Happy Mother's Day!

This weekend is so relaxing and wonderful that I don't want it to be over. :) Matthew had 5 long, hard days of work last week, and well, so did I. When he came home on Friday night, I sighed a great sigh of relief and said, "Let's go out for pizza." Ha.

Yesterday we just hung out around the house, except for me making a run to the grocery store and a second-hand store. It was very refreshing to hang out together as a family.

This morning the girls were so excited that it was Mother's Day. :) They had all made cards for me, and gave me money to buy the bird book I've been eyeing. I have to tell you about C's card for me. It was a blow to my self-confidence. (not really, but it cracked me up.) It said, "Mom, Happy Mother's Day! I love you very much! Do you know what to do with the money in the box? Buy "Birds of East Africa!" We put in enough money! Dad thought that you could figure that out on your own, but I wasn't so sure. Caitlyn" Hee hee. So sweet.

We only have two more weeks here in Uganda, a week in Kenya and then we are heading home! I am alternately so excited to get back to our own house and nervous about the continuing political drama there.

african hair

Caitlyn has been waiting and waiting to get her hair braided, and I finally arranged to have it done. It took almost 3 hours and cost me $5. She's very pleased, to say the least, and the other 3 girls are begging to have theirs done, too. :) We'll see. She has 15 braids, in case anyone is wondering.

Jinja

We're back. Tired, happy and a little bit sunburned. It was a good time away, if you overlook minor details like the hotel not having recorded our reservation. Ahem. And not having a bungalow big enough for our family. And Larissa being made to sleep in a crib because of said oversight. Oh well. We overlooked it and had a good time. :)

This is a tea plantation that we drove by on the way to Jinja. It was beautiful.

When we got to our hotel, we parked under a tree and right away I heard birds. We got out and looked and the tree was FULL of birds and nests. I've never seen anything like it. They were Little Weavers, and they were building nests and making a huge commotion while they were at it. It was amazing. There were hundreds of birds and hundreds of nests.

We ate lunch almost right away after we got there, and while we were waiting for our food, the girls played "Mother May I."

The cute little "Mother" who likes being in charge.

We swam for awhile after lunch and then we went for a boat ride. The hotel was on Lake Victoria, but very near the beginning of the Nile. The hotel had boats for hire, so we found another couple there who also wanted to go and we all went together. Unfortunately, our camera isn't really good enough to take pictures in a situation like this, but we went onto the river and for one hour we just went up and down the shoreline. We saw about 12 different kinds of birds, monkeys and 2 monitor lizards. It was all just so fun and so amazing.

This morning after breakfast, the girls swam again before we had to check out. You can imagine that a pool like this was a big hit. :) They are getting very comfortable in the water now, and like to try new tricks all the time.

When we left the hotel we drove over the dam (hydroelectric dam in the Nile) and went to find the Bujagali Falls. The photo above is the dam, and the photo below is the lower side of the river.

Here we are at the Bujagali Falls.

In this photo you can see the rafts and kayaks getting ready to go over the falls. It looked like so much fun, and the girls begged to go. Someday. That's the sort of thing that makes me look forward to having teenagers. :)

We stopped at a little cafe called the DeNile Cafe. :) We ate fish and chips and couldn't resist the passionfruit cake and ice-cream. It was delicious! I think I might have to figure that recipe out now. I saw this tree as we were walking to the cafe, and thought it would make a good picture.

Larissa was so tired on the way home, and convinced her Daddy to stop the car (proof that he's wrapped around her finger...) and get her blanket out of the suitcase. :) She was asleep soon after this was taken.

We stopped for groceries on the way home, then came the unpacking/sorting/cleaning up that comes after a weekend away. Now the girls are bathed and in bed, and we are relaxing. :)

Bowling and other stuff

Listening to stories on the mp3 player.

My girly-girls.

Caitlyn (she got a few spares and a strike with that thing!)

Aimee (I think she got a spare or two as well)

Sierra (she also got a few spares)

Larissa (she got two spares...she is aiming the ramp in this photo and she had a pretty good eye for it.) Unfortunately this is the best photo we have of her, and I had to crop my head off because I clearly didn't know that anyone was taking my picture at the time. :)

Guest Blogger: My Flight With Daddy

Dictated by Caitlyn 08-04-09

This morning I went flying with Daddy. It was fun and I got to see the Nile River. It’s long. We stopped lots of times, and some of them were interesting. I only got out one time and I saw lots of flat land that was dirt. And it had a lot of little sticks and plants with thorns coming out of it. And another time I stayed in the airplane while Daddy got out to help the people who were going to be dropped off there. There was a huge rock right beside the runway. Around the rock on one side was lots of houses which were a hospital. And on the other side a wall went around the rock and then came around and went around the houses and it had a door at the front beside the airplane. The lady who was sitting behind me told me that the houses were a hospital and in front of the hospital outside of the wall used to be a refugee camp. The refugees slept in the hospital and the people who ran the hospital built a wall around it so that the refugees could be safe from a bunch of rebels. When we got off the airplane at the airport in Kampala, Daddy got off and talked to the people who were being dropped off there and then helped me unbuckle my seatbelt and he reached his arms up and I leaned over and jumped into them. Then he did some papers and stuff and then he called Mommy on his telephone and gave it to me so I could talk to her. And then while we were talking I told Mommy that we saw a couple of airplanes taking off after we landed and she said that was cool. I talked to her a really long time and then Daddy took my picture beside the airplane and then I hung up and we drove home. I took lots of pictures while we were on the airplane. And I took two pictures of some kids who saw me when we stopped one time, and Daddy wanted me to take pictures of them. Lots of times on the airplane I was really hot, so Daddy had to keep turning the air condition on. I don’t know why he didn’t keep it on always. I think it was because we kept stopping always right after I asked him to turn it on. Mommy gave me a hat to wear, if it was hot. But I didn’t wear it except after we landed at the airport in Kampala, because I always stayed in the airplane. Mom said she bought that hat for a camping trip when she was 15 or 16 so it’s really old. There are snaps on it and they don’t work. Every time we stopped at a different runway, different people were being picked up. Only sometimes people were being dropped off. One time I thought we were going to get too many people.

Cooking lessons

While we were in Ohio at Vicki's house, I bought some Usborne things from her (she is a good salesperson, but I am also a sucker for Usborne's wonderful books and things!). One thing that I got is this recipe card set. For the last few weeks, the girls and I have been having cooking lessons on Saturday afternoons, using that set as well as this one. This past Saturday we made Bread Rolls and Spicy Bean Soup, both from the healthy recipes set. The three youngest did most of the work for the rolls, and Caitlyn worked on the soup. At this point, I'm still helping a fair bit. It's fun to see them learning techniques for cooking and I know it won't be long till I'm not needed!

Picture this:

I have the 'pick-up at school' end of carpooling, so I thought I would document it. This is the road we walk on from the school to the truck. And, yes, this is posed. :) Normally they are in 4 completely different places.

Sierra (and Aimee, too, for that matter) is taking off with reading. She's so cute when she's reading since she wants to be sure we all know that she's really reading it. I guess she means she isn't guessing or remembering what she heard before.

Larissa really loves Judah. Could you tell? :)

My yellow rose bush. What more can I say about that? I like it.

We missed the first bananas from our trees while we were in Canada. Now the second batch has been cut, and they are ripening in a box in the garage. I foresee a lot of banana bread when these all ripen at the same time. :) Actually, I'll probably give a lot away unless they ripen in stages.

Does anyone know what this is? Matthew took this photo on a trip the other week, and he had to tell me what it was. I would never have recognized it.

Not much

Today in our Bible study, Beth Moore talked about fears. How appropriate for this time in our lives...living in a country in crisis! I am firmly convinced that it is God's perfect timing that has us doing this Bible study at this time, because each week I feel like it speaks to me and my feelings about the crisis.

It's very difficult to know how to blog right now. Should I blog about common, everyday things? Or should I attempt to blog about the crisis?

We are enjoying the peas from the garden...one tasty handful at a time! They are some of the best peas I've ever had. :)

Tonight we've been told to stay at home. In no uncertain terms. I feel safe at home, so that's good. But it's always a bit unnerving to be told to do so.

Caitlyn and I like to play a card game called Borderline. We have the Africa edition, and tonight when we were playing, she put down a card and said, "Republican of the Congo." I giggled inside, because "Republican" of the Congo sure does leave me with a different mental image than "Republic of the Congo." :)

As I was putting Larissa to bed tonight, I lifted her up and made a comment about how big she's getting. She made a joke about weighing 100 lbs, and I said she didn't weigh nearly that much. She must think 100 lbs is about at the upper limit, because she said, "Who weighs 100 lbs? Jesus? A monster?" More inner snickering. :)

Ye olde ADD has kicked in, so this is the end of this blog entry.

a little of this, a little of that

Larissa's first day back to school. She is totally loving it so far, and it's making her sleep really well at night. :)

Aimee and Sierra's first day back to school. They also had a great time. (Notice the wall behind them? That's my newly painted entry/hallway/stairway colour. I like it, except for the places where it didn't stick. :( )

Sierra's lip and eyes were swollen when she got up this morning. :( I gave her some Benedryl and she laid around for awhile and it's going down now. She doesn't seem to be feeling sick, so I think it was just the Benedryl making her lazy. :)

Aimee lost her first two teeth today! She's been waiting and waiting, so this is quite a monumental day. :)

Today Larissa was at school, and the rest of us got quite a lot of schoolwork done. So when some friends called to say they were going to the pool for lunch and a swim, it didn't take too much to convince me that we should go. :) Caitlyn only got out of the water to eat her lunch and to climb to the top of the slide. :)

I had such a great day with the kids today. I don't know what all was different, but I would love if the majority of our days were so happy! Even Sierra's lip didn't get us down today. We just had a good day of learning and playing together. I guess I will thank God for it and pray for more like it! :)

funnies

Aimee: Judah was playing his thermometer in church this morning. (Harmonica)

Aimee, again: They’re fainting! (Referring to the new glow-in-the-dark stars we put up in the girls’ room. She meant fading.)

Aimee: What’s maturity?
Caitlyn: It’s when you lay down and pretend you’re dead.

P.S. Last night was actually awful. The 3 oldest girls slept fine. Larissa was up a lot. I got 3.5 hours of sleep. I'm resorting to taking "Simply Sleep" tonight. Argh.

Happy 8th Birthday Caitlyn!

Caitlyn had her 8th birthday while we were in KS. It was fun to celebrate with cousins, and some of my Nisly aunts and uncles stopped in that evening, too, so that was nice. (Below you'll see a picture of my Uncle Willis, sitting on the floor as he usually does.)