We toured Mitzi’s dad’s workshop where he creates beautiful wood bowls and vases from what look like worthless chunks of lumber. Trey and Zack quickly got to work hammering and beating wooden sticks. In one of the photos it looks like Zack is about to clobber Trey, but don’t worry, no one was injured.

Here’s Trey and his soon-to-be lunch:

In years past we’ve made videos for Christmas cards (2006, 2005, 2002) but this year we commissioned Boyz2Men, the top artist in Nalerigu to paint our card for us. Merry Christmas to all!

The Hewitt kids made some Thanksgiving decorations out of clay.  Trey enjoyed destroying the little clay turkey.

William was at the Robertson’s house and was joined by Freewill Baptist missionaries from Bondoukou: the Andersons  and Alice Smith.

We decided that it was finally time to give Trey his first haircut. His hair was sticking out over his ears and down into his eyes. I didn’t want to cut off his cute little curl in the back, but I had heard one too many people comment about Trey’s “mullet.” Tonight, he was in a great mood and since William will only be home for a few days, I thought tonight was a good night. I was a little apprehensive about putting scissors so close to Trey’s head, so we found the perfect distraction. Ice cream. He dug right in to the “Fan Ice.” I just hope we didn’t give him a stomach ache.

I’m used to cutting William’s thick hair, so Trey’s fine, wispy hair was a little tricky. It’s a little choppy around the ears, but overall doesn’t look so bad. Thankfully, hair is forgiving. It will grow out and I’ll learn how to cut it. After all, I did almost give William a “Vanilla Ice” haircut on my first attempt.

With Trey’s little baby curl gone, he’s looking less like a baby and more and more like a little boy.

Here are some photos Mona Hewitt took of us at the party:

Trey was very excited to see me after having been gone for 2 and a half weeks. I felt guilty eating all sorts of yummy cuisine on my travels so I brought back a bunch of food for Heidi and Trey.

You’d have thought it was Christmas the way Trey was pulling things out of the box and giggling with excitement. I brought them things you can’t get here in Nalerigu like:

• Cheese
• Any cereal that isn’t Corn Flakes
• Real milk
• Fruit juice
• Whole wheat crackers
• Chocolate cookies
• Raisins
• Pudding mix
• Dr. Pepper (4 cans just for Heidi!)
• …and even icecream!

Party at the Haun house tonight!

Trey’s visit to the river was still exciting though. Probably more for the women and children there than for Trey. He attracted quite a crowd as he splashed in the water and slid on the rocks.

We’ve put together a little slideshow of his adventure.

Trey sure was excited to see Baby when she came in! He immediately reached for her and she took him to the children’s church for the rest of the service.

He has also bonded with Baby’s two little girls, Bernice (Bernie) and Katherine (Kate, seen in photo holding his hand).

Ellen has worked for many years at the hospital taking care of other missionaries’ young children and working as a house cleaner. Her husband is a nurse at the hospital and she has two children of her own.

I was a bit worried about Trey warming up to her but he let her carry him most of the morning and she got him to nap pretty quickly.  We walked into town to the market to buy some toys for Trey.  All they had was some rubber balls.  I bought two for a grand total of about $1.40.

Here’s Trey and the family saying goodbye to Nana and Gramps Jensen before leaving.