When Surprises Pile Up

     We hadn't had any packages for about a month and a half.  We felt dry and parched inside--like there was no excitement left in the world. Mom was worried; we were sad.  What was going on?  No packages had never taken this long to arrive before! 
     Then, just when our hopes were dimmest, the Guarino's gave us a slip telling us that we had a package at the post office.  We were excited, but super busy and tired so we didn't make it down there until about two weeks later.  Just the thought of another package waiting for us was enough to get us through.  By that time, Jonathan had a gash in his foot from hopping over the Guarino's spiked gate.  He could barely walk so it would have taken us forever to get to the post office even if every other person hadn't stopped whatever they were doing to ask him about it.
     We finally arrived at our destination hot and sweaty from the baking African sun, and walked up to the counter.  The lady took our slip and flipped open her record book.  "You have more than one," she told us.  "Oh! No one told us--we just got the one slip." 
     We were expecting maybe one or two extra, but this is what we got. . .

Plus. . .

     Wow!  We were excited!!  There was also a problem, though.  Jonathan could hardly walk.  At first we thought we could make it, but the lady just kept bringing out more and more.  She brought out our last one as we were about to walk out the door!  Jonathan and I just looked at each other.  Who would have thought?  We finally decided to call Mr. Priester--one of our very nice neighbors--and ask him if he could come pick us up in his car.  Being the kind person that he is, he told us he's be there in about 10 minutes.  We sat ourselves outside (our packages in everyone's way) to wait.
     This was a beautiful fire tree right next to the parking lot and our hero is driving in right underneath it. :)
 

     Mr. Priester drove us home and helped us unload, and then we dove in!  Here is Jonathan sitting amongst the spoils. . . we wish that we had taken a video of us opening all of these--it would have been quite entertaining!

My present from Jo. :)

More presents from Jo and an excited Jonathan!

Myself.  Also excited. :)

Thank you, family!!  It was so fun and exciting to open these and see what you had sent to us!  Thanks also to everyone else who has sent us surprises, it means a lot to us. :)