Nieces and Nephews

One of my favorite traditions in the Philippines is that most missionary kids will call you aunt or uncle instead of Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. (well... except at school if you are their teacher!!) Over here your friends are more like family. Often you don't have your blood related aunts and uncles, so you have surrogate ones! So, in the last few months Dan and I have gained many nieces and nephews. There are two families that we have especially gotten to know and love very much!

Vivian, Anna, and Allison....
These are three of our nieces that we get to see almost every day because they live just downstairs from our apartment. I get lots of hugs from these girls, which if you know me at all, you know I have a NEED for lots of them. I love it when I come home and hear "hi aunt ellen" shouted from the balcony. They are tons of fun, and make really good swimming buddies!

Melissa, Rachel, Christopher, David and Allison...
These were some of the first kids we met when we came over last April and now they live just down the road. This past weekend their parents went out of town on an anniversary trip, so we got to watch them for the weekend! I joked that this could be the deciding factor on whether we have kids, and if it was, of course it was positive. They are terrific. Allison even let me take her to see the Heffalump movie and the boys "let" Dan take them to play video games.