Week 17

Week 17… Pictures coming soon!

Baby S turns 1!

Baby S turned Big Boy S this week. I was not working on his birthday but went next door for the party in the afternoon. All the toddlers had their party hats on, we sang happy birthday, played with the crazy party noisemakers and had treats. The kids loved it. They had juice, cupcakes, cheese puffs and marshmallows that looked like mice (Grandma you would have loved these guys!). It is so much fun to watch the joy on their faces when they get fun treats like this. I was able to get many good pictures of kids with party hats and sticky cupcake fingers. The end of March is when we have the nest birthdays. We have 4 birthdays within a ten-day time span so we are going to be partying like crazy then!

Good-Byes and Hellos

This week we said good-bye to one of our little girls as she was placed in the arms of her forever family. Baby A was a great baby and her smile will be missed around the house lots. With that good-bye though came a hello. We welcomed bin baby boy M to the house this week. This sweet little guy was welcomed with many hugs and prayers. It will be fun to watch him grow over the next few weeks.

Mimmos

Monday night we went out to dinner at Mimmos. We went as a farewell to Alyssa as she went home this past week. She was going to be here for 8 months but felt this was not the place she was suppose to be for that long so she just stayed one month. Lisa and Jason came to pick us up and we had to make two trips to get everyone there. Going out to dinner in South Africa is an all-evening event. We left with the first trip in the car at 6:15pm and returned with the last car trip at 9:15pm. We were at Mimmos for about 2 1/2 hours. It was a delicious meal with great company. We also had to get dessert because Mimmos has the panzookie. This is a cookie that is baked to perfection and warm and topped with ice cream, chocolate and a cherry. We got 4 of them between the 8 of us because they are big. It was a great night out and we will hopefully do it again soon. There was a picture of the girls posted on facebook for the night as well.

Pizza with the Farr Family

Tuesday night we went over to Candy and Brady’s house for a pizza party. They are an incredible missionary couple with 4 kids. They have lived in South Africa for just over a year now. They are taking over the place of the Brown’s who lived and did mission work in South Africa for 12 years. Brady is the pastor at a church plant here and Candy home schools the 4 kids and has volunteered at Door of Hope once a week for a while now. They have really reached out to the volunteers at Door of Hope and have been a HUGE blessing to us here. They take us to get groceries and to go out at night every once in a while and tonight they had us over for pizza. Lisa and Jason also joined us for pizza and company. It was a really fun night. We did a lot of talking and I also took my nail polish with the paint the girl’s nails since I had promised to do this a while ago. There will be no way to thank this family for opening up their lives to us so much and being a family to us in South Africa. It will be another hard good-bye to say in two months.

Thursday Night Bible Study

We started Bible Study again this week because we had gotten out of practice with doing it each week. Margie picked up dinner from Nando’s for us and we enjoyed that lots. She was the one who prepared the study for the night. Margie just got back from a trip to Uganda for the IMB. She lived in a village there and with the people of the village as well as other missionaries. There were a few missionary families that lived there together. They lived in community and everything that the Lord intended community to be. They ate together, they worked together, they played together and they worshipped together. We have decided to live in this community that we have here more intentionally now. We are in such a unique situation that we all live and work together and can’t escape the Baby House unless it is together. We have formed great friendships but we want to make them stronger and continue to make them more Christ centered. For each of our Bible Study meetings we are not going to have one leader but each of us will come with something that the Lord taught us during the week. We are excited to see how we can grow each other in the coming weeks and what we can learn from each other.

Lion and Rhino Park

This past Saturday all the volunteers had off so we planned an adventure with the help of Margie. We went to the Rhino and Lion Nature Preserve for the day and Monte Casino for dinner. The Rhino and Lion Park was lots of fun. We saw many different animals including lots of the different kinds of African deer type animals, rhinos, hippos, lions, tigers, ostrich, zebra, wild dogs, servals, warthogs, cape buffalo, cheetahs, and I am sure more that I just can’t remember right now. The park is really big and you just drive through it and see the animals from your car. Many of the roads are for all types of vehicles but there are also some roads that are just for 4-wheel drive vehicles. We went in Margie’s truck, which has 4-wheel drive.  Some of the roads were a bit scary to be driving on even with 4-wheel drive. We only had to use the 4-wheel drive once though so that was good. Most of the driving reminded me of the adventure that I had in Maine last March with my Jeep. Great memories huh Beth and Aubs! I will share a few highlights from the day with you.

-       Most of the park allows you to drive around with your windows open since the animals are usually really afraid of the vehicles. In the lion, wild dogs and cheetah cages though you have to have your windows up. All of the animals are wild and can get mad at anytime. We kept our windows up until it was time to take a few pictures and since we could see the lions just lying down we rolled down the windows and snapped our pictures. Nothing like living on the wild side! We are all safe so don’t worry.

-       This park has a great animal crèche that you can go to and pet some of the animals. You have the option of going to pet a cheetah, tiger cubs, lion cubs and servals. You had to pay for each kind of animal that you wanted to pet. We decided to pet them all cause why not. First we went in with Eddie the cheetah. He is 10 years old and just likes to lie there. We were able to pet him and even lay down next to him to get some good pictures. We then went in with the two tiger cubs that were about 8 months old. They were lots of fun and even a bit playful. Then we went to see the servals. They are just like house cats and were very soft. Finally we went in with the lion cubs that happened to only be 7 weeks old and in the petting area for their first ever weekend. They were so small and way too cute. It was a blast to see the animals up so close.

-       We were able to see a mother rhino and her baby. The baby was only a few months old, as it did not yet have its horn. It was so neat to see the interaction between them. We were able to get pretty close to them since they were right on the side of the road eating.

-       One of the things that you can also do at the park is visit the wonder cave. Margie had never been to the cave before and it costs extra to see it. We decided to give it a try because we knew we would only be there once. Tours leave for the cave every hour on the hour. We went in the afternoon. We parked the car and started walking down a path and we saw some warthogs pretty close to us. They were wild warthogs and we watched them amazed that we were only about 6 feet from them. Then one of them saw some different grass that he wanted and we were in the way so he started to charge at us. We quick got out of his way and hurried down the path to safety. We had to wait about 10 minutes for our tour so we just sat and watched them. They tried to charge each other and a few other people and we just laughed each time. They were very entertaining. It was finally time for our tour and we took a very short walk to the entrance of the cave. We were then told that we would be going down 20 meters on 87 stairs that were at a 45 degree angle. Then we would take a lift down another 60 meters and finally walk down paths in the cave 20 more meters to reach the very bottom. Just looking at those steps freaked me out. They were incredibly steep and I don’t do well with heights. We made it to the bottom of the steps and squeezed into the lift and prayed the whole way down. It was a neat tour but I was anxious to get out of the cave the whole time. We all came up out of breath and thankful to be walking on ground again. That will be all the cave exploring that I do while I am in South Africa.

-       Across the street from the big part of the park is a small section that you walk through. There are lions and tigers in cages there that you can get pretty close to. We were able to roar with a white male lion that was about 3 feet from us! It was very cool. He even tried to paw us at one point but got zapped by the electric fence inside his cage. It was so cool to be that close and interact with wild life. We were able to see the hippos here also on a platform that over looked a lake. They were very much in the distance so that was not fun but we did see them.

-       After we finished at the Rhino and Lion Park we headed over to Monte Casino for dinner. We had dinner at a great Italian restaurant. We also decided we need to spend a whole day there since the place is so big and has so much to do. Hopefully later this month!

It was a great day and we had so much fun spending time together outside of the baby house.

This and That

-       This week when we went to The Glen to get groceries we all went without our computers. It was crazy to be at The Glen and just shop! We also tried a new café for smoothies and coffee. Mugg and Bean please forgive us for being unfaithful!

-       I put on a nicer shirt and scarf when we went out to The Glen and all the Aunties had something to say about that. They all had to comment that I was dressed up and looked nice. I guess this is my clue I should wear more than my tie-dye and athletic shorts. Not going to happen here so I guess we will have to see about home.

-       The other day we found an iguana/chameleon outside. I had the day off and was hanging out my laundry and Katy was hanging out the toddler laundry with Big Boy K. I found the little guy and we sat and watched him for a bit. Then Katy went inside to get a tupperwear container to put him in so we could go show the other kids. Some of the kids thought he was really great but my poor girl S was not a fan. She just cried. Finally we decided to let him go. We took him to the part of the yard that we like to refer to as the jungle. When L was still here she would go into the jungle to find her leaves and so we thought this little guy would enjoy it.

-       Cassie bought People magazine last time that we went to the store and it has been great to read the current celebrity gossip. Candice also does great with updating us a few times a week with news from the world. Most of the stories she starts out saying this is a story about some crazy US person. We enjoy it.

-       This past week the CD of choice in the toddler room has been Silly Songs with Larry from Veggie Tales. You know the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song. Well the first few times through it was really fun to sing along with the CD. One day though we listened to the CD all the way through 7 times. 7 times. By the end of the day the kids knew when their favorite song came on and could even sing along with some of the words. Time for a new CD again.

-       I did laundry this week for the first time in 18 day. I LOVE doing laundry at home. I do it once a week at home. If roommates leave clothes in the dryer at all I go ahead and fold them. So 2½ weeks between laundry days is something new but I really hate not having a dryer here and that is why I wait so long. Well this particular Friday when I did laundry it decided to rain in the afternoon. It has not rained during the day for the longest time here and when all my clothes are drying on the line it decides to rain. I got everything in and set up drying racks for my clothes and shortly after Cassie came in with her clothes and more drying racks. We have 5 drying racks set up in our tiny living room and hallway trying to dry our clothes the rest of the way. Around the middle of March will be laundry day again and it better not rain. Also I will only do laundry here about 3 more times and then back to using the dryer. The roommates have promised to have the dryer free when I get home. What a glorious day that will be!

-       I love the beginning of a new month here. There are a few things that I do on the first day of each new month. My calendar of love and encouragement from home has the pages for that month put on a different ring so that I can watch the days until I am home get fewer and fewer, we get the new schedule of where we will work for the month so it is writing all the days down that I work and have off, I seal the envelop of receipts from the previous month, I get a new razor to put in the shower and I write a new first number for the dates of my journal entries. The start of the new month is great. I only have one more time to do all of this now that we have passed the first of March.

See you (in person!) NEXT month!

Emily