeds on the camera hold the lense open longer allowing you to play with the light.  After a few tries you can have fun with it.

These were fun, shooting the still child "Nop" while the other kids ran circles around me turned the children into ghost. 

Late June

4  new children.

















 
Chanda and Nop are brother and sister to Tate and Tong who have been with us for 3 years.
Chanda is 5 and Nop is 9.

Nygt is 5 and sister to Kyo and Own who has been with us for 2 years


















Veasna is 10


















New pocket camera is great allowing me to take the camera out more often.

On the way to the dentist for Sam and shots for Joe their smiling because they didn't know where we were headed.  The return trip was ugly. 

A new indoor play ground helped them forget about their trip to the doctor.


















We have hard workers.
And we have the hardly working. 

Own helps clean up the Sugarcane. 

Separating the recycles.

I got photos sent to me from the last visitors we had

On, Cath and Roth

We hooked my computer to the TV and the kids most who have never used a phone before got to chat with Courtney on Skype.  It was a shy but fun experience for them.   At first they did not understand it because they just thought it was a video of Courtney.

May

Azizas place, what a great group of children.  I met this group some time ago and was really impressed with children at this orphanage.  So I thought it would be nice for them to visit the countryside and nice for our kids to meet their kids.  I had hoped our kids would learn a little bit from them, admire their abilities and their intelligence.  Most of the children at Azizas place speak great English, knows Karate and has learned how to create films.
So a couple months later they accepted our invitation.  Our kids loved their kids and their kids loved ours.  There was some great connections between our staff and their children.  We watched the movies that the children had made and played soccer most of the day.  It was a good day for all.  We hope to have them back for more than a day this summer some time.

Kyo's sponsor was able to drop by during his trip to Cambodia this year.
 
We also has the Sommers family visit Cambodia and we got to spend some time at the beach with them.  We went to the equivalent to Sea World called Kon Kong World.  It was nice because we took two of our girls with us as well.  This was the best part because the girls had never seen such things.  The ground of the park was very beautiful large trees every where and clean.  It was nice for Cambodia. 

Jon and Savoeun came with us, they loved the orangutan show the most.  (not pictured)

We went to a nice waterfall area but did not spend much time here.  I found acorns here really weird for a tropical climate I thought.  I couldn't see which tree they came from, I was looking for an oak but didn't see it.















Then we went to the Mangroves, we took a little boat ride through them which was cool, the girls have never been on a boat before.

There was an awesome rope bridge and 6 story tower at the end of the trail that winds through the mangroves.

So for Savoeun this was a special trip she had never been on a long trip before.  She had never ridden a bus before.  She had never seen the beach before and she has never even been on a road with a hill before.  She thought the road was so special that she asked to have a picture taken on it.

 

This was the little fishing community living on and over the river.

This was the little fishing community living on and over the river.

 More piglets 4 litters and 40 babies brought us good profit this time. 

The rains are coming and our newly dug pond is beginning to fill.

Is it May already.

So it is almost April and Courtney our first long term guest has left us after 3 months.
Just before Courtney returned to the USA she got to spend some time with one of our staff Sdung at her house about an hour south of us.  Courtney got so see and experience the way most Cambodian families live with some of the problems the Cambodians face. 
I would like many of our visitors to have this same experience a part from getting sick.  I think though hard it might have made one of the larger impacts of the trip for her.

As encouragement to the our growing youth group the church took our children to the water park again.  Courtney paid for the children tickets and the church provided the ride.




















This is know as a Si-cope to the Cambodians or a Japanese cherry and many other names.  Turns out it is a pretty common tree in South America.
It is a wonderful tree for us.  Grows into a very nice shade tree in about 2 years.  It seems to fruit all year long and grows with out any help at all.  The fruit taste like a mix of honey and and kiwi.
We made a real nice Jelly with it this year.

We also for the first time made a mango jelly and a chocolate mango jam.  All pretty good.  Our trees are about 10 years old now and we were hoping for a better harvest this year but with a lack of rain for 5 months we just watched most of the fruit wither and die.


















Another thing that hurt our harvest this year was not having our pond.  After 3 years the mud from erosion has accumulated to about 8 feet.  So for about 3 weeks three men dig their way to the bottom, absolutely the most difficult job.  You really have to thank God for the place you given in live no matter how hard things get. 

But now the rains are coming and things are turning around.


















We have a lot of babies.  We house them so the rats and the cats do not get to them.  The geese are so protective standing around the cage nearly the entire day and night.

We had many Soursop this year these trees Ream planted by seed.  


















One of Snow Whites dwarfs and future chain gang member.


















8 feet of mango fruit leather.  Even though we had a small harvest this year it is still far more than the kids can keep up with.  So besides the jams we make fruit leather also.  The children will start eating this once the trees are empty.

Power the lines are in the village and we expect to have actual full time power with the strength to run everything at one time.  Mou our cook will not have to run to town every day 2 to 3 times a day to buy food.  We will begin to raise pigs to eat and save us a lot of money. 


















We are looking forward to the summer coming planning out what the kids will do what they will learn.  Quite a few teams are planned maybe you can jump on or tag a long.