A Month Full of Birthdays

Happy Birthday Mona!!!!!!

My beautiful friend Mona celebrated her birthday this month. It fell on Ladies Tea day, so we just had a small party, just us girls; filled with Tea and snacks, cake and gifts. 

Happy Birthday Aaron!!!!!!!

 Cody made Aaron a Ben 10 cake for his birthday 

 Aaron is Babu's younger brother. It was so great to see Babu pay for the whole party and host it at their house. Babu has been working for Johnson and making enough money to really support his family  consistently for the first time. He was so excited to give Aaron a party filled with decorations and food! 

Happy Birthday Dixon!!!!!

Dixon is one of Cody's teenage boys that he mentors. He comes to Cody's Bible study and basically follows Cody's every lead, whether working helping people, working in the yard or house, surfing, fishing... you name it. He's a great kid with a lot of potential. 

Cody made him a surfboard cake and had a small party for all the teenage boys with music, dancing, caramb (the famous Sri Lankan game above), food, cake, and presents. 

Month of July Happenings

Some of Cody's young boys that he mentors are getting good at surfing! This in Mitun

Cody entertains some of the smaller kids during Surf N Swim Saturdays when the waves are getting too big for them

Dixon is doing so good at surfing

I got some of my girls to come out for Surf N Swim Saturday, and we actually got Ruby (on the left) to surf for the first time. Her brother Babu had the honors of pushing her into her first wave :)

This day marked the anniversary of Ajai's dad's suicidal death. Cody took Ajai (center) and Mitun (back) to a surf spot to get his mind clear and enjoy his day

We had a Barbecue and movie night at the Surf Club. Cody and some of the surf club boys caught fish that day and they barbecued it. And we showed surf movies and videos with our projector. 

Cody and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary and took a little trip to a different beach as a family. We celebrated for a few days and enjoyed a nice stay at a hotel in Tangalle.

It was a beautiful side of the island

We also celebrated Sharmali's birthday this month. 

Koda is also improving at surfing and its great to hear him ask on his own if he can go surfing :)

This month also was a big Hindu holiday and festival with some sad and disgusting rituals that people believe things like these will grant them favor with the "gods." Its very sad.

Beach Clean-Up Day

We spent one morning (STN) along with the surf club, contestants in the surf contest, and the army cleaning up Arugam Bay beach in prep for the surf contest. It was a great morning and team effort.

Arugam Bay Surf Classic 2012

We had a great time hosting the contest this year! We had a few problems with the main sponsor this year, but we worked through some of them and would like to run our own contest next year with our own chosen sponsors. The boys did great competing and won awesome prizes. We couldn't have run the contest without the help of Surfing The Nations team, Mike and Viktor. Together with Pontus, Andy, our family, Mike, Viktor, and the A-Bay Surf Club, the contest was a great success.