Gener turns 17 ...

Still love his smile! and love that he IS smiling.

There was a lot of happiness and laughter and teenage-boy noise.

Yesterday, Gener celebrated his 17th birthday. He had friends here from the orphanage AND from the neighborhood. As you can see by the second picture, there was LOTS of laughing ... which is so fun to see. The cake is not a traditional Nicaraguan cake because Gener doesn't like cake at all (we don't like Nica cake either, except carrot cake which he absolutely positively doesn't care for). So, I went to one of the American-type stores and bought him a Duncan Hines "Cherry Chip" cake (his choice) and topped it with flake coconut (with a dyed-coconut "G" in the middle). His nickname here is "G". True to all things difficult in Nica, our stove (which is a mondo industrial very nice stove) would not light (the oven part), so after making the batter we drove the bowl and a pan and a can of PAM and toothpicks to a friend's house and baked it there. They accused us, laughingly, of wanting to heat up their kitchen instead of ours! The temp yesterday was 97 with a "real feel" of 102, so their seemed fair.

They played badminton (thank you, Andrea and Saul) and soccer, and listened to their music, and Jordan even showed off his prowess at "break dancing" on the tile floor ... fun - loud - laughter - friends ... a fun time to enjoy. Before the cake and ice cream, they all had a plate of spaghetti (Gener's request) and pop and chips. We KNOW how much two teenage boys can eat ... so yesterday was an amazing sight as food disappeared.

At the end of the day after we drove the kids home, Gener thanked us for "everything you did for me today." I was glad it was dark so he couldn't see me (almost) cry - to think this was probably his first birthday party that was all his (rather than a monthly gig at the orphanage). Our electricity went off at 5:30pm when we took the kids home, and didn't come back on until 7:30pm. Gener waited in the kitchen, in the dark, for the electricity to come back on so he could have more spaghetti.

I know it's a repeat statement, but these boys are so worth it!