New and old friends

One of the advantages of our job is that we are able to travel as a family in order to visit our expat staff living in different parts of the country. This gives a great opportunity for our children to form and grow relationships with other children of similar ages who experience many of the same struggles and joys of living within a different culture.

Isaiah was very happy to share his hat with his new friend Virginia in Cochabamba.

Isaiah enjoyed his crash course in lessons of how to roll around the floor from his new friend lydia, who believe it or not is a month and a half older than Isaiah!

Alana enjoyed getting to play again with her friend Ella as well as her old friend the lion in the main plaza of Sucre.

6 months old already

Time is flying by and it doesn’t seem possible that our little baby is already 6 months old. We praise God for a very healthy and happy baby who is developing in all the right ways. He now weighs a good 7kg and is just about at the point of being able to sit up on his own.

Being a true moulding he has a very healthy appetite and is tucking into 3 solid meals a day as well as his regular milk feeds. So far he has been enjoying most of what he has been offered though has made some amusing faces along the way.

He is often fascinated by his own hands and its fun to watch as he suddenly notices one, studies it closely before then putting it into his mouth. He also loves to watch his big sister and smile and giggle at some of her antics. He has also taught himself how to keep entertained when nobody else is about to do so, by rocking himself in his chair, a skill he mastered quite early on. As he gets more excited his arm moves faster and the harder he rocks himself.

At the age of just 6 months he is already becoming well travelled with having just completed a trip to Cochabamba and this last weekend to Sucre. He got a little hungry whilst our first trip was delayed, thankfully we had a banana to hand he could tuck into. The remainder of the journeying he pretty much spent sleeping. All good practice for the long haul visit to the UK next year!

Getting all the relevant paperwork completed for a child born outside of the UK can be a little arduous at times, but we are thankful now to be almost at the end of it all as we just wait to receive his British passport. Having heard some of the nightmare tales from other expats having children here we realize how blessed we have been with the relative ease in actually being able to get all the appropriate documents completed and in order.

We now look forward to see what the next 6 months bring!