MOPs Easter Egg Hunt

Sometimes it felt a bit lonely living off-Base. Even though people who live on-Base continually tell me how stifling and on-top-of-each-other that they feel living on-Base, when you are off-Base, you can slip into a bit of sincere America missing. Of course, when you are on-Base you have absolutely no privacy so you can't really win when it comes to the perfect place to live overseas.

In Turkey, we did not have the option to live off-Base. That made our decision a non-one-to-make.

But here, you can choose.

Off-Basers love living in the community. They love their neighbors and meeting locals. On-Basers enjoy the comfort of a "mini-America" amidst the life in another country.

In addition, mold and mildew is a HUGE problem on this island and Base housing is less impacted by it for sure.

JB absolutely LOVES living off-Base. He loves coming home from work and truly decompressing. I, however, remember the neighborliness of life in Turkey, and I sometimes crave it.

Either way, this is where we live, and I always appreciate when my on-Base friends use me for an escape. I have about a half dozen people that will call (or just stop by) to escape the congestion of living on-Base. They are constantly telling me how much they appreciate the little "oasis" in the dessert that this amazing house provides for them. In addition, the Base houses are SMALL and the yards are even SMALLER so I really appreciate that my kids have so much room and that I am able to host events that wouldn't be possible on Base.

It's April which means: Easter Egg Hunt! I did this last year too, and despite my incredible pregnancy sickness, everyone had a wonderful time. This year, the flowers were already blooming. Take a look at the 17 different types of flower JB and the kiddos found in our yard yesterday:

So I invited the MOPs group over for a hunt. Everyone bought something yummy to share, and thanks to my friend Stebbs buying eggs in the States that she sent home with JB when he was going through there, and the Chapel finding a TON of eggs that they were getting rid of, we had a super abundance of eggs and fun for the kiddos.

In addition, Amber Morris took photographs. She is simply an amazing photographer. She is going to give me a CD of everything taken that day, but she already Facebooked me a few. Check them out:

It has poured rain all morning, but the Lord cleared the skies for a solid two hours so that we could hunt outside! Check out Elijah Storey leading the chase!

This is my friend Lindsey. She has such an awesome heart.

The gang ate lunch on the porch. (This is probably half the kids that were there.)

I absolutely love this picture of a cupcake-faced Abigail. We found this dress amongst the yardsale items. It had a huge stain on it, but Abigail loved it. (And, the stain later came out!)