A Friday Family Outing of Blessings

I ♥ Fridays!!! "Why?", you may ask. Well, for a lot of very good reasons, many that you may use, too. Such as the end of the week including work and/or school (aka for me Spanish homework), the beginning of fun things to come on the weekend, the approaching day of Sunday to go to church and serve and worship the Lord in His house among His people, etc. etc. However, my main reason (being the 'spiritually-minded' gal that I am {insert big barrell of laughter here}) I L♥VE Fridays, because that is our "family day". At least on Friday nights, we try to take some special time to spend together with the kiddos and just focus on having fun and enjoying our family. It may be something as simple as pizza, Pepsi, and playing Go Fish (too bad Clara usually wins ;) or, now that we have wheels, we sometimes get to have an outing and maybe even make a day of it!!! That's what we did this past Friday, and let me tell you after being "cooped up" in the house all week. It felt wonderful to escape into the sunshine for a bit!

We decided to head out to the town where the best hospital in Argentina is located (seriously, recent stats say that it is rated #1 in Argentina, and #4 in all of South America) and that is where I was so very blessed to give birth to our thriving, chunky-monkey {big grin}, Baby-Man, Ethan.

Hospital Austral

Just born and not happy about it!

Ethan's first bath at the hospital

 Matt wanted to stop by the hospital and talk to someone about signing up for a family healthcare plan (as we are "crazy" missionaries, who up until now, do not have any type of insurance). When we arrived, the guy that handles that good stuff had just left for lunch, so we thought that sounded like a good idea, too, and headed to the mall. This mall has a small food court with an indoor little play area, including 2 baby swings and 2 slides. Clara had a great time burning off some energy there, and Baby-Man got in on the action, too, with his first time to swing. (Too bad, I left my camera at home, huh?! Grrrr!) Next, we made our way to Burger King to eat (big splurge, but hubby says we are just making up for lost time when we didn't have a car and couldn't go anywhere or do anything--he's a good analytical justifier, isn't he?!). They had a play place upstairs, so after eating, Clara was again able to play her little heart out. Good thing nobody else was up there though, since the tunnel was missing some of its grippers and Matt and I had to climb up there a bit and give Clara a boost each time. What a funny sight we made, I am sure! lol
Eventually, we made our way back to the hospital and I waited in the car with my tired-out kiddos while Matt went in to see what he could see. I was even a good little student and attempted to listen to the radio and improve my Spanish vocab. (Every little bit helps, right?) Well, believe it or not, Matt came back to the car and the first words out of his mouth were, "We have insurance now." Really? I was flabbergasted. You see, it is virtually impossible to go anywhere and get anything done in just one trip down here. There always seems to be a catch or hassle, hang-up, missing paperwork, multiple trips needed--something to make things more difficult and take longer. But no, Matt signed us up for a family plan, and get this, it covers everything, that's right I said, everything!!! The more he explained the more I wanted to jump up and down with excitement. This plan covers all 4 of us for dental, eye, emergencies, check-ups, whatever we need and with NO co-pays either. WOW!!! On top of that, it isn't costing us an arm and a leg to pay for. Such a tremendous blessing!

Actually, I received so many blessings both big and small on this little outing of ours. Spending time together with my happy and healthy family, enjoying a sunshiny day and 'riding in style' in our own car, watching my kids laugh and play, having God's protection from the crazy drivers all around us, and watching the Lord provide a wonderful insurance plan for us that will go into effect next month (no big waiting period--WooHoo!)
What can I say? God is good--ALL THE TIME, and extra special good to ME! {big, satisfied smile}