This is Lauren with one of her best buddies. She calls him DiDi, which means little brother. Lauren is used to me taking pictures all the time, but he could not figure out what I was doing. He didn't smile until after I shoed him this picture.
I have never really been able to capture this before...this is bamboo scaffolding. It still amazes me that this is how they change the billboard signs and build buildings. I've neve seen one break or fall apart, so I guess they are pretty sturdy.
My friend stopped by the house late one night and brought me a bag of chocolate chips. She is from this country, but they had left on a vacation last week and she found chocolate chips and bought them. (You cannot find them in our city) I was so excited about making cookies. She asked if her son could come over and make them with us...he had tried some at our house one time and loved them! 
We all had fun making and eating them! They turned out really good.
Our neighbor's little girl turned 13 this week. She had a party, but the cake they ordered came and was more like a cake for two people to share (and they had a house full of kids). So, I went to the bakery to try and buy a cake,which you typically have to order in advance, but it was worth a try. I got to the bakery and they had nothing! They said no problem, we will order it for you and you can pick it up at 9:00 pm. I told them that would not work because the party was already going on. So, they said ok, you can buy this person's cake and we will order them a new one! So, that's what I did. I bought someone else's birthday cake and the store ordered another one for them :) Everyone liked the chocoalte sticks around the cake. 
This picture will never do it justice. You really need a video. If you put put your ear right up against the speaker of your tv and turn it on full blas for about 1 minute, then you will be close to knowing what it is like to celelbrate the opening of a new store. OH! and we experienced it from the 11th floor! I'm glad we were not closer or we would have had permant hearing loss :)All of the red paper is actually the leftover from all the firecrackers that were set off. I'm not kidding. It was loud. The kids ran and hid and I ran to the balcony to try to get a better look. You should have seen the flames from these things going off. Incredible. One of those things you just have to be here to truly understand. We were serenaded all day with music, so that was a change of pace.
