Easter

Nothing says "Happy Easter" like a viral rash!  We've had sickness in our house for the past two weeks.  The first week was full of snot and sneezing and crying throughout the night, while this past week included fevers and viral rashes for two of our boys.  Kai's rash is currently bad enough that we wouldn't let him go to church this morning.  The poor boy had to stay home and play with his toys instead.  He was super bummed :)

We've actually had a pretty good Easter weekend despite the sicknesses.  All the MKs had an Easter egg hunt yesterday and our boys loved it.  They had lots of fun wandering around the yard looking for eggs and lots of fun eating yummy treats from the States - Starburst jelly beans, Reese's, fruit snacks, etc.  

Today all the missionaries gathered for lunch to enjoy homemade food and good fellowship.  The theme was "Brunch food" so there were quiches and egg casseroles and bacon and sausage and cinnamon rolls...mmm...mmm...mmm!

And more than anything, we've spent time talking with our boys about Jesus.  How He died on the cross to forgive our sins.  How He chose to do such a sad and difficult thing because He loves us so much.  And how He rose again from the dead and is alive today!  He is risen!  This is why we live, why we have hope, why it all matters.  Thanks be to God!

Happy Easter!

Why I Want Our Son To Be A Zookeeper

Or better yet, why I want our son to be the next Jack Hanna, or why I hope he convinces his brother to join him in being the next Wild Kratts:

Because no 4-year old should know as much about animals 

and habitats as he does, and such wide and intimate knowledge 

about the Animal Kingdom should not go wasted!

Today at preschool I asked the kids to draw a map of a zoo.  We had just watched an episode of Curious George in which he wanders through a zoo and learns about maps, so I wanted the kids to try drawing their own maps.  The results were varied, as expected, but long after the other kids had ventured off to play games in the lawn, Caleb continued to work on his map.  He continually showed me his progress with each new animal exhibit he drew, and informed me what kind of animals were at his zoo.  To name a few: cotton-topped tamarin, armadillo, manatee, proboscis monkey, bowhead whale, and pangolin.  I really really hope he becomes a zookeeper someday!

It was just another example of Caleb's passion for animals.  He loves learning about habitats and discovering how animals defend themselves from predators and reminding us that coral is actually an animal even though it looks like a plant.  He loves watching Planet Earth and creating "animal scenes" with stickers and crayons, and just this morning while I was clipping his fingernails he commented that actually I was clipping his claws because he was pretending to be a panther.

Oh how we love this boy and his animal obsession!  I really really hope he becomes a zookeeper someday!

18 Months of Bubba

Our baby is officially 18 months old.  He's not a baby anymore, but I can't bear to think of him any other way.  Asa is such a joy, such a handful, such a Bubba.  We love our Asa Bubba more than we can express and can scarcely believe how much he's grown and changed.  He's incredibly active, rather chatty, and far too independent for an 18-month old.

Who, me?

He doesn't wait for anyone or anything to do whatever he wants.  A few weeks ago I discovered Asa standing on the dining room table, holding the pot of chai.  Egad!  His desire to explore has exploded recently, and he's so fast that we can't take our eyes off him for a second or he's gone.  Case in point: while we were outside recently I stopped to say hello to someone and less than a minute later Asa was up the stairs behind our building, trying to open the back gate that goes to the road.  Ahh!  He's discovered every single drawer in the house that can be opened, every single puzzle piece that can be scattered across the floor, every single book that can be pulled off the shelf before he simply walks away.  This boy is a handful.  But oh how we love him.  And oh how he smiles and giggles with every mischievous thing he does, and oh how he melts our hearts for it!

He's a big and beautiful Bubba, and he's proven to us (yet again) that boys are fun and exhausting at the same time.  And sooooooo worth it.  We love you, Bubba!

Snow Day!

Last week the Missionary Kids celebrated a Snow Day!  Everyone took the day off homeschooling in honor of the fact that most of them would've enjoyed a real Snow Day or two if we were back in the States.  It was a great chance to bring all the kids together and enjoy a slip 'n slide, make fake snow, and eat ice cream!

Thanks to Grandma Horn for sending along the fake snow with us when we moved here last year.   (It's the kind where you just add water and watch it grow.)  We were supposed to use it at Christmas to remind the boys of all the snow in Minnesota, but I completely forgot, so we used it for Snow Day instead.  The boys were quite happy :)  And they were fans of the ice cream too, since that's such a treat these days.  We sure hope there'll be another Snow Day next year!

Visit From Parents!

Well, I may have spoken too soon with my last post, thinking we were going to be less busy than usual while Eli was studying Swahili.  In short, that hasn't really happened.  Eli's been roped into doing more than we thought (like going to meetings, attending graduations, etc.) and I have spent many many hours preparing and teaching Caleb's Preschool class.  So the notion that we'd spend every afternoon sitting around the house practicing our Swahili hasn't exactly come to fruition.  But in spite of our disappointment on that end, something amazing happened this month: my parents came to visit us in Kenya!!!  They were here for two weeks and we had an amazing time.  I just wrote a post on the mission blog and included lots of pictures, but here are some more just for fun.

bubbles!

Grandpa and the boys and the chameleon

ready to ride around the savannah

lots and lots of zebras on safari!

my best friend sent Curious George over with my parents,

and Caleb really wanted to bring him on safari, so he came along!

Caleb really wanted to see a hyena, 

and we were lucky enough to spot one

we played lots of games with Mom and Dad

boat ride on Lake Naivasha

We had such a great time and we're already thinking about the fun we'll have with Eli's parents when they come in a few months.  It's soul-refreshing to see family on this side of the ocean!

Life These Days

There isn't much to write about these days, which feels like a wonderful thing!  Eli is well into his Swahili study, I'm back to homeschooling the boys, and we're finally getting enough family time to have some reserve.  We've even babysat a couple times and had friends over for dinner, which rarely happens during our normal rhythm of busy busy busy.  It feels so good to breathe this much, especially since we know that as soon as Eli returns to work at the hospital we will return to a state of busyness and exhaustion.

We still have our fingers in some pies, however, lest you think we're twiddling our thumbs over here!  I have taken on teaching Caleb's class twice a week for the 4- and 5-year old MKs (because their normal teacher is studying Swahili for the next three months), and it's been more work than I anticipated since most of my ideas for crafts/activities require supplies which can't be easily found in rural Kenya.  I'm being forced to get creative, and my stamina and patience is sometimes put to the test with nine kids in the class, but it's an overall good experience and I'm glad to help out rather than have the class cancelled altogether (which was the alternative).  Eli, on top of daily Swahili lessons, is continuing to teach didactics to the residents once a week and has been attending meetings for the residency as well as the HIV program.  We're discovering that it's hard to be truly "left alone to study language" while still being here at the hospital, but it's better than the alternate choice of uprooting our family for three months and moving away to study language elsewhere.  So we are keeping busy, but overall our life is good right now and we're so thankful for this time.

Here are some random pictures of late:

the first time we saw a chameleon turn a shade of bright gold

dinner with some of our favorite people at Tenwek, 

our neighbors and friends: the Parkers

they decided this wasn't a fort, but rather an ice floe 

and they were narwhals coming up to breathe

went for a Nature Walk with Caleb's class today

and saw numerous black kites in this tree

walking to the river on our Nature Walk

Caleb's class 

(he's the one in the Batman hat)

Basi, ni wote kwa sasa.  Labda baadaye nitachukua picha zaidi na naweka wao hapa.  (I'm also practicing the Swahili I learned over the past three months!)

Ready for a New Year

We recently had a week of vacation, which was much needed.  We went to Nairobi for a couple days, then headed to another place a few hours away which offered us the quietiest and most relaxing days we've experienced since moving to Kenya.  It wasn't fancy - in fact, we felt like we were at camp - but we were undisturbed, which we really needed.  So after reading books and watching movies and breathing deeply, we're ready to dive back in to life at Tenwek.

The next few months will be different than usual because Eli will be exchanging his doctorial duties for Swahili studies.  After a week of rest (and realizing how exhausted we were), his language study is a welcome change because it means Eli will be home in the afternoons.  He'll be studying Swahili at home, but he'll be home.  It's a blessed way to begin the new year!  Last year was crazy in so many ways, and this year will probably be more crazy than not, but we'll kickstart 2017 by slowing our pace and focusing on our family.  We thank God for the chance to do so!