As my Facebook newsfeed is full of photos of snowy scenes, it’s 89 degrees here. So I wish I could say “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” but it’s not really. At least not by this Nebraska girl’s standards, anyway.
It is beginning to look a little bit like Christmas though, thanks to Max and Elly. Continue reading
It was just a bit more than a year ago that I first shared with you about ELIMAA School. I was nervous to publicly share what we were doing, fearing that if we failed, I would have to own up to that publicly, too.
But this past year has seen huge advances for ELIMAA School. And now we’re ready to grow! Continue reading
If you happened to see us on House Hunters International, you might remember that the greatest drawback to the house we chose was its small compound, which left little room for Max and Elly to play, and zero green space.
But that’s soon about to change as we move to a new house (minus the HGTV cameras and reality-TV fame) in the next few days!
Our new house, which is owned by dear Tanzanian friends of ours who live in the US, has a oodles more outdoor space for Max and Elly to roam, and lots of trees and bushes. Continue reading
We occasionally invite our safari clients to do a home stay with us at the shamba (farm) to get an up-close look at village life. Usually before a visit, we’ll do a small project to spruce up the house to make it more comfortable for our guests. By small, I mean something like buying new pillows for the guest bed.
But this time as we were preparing for visitors, we really wanted to do some painting. By some, I mean painting a room or two. But as we looked around, we decided that if we were going to have the painters come with all their supplies and equipment anyway, we just as well do it all. Continue reading
This past weekend some new friends (who recently moved to Arusha from Omaha) introduced us to an acrobatics class for kids. I wasn’t sure if Max and Elly would be very cooperative in an actual class, despite loving to jump and roll and climb on top of each other all the time at home.
Turns out they both loved it and are already asking to go back again next Saturday. Here are a few of the amazing feats they accomplished in their first class. Continue reading
Well, I didn’t mean to take such a long hiatus from blogging, but these last couple of months were packed pretty full–most particularly by a nearly month-long trip back to the US for Max, Elly and me.
We arrived in early August after surviving two long overseas flights (one of them was 15 hours long!) and a short flight from Dallas to Omaha. Max and Elly are actually really good travelers, perhaps because they’ve been flying since they were 8 weeks old (by comparison, I was 28 years old before I was ever on an airplane).
The trip was a great chance to reconnect with family and friends after two years since Max and Elly were last back for a visit. For this week’s 5 Photo Friday here are a few highlights of our trip: Continue reading
Max and Elly turned 4 years old on Sunday so on Monday they got to have a birthday party with their classmates at school. What better way to kick off the week than to pump a bunch of preschoolers full of sugar! Continue reading
On July 4, 2011, I had lunch with my friend Rebecca. It was a welcome diversion because I was on Day 3 of a long holiday weekend feeling bored and borderline miserable. My growing belly was almost too much to bear, and I had been spending the last few weeks working from home to spare me the waddle from my car to the office and back each day. I was getting tired of only myself for company.
As we said our goodbyes after lunch Rebecca said, “I bet the next time I see you, you’ll be a mom!” I blew off her prediction, reminding her that I still had about five weeks to go. My due date wasn’t until August 9.
I returned home, did a few chores, watched several more hours of Netflix and went to bed.
At 1 a.m. my water broke. At 2 a.m. the contractions started. Continue reading
Yesterday was our third “Tanziversary”–the anniversary of our arrival in Tanzania. It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years already, but these three years have been packed full of lots of fun adventures, new challenges and great memories as a family!
To make the trip with two not-yet one-year-olds, I enlisted the help of my mom and sister Carla (and most of this 5 Photo Friday’s photos were taken by her).
Even with the help of mom and Carla, I was still a bit frazzled when we arrived at Kilimanjaro International Airport at about 9 pm after a good 30 hours of air travel. Continue reading
Today is our 5th wedding anniversary. We got married in Nebraska, in Sonshine Chapel at Carol Joy Holling Camp, the church camp where I worked several summers during college and for five years as Communications Manager after I graduated.
We were surrounded by family and friends. It was a perfect day, except maybe for the 50 mph winds that were nearly blowing us over. Continue reading
The Joy of Life is Love 