Thankful For Our Neighborhood

I can't believe that it's almost 3 years since we moved into our home - time really does fly by. Recently, I have been feeling particularly thankful for our home and especially, for our neighborhood friends. We have been getting know so many children close to Daniel's age and he just loves to play with them. Right now, just around our house, Daniel knows 6 other children and each time we go to the park, we meet more.

I was recently talking to one of the mothers and we both agreed that due to the the current housing market, it is unlikely that any of the families that we know will be moving anywhere else soon. And that is great, because the kids are getting to know each other and are growing up together.

Now that the weather is much warmer, all the kids have been spending a lot of time outside and so Daniel gets to play with them almost every day. Yesterday morning, for example, we were walking to the park with our family friend Maria Helena who was visiting us and our Japanese neighbor decided to join us with 2 of her children. We had so much fun and you could see that Daniel was on cloud 9!

At one point I even said to Maria Helena: "Look how happy Daniel is right now!" And then she wisely explained: "Well of course: he is with his mother, outside playing in the park, with his friends, enjoying the nice weather, has a full tummy, what else does he need?" So true... Daniel certainly didn't need anything else and just played and played, smiling often. And I watched, feeling such joy and thanking God for the special time we were having in our neighborhood.

Here are photos of Daniel having fun with Takumi and Nina at the park...

Daniel walking with "Tia Helena"

P.S. We are feeling sad that our Japanese neighbor will be going to Japan for the summer at the end of May. Daniel will miss the children so much! But it will be a great reunion in August and fun to see how much Daniel and Takumi have grown (they are only 6 weeks apart). Isn't it special to see how much they have grown since the last time they returned from Japan? I love this feature of blogging!