{"id":1658,"date":"2013-10-06T03:37:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-06T03:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=1658"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:31","slug":"birthday-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=1658","title":{"rendered":"Birthday Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Samuel turned 10 on Friday – our family’s first birthday in Haiti.\u00a0 Melissa and I have been notorious over the last few years for running late in planning for Samuel’s birthday. This year we went shopping online over a week and a half in advance … but the presents didn’t arrive.\u00a0 Thank goodness Grandma Gross got her package in the mail early – it came on Tuesday’s flight.\u00a0 So Samuel got a new lunch box at breakfast time …<\/p>\n\n\n

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And a new Star Wars Lego set in the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Bundy kids came by first thing in the morning and taped a poster and some candy to our front door.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A lot of Samuel’s birthday treats centered around food.\u00a0 Sugary cereal at a reasonable price is hard to find here, so Froot Loops with real milk accompanied by a blueberry smoothie hit the spot for breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n

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For dinner, Melissa, was able to pull together Sammy’s request – chicken nachos – with a bit of last minute help from fellow missionary, Erica, who knew which grocery store might have tortilla chips.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0Uncle Bud and Aunt Jane and little Sammy joined us for dinner.\u00a0 The two Sammies sat side by side.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a0It was super sweet that Caleb, Hannah and Sarah took the time to go to the “gift shop” on the mission grounds and get a Haiti hat for Samuel.\u00a0 Little Sammy liked it too.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0My Haitian “sons” made sure they got a picture with the birthday boy, which they immediately request for me to post on Facebook.\u00a0 (They’re a bit obsessed with Facebook at the moment!)<\/p>\n\n\n

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After dinner, the Heckmans joined us for chocolate milkshakes.\u00a0 They brought Samuel two presents.\u00a0 First, a duct tape wallet:<\/p>\n\n\n

Which he liked.\u00a0 But if you want to see him get REALLY excited, give him a package of Oreos!<\/p>\n\n\n

To top off the evening, he got to Skype with both Grandmas and his best friend Thomas back in Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n

We were so hyped up on sugar that evening, we didn’t cut into the “birthday cake” until the next day.\u00a0 But Samuel still insisted on getting a candle on his pineapple upside down cake.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0In the evening, Ruysdael, Johnny and Mikenn took us all on a hike up the mountainside where they live.\u00a0 Sammy had been looking forward to doing a bit of rock climbing together.<\/p>\n\n\n

We managed to crawl our way up a steep ravine that had been cut into the side of the mountain for the purpose of sliding rocks down below for the purpose of construction.\u00a0 It was just the sort of challenge that makes Samuel very happy. He led the way.<\/p>\n\n\n

Me and my ten year old at the top!<\/p>\n\n\n

The celebration isn’t over yet.\u00a0 Because our present and a couple of others sent by friends and family didn’t make the Thursday flight, Samuel has more surprises to look forward to in the coming week. We feel so blessed by God to have this great kid as a part of our family!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samuel turned 10 on Friday – our family’s first birthday in Haiti.\u00a0 Melissa and I have been notorious over the last few years for running late in planning for Samuel’s birthday. This year we went shopping online over a week and a half in advance … but the presents didn’t arrive.\u00a0 Thank goodness Grandma Gross […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1674,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/1674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}