reading

I like reading, and think it is very important for Kyalo to be read to and learn to love reading as well.  It is nice to have these ideals, but honestly, getting Kyalo to sit still long enough for me to read a book is quite the challenge.  I know I should stick with it, but I somehow seem to forget.

Good thing I have friends willing to read to Kyalo while I work on dinner!

 always something in his mouth

* fun fact: this little rattle was my brother's when he was a baby in 1974!

I love this last photo because Kyalo looks so attentive. . .but it didn't last for long.  Soon he was grabbing at the book, stepping on Evelyn - probably snatching her glasses.  But we try!



Kyalo is really much happier like this:

 {note the rock}

{happy}

*also note the dirt IN his mouth. Sigh.

My parents are in town this week! They're here with their good friends Craig & Margot Hammon to work on Gentle Bells stuff and visit other schools in Kenya.  Always nice to have friends and family visit. Especially those who are willing to take a LOT of luggage home for us. 

Two weeks to go. . .

saturday bbq

This Saturday was our last possible day to have the long-talked about BBQ with our friends Anna & Ryan.  They're from Australia, and got connected to CURE not long after I came to Kenya.  Anna began volunteering in the PT department, and then became the first Africa Regional Manager for the CURE Clubfoot Worldwide program, so we worked together a bit on that. Ryan is a pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) and does a lot of flying to northern Kenya/Southern Sudan.  I've enjoyed their friendship over the years.

We've also talked about going on Safari somewhere with them.  They're big campers and are often out in the wilds of Kenya, and always have amazing stories to tell. (Like the one where they were preparing dinner at night and Ryan shined his flashlight around the campsite and watched four lionesses walk by.)  Dexter and I, when we go on safari, do not have amazing stories to tell. Our stories are more like: we got lost for 5 hours in the Mara- oh and we saw no lions, or elephants or anything overly interesting. Sigh.

Here is just a small glimpse into why we might want to go camping with them.

 get outta my way!!

a kill!

sorry for the R-rated photo

 (all photos copyright Ryan & Anna Cuthel - and shamelessly stolen from Facebook!)

Somehow, and sadly, we never made a camping trip happen -- even though Dexter & I were prepared with our six-man tent! Instead of a camping adventure they came up for a small BBQ Saturday afternoon.

 It was nice to put our yard to use, too.

 Dexter, manning the grill, as usual

 Luka - 21 months

It was a lovely afternoon, though too short, of course.  We had grilled chicken with mango & pineapple salsa, and grilled sweet potatoes and zucchini.   Anna made a strawberry apple crumble for dessert, and we topped that off with ice cream.  I'd say this was a nice way to say goodbye...though we do hope we'll see them one more time before we go.

Anna & Ryan are actually leaving Kenya in April just a few weeks after us. They're seeking new adventure back home in Australia.  Perhaps some day we'll go camping with them Down Under?  A girl can dream!

And as usual, I wanted to get a lot more photos, but taking care of food, catching up, chasing Kyalo around, etc, make it very hard to remember to get pictures. Fortunately, I did get this nice photo of the Cuthels as they were heading out.

Kyalo had a great time, too. He found this stick to keep him occupied for a long time:

He really does love to be outside. I hope we can find places to be outside in Newark . . .

matchy matchy

On Friday, Dexter got Kyalo dressed and ready for the day while I lounged in bed for a few more minutes.  This had many benefits - I got a bit more shut eye, and Dexter handled the explosive diaper situation. Win-win, I would say!

Anyway, it turned out that father and son were dressed {mostly} identical.

(even their rolled up sleeves match!)

Dexter was sad that his shirt didn't have little bull dogs on it.  And I'm sad that we didn't have baby Timberlands for Kyalo to really complete the outfit. But that would require us actually buying shoes for him, and he's been completely shoe-less for ten months, so why start now?

Even though I wasn't a part of the matchy-matchy party, I got a couple of pictures, too.

 {yes, my hair is out.of.control. typical.}

Friday was also a little farewell party for Dexter at the dental clinic.  It was a smaller affair than the one for Dr. Rich, but that's to be expected since he started the clinic, and worked here 25 years!  Still, it was a nice afternoon, with a lot of nice sentiments expressed to/about Dexter.  It was encouraging for me to hear the kinds words said, so I'm sure it meant a lot to Dexter.

And here's the whole dental clinic...

oh boy

We can't leave Kyalo alone for one second.  If we do, things like this happen:

 

Maybe if we got him some more toys, he wouldn't need to play with the toilet paper?

Yesterday I was wrapping up my blog post and just need two minutes more. We generally don't let him into the living room area because there are books and wires to pull and chew, and the fireplace is there, and usually has ash left over from a fire.  But, I thought I was being smart by blocking his way to the bookshelf, making sure the fireplace was clean, and then giving him free reign in the living room.  

This was a bad parenting decision.

 pleased as punch

proud. . .and ashy. . .

{sorry so blurry}

I changed his outfit and made him promise he wouldn't get into any more trouble.  The rest of the day was spent chasing him out of the dirt, the flower beds, keeping him out of the toilet, stopping him from eating {more} rocks, watching him get his head stuck in our front gate, and dragging him from out from under our bed...the floor there is covered in sawdust {don't ask}.

So, needless to say, I'm tired.  

Whew.

And our little explorer needed a bath! 

{happy. always happy.}

*note the farmers tan!

7x7 (ish) link award

Big news, people! I've been nominated for an award.

Or, maybe it is just a little shout-out over at a friend's blog. No matter. We like the love, and we are going to share it.  I love reading blogs - seeing little snippets into people's lives, getting recipes, or inspiration for things (that, let's be honest, I'm never likely to do). And, being in Kenya it is a nice way to stay connected.  So let's get started. . .

1.  thank the person who nominated you
 Thanks, Erica for the linky love.  I've only known Erica for a few years, but we have a lot of weird connections.  She moved to Kijabe not long after I left for the UAE, quickly started dating a dentist, and joined the Bible Study that I missed so dearly.  Dexter had a picture of us on his fridge, and she said, "hey, that looks like Essex." to which he said it was, and we discovered that she went to college with my parents' best friends' youngest daughter (ie: basically a sister). Oh, and she was born in the hospital I was working at in the UAE.   She and Matt got engaged two days before we got married. {If you want a good story, go read that one. Stat.} And the real kicker is that they had their first born son just 2 + weeks after Kyalo was born.  I'm telling you, it's weird.  Anyway, thanks, Erica.

2. share 7 things about yourself
  1.  I have a ridiculous love of popcorn, and happily eat it for dinner (and sometimes, breakfast)
  2. My wedding rings were my grandmother's from her own engagement/wedding in 1941 - 71 years old. I think that's pretty cool. I like carrying a little piece of her with me everywhere.
  3.  I have a terrible habit of starting a work out program, and then quitting just days before the intended duration (90 days? I did 80.  6 weeks? I did 5, etc. I'm currently on week two of this and it is kicking my butt, so let's hope I finish!)
  4.  I am horrible at math and numbers, and yet somehow I'm the one who mostly manages our finances, and not Dexter who is a CPA.  Perhaps this explains why we're always broke. . .
  5. After graduating from Gordon College in 2000 (!!!) I went on to do Mission Year in Oakland, CA. What was supposed to be a year, ended up being five very good years.
  6. I really do hope to take a photography class or two some day so that I can get better pictures of our little family.
  7.  New Jersey is the third place I am moving to site unseen. I guess I like the thrill of the unknown!

3.  share 7 blog posts, in the following categories:

most beautiful:  Kijabe is an easy place to live for beauty. Here are a couple:  flowers and light.

most helpful:  I'm not sure if this was helpful, but I shared the story about Hope Rich (and posted my first video!) to get people to pray about her situation. She was granted traveling papers in December in order to travel to the US, so the Riches are now happily home.  I'd like to think this helped somehow. . .

most popular:  I'd say it had to have been the one with the story of Kyalo's birth.

most controversial:  I can't really think of anything that I've written or done that would be controversial.  But this story about the tree coming down had some major controversy that didn't make it onto to the blog.  As the tree was coming down, a branch fell on a power line damaging it.  We were asked to pay big bucks to fix it, but it wasn't our fault - the station electrician had said he couldn't get there on the day we were having the tree come down to turn off the electricity.  No one told us, so we proceeded.  Major drama ensued - including having the elec at our house turned off for a day.

most surprisingly successful:  This one about clubfoot has the most views. I guess it pops up in search engines?

most underrated:  I'd say this one about the sights along the roads in Kenya.  I love the signs here!

most pride worthy:  homemade bagels and oreos. need I say more?

*bonus because it didn't have a category- my favorite post:  Telling my mom about being pregnant.

4. nominate 7 other bloggers
This is where the "ish" comes in in my title. . .I don't have 7 to nominate. Either, I need more friends, or I need more friends who blog! (Shiny, I'm waaaiting...) So, here are my four nominations, with a little word about them:

The American Ambassador
        My friend (and fellow Gordon Alumna) Jessie who lives & works at Oasis in the UAE.

Migonis Home
        Jen, another Gordon Alumna, and former co-worker of my mom's. She lives near my home town and is a major decorator, and is always doing interesting projects. Many of her posts start with, "I found this on the side of the road. . . " and that always makes a good story!

Not By Might
       My friend, Jenny's, blog {she's also a friend of Erica's. another connection!}. She's a teacher up at RVA and has become a good friend to me the last year or so.  I love reading about her adventures as a teacher/mentor.  (Her most recent post is about the donuts the students make. They're Krispy Kreme worthy, and I will miss them when we're in NJ).

Gray Paint Decor
       My sister-in-law, Noelle's blog about various little decorating projects she does.  She may not be posting anytime soon since she just had her sixth baby in January, but check out what she's done. 

and lastly, a picture (mostly because I forgot to post it in the weekend recap)

 one tired little ranger

This was so much fun! I hope the others will do it, too. I enjoyed looking through my old posts and remembering different stages of our life.  This blog has turned into a nice little journal of sorts for us.

wrap up

I need to wrap up the stories on our trip away this weekend. More things are coming this week and I don't want to fall too far behind.  But before I get to that, I just want to say mention this:

Monday was Dexter's 33rd birthday, and Tuesday our 3rd anniversary.  On Tuesday night he got a wonderful email from the University of Colorado inviting him for an interview and bench test in April for their dental program. This was the fifth school he applied to, and the fifth invitation he got!  Pretty big accomplishment, if you ask me!  Colorado was my first choice because of their start date (January 2013) and because, hello it is in Colorado! (never been there, but all the pictures make me want to go).  But, we needed to let NJ know early, and we couldn't just wait around and hope the other schools would get back to him. What if they didn't? Seemed like too big of a risk.  So, we head to NJ next month trusting that God wants us there for reasons we can't see at the moment!  Perhaps we'll head to Colorado another time. . .

Now, back to the retreat, and the photos!

These are still from the cliff at the top of the crater. . .

 It isn't too often these days that we get a photo of just the two of us. This seemed like a good spot.

February 4, 2012

I had great hopes of getting photos of all the couples but that didn't happen.  We did get this one of the guys, though:

Jack, Tobias, Levis, Dexter (and Kyalo) Mang'oli, Chege, Franye

Isn't that an intimidating looking group?

But don't be fooled!! They aren't. . . 

 Do you see what Kyalo's doing? Digging in the dirt.  And eating it. 

early morning on the lake

We had a slow day on Sunday, with an easy breakfast, time by and in the small pool, and even a little service where we shared our goals/hopes for the year, sang a song, and prayed for each other.  God's beauty surrounded us so it was only appropriate to do this.  Before lunch, there were some raucous rounds of the game Pit (if you've never played, it is worth it!) and now I'm hoping for a "game night" before we go.

We ate lunch on that floating dock/restaurant you see in the photo above.  Kyalo had his first beets:

(I had mine, too, but I don't think I enjoyed them as much as he did)

And then, just like that, it was time to hit the dusty, bumpy road again, and head home.  It was a great time - with friends, getting away, seeing a new part of Kenya, etc.  I hope in the future we'll get to explore more of Kenya (on return visits, I guess) since there's so much we haven't seen!

weekend retreat

It is crunch time now, where we want to squeeze in as much as possible before leaving.  This weekend, seven couples from our Bible Study went to a camp in Crater Lake for a quick little getaway retreat.  The fact that this many couples could get together was really quite something, though we were sad that two other couples couldn't come. Perhaps next time!

In true Kenyan fashion, we left an hour or more after our intended departure time, but that didn't matter, as we had no agenda.  We meandered on our way, making a little stop at a public beach, where...we found these guys:

 flamingos!  

so this is where you've been hiding, huh?

Nyambura, Evelyn, Imma

After that little pit stop we carried on and reached our destination. We all had high hopes of an afternoon lounging by the pool, but everyone's response to the pool was, "it is really small"  "it is for chilling" "it is a bathtub" so we skipped the small pool and went for a small hike instead.

We wanted to get up and close with this guy:

(can you see the giraffe?)

And we did!

Once Francis scared this guy away, we carried on, and once we reached the top, we took a lot of photos.  Bear with me here:

 Janelle, Chege & Nyambura

The whole group!!

I look at this picture, and I think of that song from Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other. . . " because, aside from the obvious I'm white, and American difference, I am also the ONLY one in this group who is not a doctor.  In this group we have:  Three orthopedic consultants, an orthopedic resident, two general surgery residents, a pediatrician, two internists, an anesthesiologist, and one more that I can't remember!

That's a lot of doctors.

This is when I should be getting sick or injured...not when we're in the US.  

I think that's enough for now...I have more to share, but will do that later. We haven't had power for a while, and my computer battery is running low, and Kyalo is fussy, so I guess it is time to take him outside.

ten months

Today, Kyalo turns ten months. Double digits -- I'm not sure which is harder to believe that he's so close to turning one year, or that we only have on more of these monthly birthdays to celebrate in Kenya.

So today we headed out to the yard for the monthly round of photos...

Kyalo was more interested in watching men cut grass than posing for photos

{sorry so shadowy. apparently, I picked a bad time for the photo shoot}

This has been another good month (of course, they've all been great!).  He finally started clapping...something I wasn't sure he was going to get into, since most of his age-mates seem like they did it ages ago.  And most recently he's started walking around the house pushing things.  I wonder if he'll be walking soon?  I'm hoping we can make it through the middle of next month before reaching that milestone as I don't think a newly walking child on two 6+ hour plane rides will be that fun.

I took him to get weighed today. {I may be the only mother who does this so faithfully each month. It is fun for me, and it is just a little hop, skip & a jump down the hill to the hosp, it is free, and it is always entertaining.}  Usually, the weight is fairly straight forward and it is the height that causes issue.  Today, the three nurses who were there weighing him said that he weighed in at 8.5 kgs, which would be fine except that last month he was 8.6!  He eats non stop, so even though he's active, I don't think he's lost weight.  My arms feel tired quickly when holding him.  I asked them to do it again, same results.  So, I thanked them for their time {and didn't bother to ask about measuring him} and went to the private clinic to try on the scale there.  That scale didn't seem to be working properly, either, but it did give us a reading of about 21.5 pounds (9.7 kgs ish).  That seems a little high to me at the moment, but maybe not.

Surely this is an easy process in the US? Something I'm looking forward to is also know what percentile he falls in. I know it really doesn't matter...just something interesting for me to know.

I can't wait to see what milestones he reaches this month.  It is always an adventure!

breakout king

Since Kyalo's been crawling for a while now, we've had to be a bit creative about baby proofing the house, which basically means keeping him out of the fire place, protecting the projector and all the shiny black wires he seems keen to pull on, play with, chew.  Generally we try to barricade the living room area and that seems to do the trick. Over time, though the barricades have needed to get stronger and more secure.  And alas, he managed to break one down today.

He's such a little faker. . . screaming screaming screaming trying to get out, and then smiles the second he's broken free.

I love how proud he seems of himself once he's made it out (or in, as the case may be).

Of course, now that he's figured his way past our high-tech security, I'm not sure what we'll do!