July in Review: Chogoria Waterfall

Also in July was our first trip to the waterfall since moving here.  I remember this waterfall very well from our visit to Chogoria last year, and I remember imagining all the trips we could take there if we ended up moving to Chogoria.  Well, we did move to Chogoria and we finally found our way back to this waterfall.  It's gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, and just plain fun to spend time there.  Two of the Webber girls joined us and we had a blast.  Only three kids fell in the water, which I think are pretty good odds :)

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Someday, when the boys are bigger, I imagine making it a regular occurrence to go here.  I imagine taking a picnic lunch, or a book if I'm really lucky, and making countless memories of trips to the Chogoria waterfall.

July in Review: Paper Mache Dragon

Next up as I think back to our activities in July: that one day when I kept my promise to help the boys make a paper mache dragon! 

I can't remember who thought of this idea, but once the idea was spoken everyone was in agreement that it needed to happen as soon as possible.  I made the boys wait until the weekend when we had a day off school.  And since Eli was gone, I needed something to occupy the munchkins.  I'll be the first to admit that it was quite a commitment, and that maybe I went a little overboard, but hey, I'm a cool mom sometimes and do stuff like this :)

First we assembled the body by blowing up balloons and taping them together, and using cardboard to tape on scales.  And when I say "we" I totally mean "I".  Just saying.

Then we hung the dragon in the mango tree in our backyard to begin the paper mache process.

We mighta made a mess, because paper mache is just plain messy.  Also, when Kenyan kids see the wazungu kids putting wet strips of newspaper on a strange-looking balloon creature, it draws a crowd.  And more helpers.  And more of a mess.  But all in all, considering I was single-handedly managing a multitude of children doing a paper mache project, it coulda been worse!

Here's what it looked like when we were done.  It was pretty soaking wet, and heavy, and I wasn't sure what state it would be in come morning, but it actually held up really well and dried amazingly overnight.

Then it was time to paint the beast!  Kai was my best helper for this.  He was focused and careful and oh so happy to see the dragon come to life.  (True confession: we did this part during Asa's nap time because I didn't want his help.  I will never want a 3-year old's help with a paint project!)

I must say I was pretty pleased with the final project.  Kai said the scales had to be red because they were poisonous :)

Asa's contribution was picking out the googly eyes.  I brought over a ton of googly eyes in our luggage because ya just never know how many craft projects will require them!

The only real problem with this whole endeavor was where to put the thing when it was done.  Honestly, there was nowhere obvious and we faced a bit of a dilemma until I realized we could hang it in their closet.  It works for now, until we get a real dresser made for the boys and put it in the closet, in which case the dragon probably won't fit in there anymore.  But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

More than anything, I love seeing our boys get creative.  They have so many ideas, and I love showing them how to make those ideas come to life.  Even though it takes a lot of work on my part, it's totally worth it.  (Especially since I say no to probably 9/10 of their ideas.  A mama's got limits, ya know?)  

So we have another paper mache project in the books!  And now I won't have to do another one for quite awhile.  At least that's what I'm telling myself :)

July in Review: Lemonade Stand

So July was nuts.  Eli was gone a lot and I was holding down the fort, but we managed to have some good times in the midst of survival mode.  A few things are worth going back to mention, which I'll do in a a few separate posts.

First off: a 4th of July lemonade stand!

It was Caleb's idea, because he wanted to copy a Curious George episode in which that curious primate has a lemonade stand.  It was our first time attempting this feat, and we decided to combine it with our 4th of July festivities.  Our friends, the Webbers, joined us and we had a great time! 

I bought a bunch of lemons in Nairobi the weekend before, and my friend Lauren showed us how to make lemonade from scratch (which I'd never done), and we baked goodies to go along with it, and voila!  We were Lemonade Stand Ready!

Check out these cute American missionary kids!

They seriously loved doing this.  And despite spending more time playing in the yard than manning their table, they managed to make a decent amount of money - enough to finish paying for a newborn scale for the pediatric ward at the hospital!  Which was the end goal of the lemonade stand.  That, and to practice money math, and to have a good excuse to bake and eat cookies :)

I was proud of these boys.  I was proud that they had an idea, they persisted in bugging me to bring that idea to fruition, they put in the effort to squeeze all those lemons themselves, and they were totally cool with giving all the proceeds away to a good cause.

It was a pretty good way to spend the 4th of July: celebrating our passport country while supporting our ministry in this country where we currently live!

The Chameleon Outside Our House

Meet Horny.

Seriously, his name is Horny.  Because that's what Asa named him.  Because he has horns.

And I must tell you that Horny has become a regular around here.  One of the gardeners found him for us, and knowing how much wazungu kids (white kids) love these creatures, he brought him over.  We were, of course, enthralled.  This is a pretty big chameleon, and those horns on his head are pretty impressive too.

Horny is a male Jackson's chameleon, and after confining him in a homemade terrarium and treating him like a pet for a couple days, we let him go in the small tree right outside our house.

The next day, he was still there.  The day after that, he was still there,  In fact, we've been checking for almost two weeks now, and every day he's still there!  He's not always easy to find because he does what chameleons do best: camouflage.  But we've found him in our tree every day, and we've watched him catch lots of bugs with that long, sticky tongue of his.  And he feels kinda like a real pet.  Only we don't have to do anything to take care of him, which is really the best kind of pet!

So every day we check on him and say hello.  Horny really likes hanging around the Horn house!

I keep reminding the boys that he won't be here forever.  He's a wild creature and he'll eventually move on.  But for now, we're loving his company!

Horny.  The chameleon with horns at the Horn house.  I'm pretty sure we're gonna remember this guy for a long time :)

Flag Day Flags

The only thing I knew about Flag Day as a kid was that one of my closest friends had her birthday on that day.  That, and we lived in the City of Flags, which I thought was pretty cool although I didn't know if that meant anything beyond all the flags outside our city hall/library (and I still don't know if it means anything). 

Now, as a result of homeschooling and looking up all sorts of information that I can pass on to our children, I know what Flag Day is!  It celebrates when America chose its flag, and officially became a holiday under Woodrow Wilson.  Pretty simple!

Well, this year we didn't do much to celebrate the American flag, but we did create our own flags!  We took a walk to find sticks that could serve as flag poles, then stopped at the neighborhood shop to find some fabric, then headed home to get creative.  The kids loved this project and I was proud of the results.

I haven't had the capacity to do many crafts with the kids for awhile because LIFE keeps happening, and crafts take time and energy and the willingness to prep and clean up afterwards.  But they love doing crafts, and I love that they love that, and sometimes I just commit to doing it.  This was one of those days, and we invited our friends over to join us, and everybody was happy.  

And those flags are proudly displayed in the boys' room, and it makes me happy every time I see them :)

Adventures in Homeschooling (Part 2: Goat Tracheotomy)

As I said before, one of the greatest blessings of homeschooling is being able to stop everything whenever something cooler comes along.

Well, it's not every day that someone comes to your door and invites you to watch a tracheotomy on a goat.  That is definitely cooler than any other schoolwork could possibly be!  So we quit whatever we were doing and hightailed it out the door and across the yard for an impromptu science class.  We arrived just as they were finishing preparing the goat for surgery.

Let me explain that this poor goat was slated for the chopping block anyway.  He was the main course for a party that evening which served as a farewell to the current class of interns.  And anyway, what's the use of wasting a perfectly good goat to only be butchered for supper when it could also be used as a teaching tool?  Someone had the brilliant idea of guiding some residents and interns through the practice of putting in a chest tube and trach.  And someone else had the brilliant idea of letting the homeschool families tag along for the fun!

First things first, they anesthetized the goat.  The poor sap didn't feel a thing.  It was a totally humane procedure from start to finish!

Then one of the residents shaved the area for the chest tube to be inserted.  I kept thinking, "Only in Africa!"

No one claimed to understand goat anatomy as well as human anatomy, but they inserted the chest tube properly and without much difficulty.

After the chest tube was placed it was time to move on to the tracheotomy.  By this point two of my boys had wandered off to climb a guava tree.  But Caleb was still very much interested in what was going on.  He didn't understand what they were doing, so I had to explain why they were now cutting a hole in the goat's throat.  He was rather intrigued!

And the surgery was successful!  The goat was breathing out of the trach, and Caleb put his hand near the tube to feel it.  He exclaimed, "It feels like goat breath!  Blech!"  And yet he was so excited :)

Caleb also stayed around for the butchering.  I wasn't sure he'd want to see that, but he really did, and according to his animated description of it to Eli later, he apparently wasn't too phased by it.  None of the kids were interested in eating the goat that night, but they were well aware that the rest of us were consuming the surgery patient from earlier in the day.  Our boys are well-acquainted with the circle of life, so they were more fascinated than anything.

And let me tell ya, this is certainly something they will remember forever.  And it is not something they will ever see in America!  What a successful day of homeschooling!