Joe and Nica's World: Auntie Ruoya here to visit! Pt 1

We were SO blessed to have our dear friend Ruoya come to visit us last week! She was a member of our cell group in Shanghai and was on her way to her home country of Singapore and planned her trip to visit us so she could meet Briana! WHAT a gift to have sweet friends willing to make a trip to Phnom Penh for the sole purpose of just hanging out with us! The stories that she shared with us about our church, cell group, and friends from Shanghai definitely made us homesick. We're currently brainstorming ideas on how we can swing a trip to Shanghai somehow in our future. We'll see! :)

Here is Ruoya with Briana! Thanks for coming, Ruoya!! :)

Here is Wesley playing on the floor with his farm lego (birthday gift from G&G Martin!) and his letter cards! He was SO hyper at the airport (Ruoya's flight was delayed!) so I was grateful that he was entertaining himself in one place. He definitely attracted a lot of attention while we waited. Is it because he's not Asian? Or he's sitting on the ground? Or he's only 2 but knows all his letters & sounds?

Even though it was raining, we went to the downtown night market. Ruoya loves exploring and is amazing with children! So the two of us jumped in a tuk tuk with the kiddos to see what deals were to be found. I found out later that there was actually a shooting outside of the night market on the night we were there! Not fatal, but it was someone resisting robbery. We had no idea and enjoyed our night so much! We were pretty surprised when we found out and so grateful for the Lord's protection.

Look at these two shoppers!! :) Train them while they're young!

Saturday morning we all went downtown to the riverfront.

I snapped these photos as we were driving by in the tuk tuk.

I thought the palace with the rain clouds forming overhead was so beautiful!

Can you believe this? My purse was stolen!

Yep. Right out of the tuk tuk.

As soon as we snapped these photos I saw a guy on a moto reach in and just grab my purse!

I'd heard of these things happening before and usually take precautions. But we were goofing around, looking at the palace, taking photos, etc, that I wasn't thinking.

Although my foot was on my bag, he was quick. I saw it coming, though, and grabbed it back. We had a little tug-of-war, but he won and sped off with my bag tucked under his arm. :(

I found out later that this time of year (right before a big Khmer holiday when everyone goes home for the holidays) is very prominent for theft.

I'm sure the guy was disappointed in my bag, though. Nothing very valuable in it for him.

For me, though, I lost my nursing cover, the rain cover for the stroller, my (cheap) phone, my glasses, about $30, and some other baby stuff like a bottle, diapers, etc. Like I said, not valuable for him, but where will I get another nursing cover or rain cover? We were leaving for Kep later on that day, so I was really going to miss those items. Again, we were grateful for the Lord's protection and grateful that nothing truly valuable was taken.

Photos of us in the tuk tuk right before the bag was snatched:

Although shaken up, Ruoya, Briana, and I still had a good time!

And while we explored the palace, Joe and Wes explored the park.

This is a photo of what Wes does at the park and why we need to run after him so carefully! He's turned into a climber. Yikes!!

Hungry children! This causes plans to instantly change. A quick trip to the food court for lunch before jumping in the van to head to the coast!

We're still trying to figure out, though, what is good to eat in a Khmer food court. However, for the two year old, these hot dogs on a stick were perfect!!