Pizza, Parade, and Papparazzi

Baxter and his birthday cupcake

The other night, after Baxter's birthday dinner (just went out for pizza with a few friends, since we'd done the elephant rides in June), we went outside and there was a parade. What a nice surprise for his birthday!

Whenever we go out, it is highly likely that we're going to get "mobbed" by people who want to look at the children, rub their hair, touch the baby (or scold me for not covering her head--see previous posts for an elaboration on that point), or just ask us questions. "Why are you here?", "Do you live here?", "What do you think of this city?", etc.

After the parade, I (Jess) got surrounded by at least 30 people who were asking about Maranatha and all the usual questions. I'm in the center, and you can see Doug to the top right, trying to take my picture, but our friend Justin got this better shot. This was by far the largest group of people to mob us, ever! People use their camera phones to snap pictures of the crazy foreigner family with 3 kids...it feels very much like a celebrity sighting--kind of intimidating!