Grace and Family in Uganda

Bunny Sittin'

2012-01-23T20:54:00.000+03:00

Ms Dave got out for a little bit of sunshine, hopping and munching the other day. The kids like to bunny watch in comfort and followed Ms Dave around the entire time, with their chairs. The funny thing is, Ms Dave seemed to have liked the company!

Nothing like sitting in the sun, watching your bunny

Frank sure liked it!

They sort of reminded me of an old couple here :)

These guys would have been more than happy to have "taken care of" the bunny! Bridger is actually probably about 95% safe with Ms Dave - Billy, not so much!

Clown

Before too long ( a month?) we hope to be moving into our house. I haven't blogged about it because it's been going so darn slow, but this is the front of the house and we're looking forward to moving in soon!

This is the back porch. My kitchen sink is right under that window :)

Laundry helper - what would we do without that ridge?

2012-01-23T20:37:00.000+03:00

Billy helped me with the laundry the other day, and this is how! It's very handy to have a dog like Billy, with a very useful ridge!

First it started with this - one clothes pin

Then it went to this - three clothes pins!

Until it came down to this - spiderman underpants and a pair of Ella's undies as well!

Smile and be happy - Billy is!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood - for a Pack Walk!

2012-01-15T21:29:00.001+03:00

The weather as of late (or pretty much always) has been particularly beautiful in the evenings when we take our Pack Walks. We've really enjoyed living in this neighborhood and since we walk so frequently people know us now and don't really stare.

This evening we had along our trusty friend and photographer, Tanya, who snapped a few shots of the Infamous Pack Walk. So come along and join us!

And away we go!

We're marching to Zion - or something! Or onward Christian soldiers? Not sure!

The Pack - L to R : Ella, Madea, Bridger, me, Sanyu, Ranger, Billy and Frank

Literally, a "behind" shot!

Do we spot a monkey?

Ready, set...

...Action!

Our reluctant Canadian Dog Whisperer and photographer! We will convert her, we will!

The littlest Pack Leader, with Billy. Billy is a big, SLOW dog and it's a little like leading a mule!

I love Frank's eyes in this one. Nice shot of Billy's ridge, too!

Goodbye training wheels! Ella's growing up!

2012-01-10T21:01:00.000+03:00

This week the oldest H tot achieved the high and lofty goal of riding the bike without any training wheels!!! YEAH!!!! I am SO proud of her! Truly, I am. Ella is NOT one that particularly wants to try something and fail, much less get hurt. But I knew she was ready - not to mention the fact that she's almost seven years old - so off came the training wheels yesterday and the lessons began!

It took her more time to build up her courage than it actually did on how to ride the bike. For as spastic as she is she is an extremely coordinated kid, thanks to the trampoline and jump roping. Today she was riding up and down the big paved street above our house all by herself! While I of course sat on my butt in the shade and watched :). Wonderful!

She planned ahead and wore two pairs of pants and a jacket, just in case she fell. Which surprisingly she didn't!

I think she only ran into one person :)

We are very much going to miss this neighborhood when we move. We've really enjoyed living here!

She can even handle the speed bumps!

So while riding the bike was all fine and dandy for L, this is what Ranger thought of it after a while...

This is what little brothers do while they're waiting. Sit and catch dragon flies!

And give a little "love" to the dog

And more love to the dog...

... and even a bit more love to the dog!

The bike doesn't have a kick stand but Billy works just fine

I think Bridger has the right idea to get a little extra protien added to his meal

Little Pink Riding Hood!

He cracked us up when we were at a friends house. He came happily bursting out of the house after a gaggle of older girls, in a Snow White dress! He makes a very pretty little Snow White too :)

Billy also likes to be fashionable. Here he is in Ella's headband. He is an awesome dog for only being 9 months old. Very calm, low energy and submissive.

Family time :)

Madea, enjoying a rare moment on the furniture, and her cat

Lucy

Dinner at the H's!! Won't you join us? It's possible we could even find you your own plate!

Shouldn't we know better?

2012-01-05T21:37:00.000+03:00

I was really disturbed to see this site, especially after reading this. They could not conflict more. It is a sad day when Christians spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to tour orphanages and chalk it up to “visiting orphans” as commanded in the Bible, despite the harm that it can cause.

Is there no concern about the children’s safety? Even if a background check is run on someone, that doesn’t always catch pedophilia! And what an opportunity for a pedophile. Emotionally needy children + little supervision + unknown visitor from a foreign country with money = __________. You fill in the blank. Anyone who has spent ANY amount of time in a Ugandan orphanage knows the liberties that can be taken and lack of good supervision of volunteers.

Although I despise the word “orphan”, lets just say that I have a huge concern for them, as I’ve had some very personal experiences regarding “them”. I volunteered for two years at my daughters babies home before adopting her and knew many, many, kids during that time. I am still haunted and pray for those kids as the majority went on into big money making orphanages.It hurts to think of Ella’s little buddies, Trevor, James, Maddox, etc who are also six years old now, sitting in institutions. It makes me sick to think of my vulnerable, pretty little daughter in one.

Suffice to say, Ella and the other children at her babies home between the years of 2006-2008 changed my life. These people are as real to me as Ella is. Which is why I hate to see Paul’s command to “visit” and care for orphans misused in the context of taking tour trips to foreign countries “to visit” the poor children there.

The best thing for an “orphan” is to be placed back with their family, considering that the family is safe. It’s okay to be poor. Help the poor family alleviate their poverty rather than simply remove their child and providing for it somewhere else. One of the key points in Corbett and Fikkert’s book, When Helping Hurts, is never to do something for someone that they could do for themselves. Like, um, er, raise their child.

If it’s not possible to place the child back with his or her family or no one has any idea where the family is, as in the case of truly abandoned children, then the next best step would be to find the kid an adoptive family. Preferably a local one. If a local adoptive family can’t be found, then try an international one. If that’s not possible, than find the child a local foster family. I don’t really see why an institution should ever be needed, unless the child needs specialized medical care that a foster family couldn’t provide and the institution can provide it. This is not impossible, as this article shows.

Oh. But wait. Without these institutions, how could their be a “visiting orphans” organization? How will many local Pastors make money? My point? GET CHILDREN OUT OF INSTITUTIONS – DON’T PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK FOR SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO GO VIST THEM! IT DOES MORE HARM THAN GOOD. This is not what the Scriptures mean when they tell us to care for and visit the orphans and widows! If I was using skype I’d use the “facepalm” smiley right now.

It really saddens me when Christians think that this is the best that they can do. What about the social orphans in the U.S? Rather than spending a ton of money for a two to four week trip overseas to visit their poor children, why don’t you become a foster parent? There’s a crap load of children in the United States who are far worse off than say, a Ugandan “orphan”. With the take over of drugs in our country you see reports everyday about children who have been reported “missing”, only to be found killed by their drug addicted parents. Why don’t you go visit them? More than likely they’ll even understand English and know what you’re saying!

So, my advice is to take the three to four thousand that you’d spend on a cool trip overseas to “visit” poor foreign children and a) send it to an organization like VIVA or b)reach out to a foster child or poor child in the U.S (or your respective country). Heck, maybe even foster one!

Come on Christians! We can do better than this. This is embarrassing.

Yuck - food is food!

2012-01-01T15:52:00.000+03:00

One thing I don’t want my blog to be is a place where I continually gripe about things. BUT, I just have to gripe about something, so bear with me…

I have mixed feelings about “missionaries”. In general, I don’t like them, but individually, I do! Yes, a lot of my good friends are missionaries. Heck, I’m even supposed to be one! Like any group of people, you have some good ones and some bad ones. I’m just really intolerant of the bad ones : (

Some of the missionaries who were raised as missionary kids are the worst. Not all, but some. We were at a party this holiday with a group of these people and I was disgusted and somewhat surprised when I heard one of the “old timers” going through the food line with his daughter, talking about “Wazungu food”. Now, Wazungu means “white person”, so this was evidently all white people food? What the hell?

Yes, I was eavesdropping – he wasn’t talking to me- but I was a bit shocked at his ignorance. For one, it was a VERY mixed group of “white people.” Egyptians, South Africans (white ones), Russians, British, a Ukrainian, Americans and a Canadian. His particular group of missionaries doesn’t really mix with Ugandans socially but in this context we also had my kids, our Ugandan neighbor who is married to a Brit, and our friends black American son. So? Because these four people are black they’re not going to like the food? The black American boy is only going to like the beans because he’s black? My kids won’t like the quiche simply because of the color of their skin? What is “white food” and “black food” anyways? Is Ethiopian food “black food?” Um, no…. it’s Ethiopian food! My kids and I love Ethiopian food but most Ugandans don’t, so the type of food you like has nothing to do with race! Ethnicity is what makes food different, not the color of the ethnic group. Duh. And you’d think this fellow, after all these years of being a “missionary” would realize this. Nope, he was trying to impress his young daughter with his command of Swahili (which isn’t even spoken in these parts!) and teaching her about “white food”. Yuck.

Maybe I won’t share the pizza that we’re making tonight, with the kids. Because after all, Italians are kind of white so it must be “white food.” And no more Ethiopian food for me, because it’s “black food.” Bummer. And so ridiculous!

Christmas break/vacation!

2011-12-31T23:00:00.000+03:00

Every year our office is closed the week between Christmas and New Years. So that means that we get the entire week off! Usually we try to go somewhere fun, but this year we opted to stay home. It was a good move. The roads are crazy busy this time of year and fuel is expensive, so we chose to spend our Christmas vacation... at home! I worked some half days the week before Christmas too, so we had a nice long break and spent some good quality family time together. I would like to say that we did a bunch of school but, um, no... ;)

During our break I tried to focus on the kids and not so much on myself (blush) or the Pack. We cooked together, went to the zoo, did crafts, went swimming (no pictures as I was swimming too!), scoped out our construction sight, played dress up with The Pack, had some water fun on the trampoline, and generally just tried to enjoy each other.

Each kid was able to achieve a major (in my book!) milestone as well. Frankie can now buckle his own seat belt and Ella can swim across the width of the big, deep pool, by herself! Life is so much easier when a child can bathe them self, buckle their own seat belt, and wipe :) Now two out of two of my kids can do that, thereby making my life so much easier!

And, we were also able to get rid of two cats and have the third one booked for a new home, as well! It is SO much better with three, rather than five, cats now!

So, without further adu, pictures!

Happy tots in our house that is under construction

Ella cooking pancakes. Yes, that is a huge pancake! And no, Ranger did not get it.

We also had a big time playing dress up! I think Madea looks smashing in pink.
Note Bridger's enthusiastic participation ;) He wouldn't leave the couch!

And who could look more handsome (and patient!) than Ranger?

Pull your pants up, Billy! Good grief!

These are the reasons that my couch looks like hell! Well, at least a part of the reason. We do seem to be a bit rough on furniture...

Jaws! This is the kitten that we're keeping. Frankie named her "Lucy" :).

This one kitten, that we gave away, LOVED to sleep on Billy

And obviously Billy didn't seem to mind in the least

These were not staged pictures - these two napped together for about 45 minutes!

We took the bike to the zoo

I liked the way Ella carried her jacket - in her teeth! Think she's been raised a little to closely with The Pack or something?

Looking for something

Whatever it was, I think Frankie found it!

We always see something unique when we visit the zoo, no matter how many times we go. This trip was somewhat of a dud, until we saw these zoo workers hauling away a drugged hartebeast!

Peanut gallery, overseeing the hartebeast removal

And I just couldn't help posting a picture of this little guy :)

The worthless African horse

Our house is coming along - slowly but surely!

Ella has an infatuation with the cement mixture

Luckily she refrained from jumping in it!

This is the interesting find that I discovered on Christmas morning. The Pack had somehow put the outside entry rug into their water! (?)

The wee ones playing with their Christmas moon dough

I was counting heads among The Pack and couldn't find Billy's. He was fast asleep under the mat, with his butt covered in moon dough!

I bathed the dogs while the kids jumped on the trampoline in their swimsuits splashing each other with water and the hose. I gave Sanyu a ridge, just like Billy's!
So, there are just a few pictures from our wonderful Christmas vacation, which is about to come to an end :( Work and golf starts next week so it's back to reality!

A Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T21:31:00.000+03:00

This year it was just the three of us, at home, in EBB. I had previously made arrangements with buddies of ours to spend Christmas out somewhere but those plans changed several times as we didn't know if we'd be moving or not, and Tanya went home for Christmas. This is the second or third Christmas I've spent in EBB- usually we go somewhere else in UG- and let me say, I love EBB Christmases!

Christmas Eve it rained ALL morning until about 1pm, so we just hung out watching movies together :) Very laid back and cozy! After it stopped raining we went to the market, slogged through the mud and bought our usual veggies and fruits, bought our Pack food (chicken mash!), then came home and enjoyed our Pack, kittens and trampoline in the drier weather. For dinner we went out for pizza, came home, opened gifts (new pj's and movies from Granny!), bathed and watched Little Rascals.

New jammies! Ella's has fighting chipmunks and says "Free Spirit" - which translated into H means, "Crazy as hell!" Very fitting for our little L :)

Christmas gifts

Christmas morning dawned bright and cheery, we got Granny and Grandpa on Skype, and the kids proceeded to dig into their presents! Poor me, I only had one small gift to open - because I'd opened all my others before hand!! Ha ha, do I ever like being an adult sometimes :)

Christmas gifts unveiled

Granny and Grandpa joined us, via Skype and web cams!

Carnage

Even the kittens got in on the action!

Rowdy liked playing with the kitten IN the box!

The younguns played with their toys (moon dough!) until it was time to go to church and we got all gussied up. I must say, you have never experienced Christmas until you've done so at our church! It was A.W.E.S.O.M.E!!!! The entire service was a drama, actually written by someone in our church. I remember being in EBB two years ago and being blown away then by the Christmas service - it was even better this time! Ugandans have a distinct advantage over Westerners because their culture is much more similar to middle eastern culture, so these dramas are far more natural. And plus, Ugandans are just naturally good looking people and are cool :) Poor old Frankie got overcome by his cold about half way through the service - his nose had started running in the morning and during the service his eyes started weeping too :( Poor boy! Plus the fact that he got stuck behind a lady in a big blond wig. The little tyke had a hard time seeing through his weeping eyes and past the big blond wig!

This is what happens when you're on the naughty list :( Yep, poor Billy had to spend his FIRST CHRISTMAS, which should have been REALLY SPECIAL, outside. Banished. All because of his tendency to steal toys and eat them!

"PLEASE!!! Have a little MERCY!!!" Not to worry though - he later got to help clean up moon dough from the floor. Wonder what his poops are going to look like tomorrow!

All gussied up for church!

After church we went out to eat (gift to myself!) buffet style, at a place we never go. It was a fun experience as well! This is the place that urban Ugandans, who don't go to the village for Christmas and don't feel like busting their butts cooking all day, head to for Christmas dinner. Fortunately we got there early before the crowds really started so we could easily find a table. The food was great and the ambiance was awesome - think a large, unfinished concrete hotel, a few tacky Christmas decorations here and there and FUNKY FUNKY loud music, with a butt load of happily eating families, dressed to the nines! The thing about this place that cracks me up is this is really the place to go! Watching Frankie stuff himself with chicken was fun too :) I was glad that the food could perk him up!

We came home, Ella played and Frankie and I took naps - Frankie slept for almost three hours! Poor little guy - sucks to get a cold on Christmas :( The evening was beautiful and since the kids got basketball/soccer/sporting outfits from their Granny, we headed to a nearby basketball court with our soccer ball and the Pack (Um, yeah, that's a first. Basketball? For the H's?). We didn't get far before realizing that everyone and their Uncle was out and weaving through so many people with five dogs wasn't going to be the funnest thing to do. So, get this, we took the Pack home and proceeded on without them! Say what? A Pack Walk without the Pack?!!!! Oh my!!

Ha ha! Are we confused or what? Chasing a soccer ball on a basketball court!

We were the only ones on the basketball court and had a lot of fun. I was actually glad that we didn't have any of the Pack so that I could concentrate on just playing with the kids. What a hoot - the kids in their sporty new clothes, bouncing a soccer ball around, with their short, plump mother who has not an OUNCE of basketball playing skills in her whole entire frumpy body! We enjoy watching guys playing every evening when we walk our Pack, so pretended to be them. I always get a kick out of the kids commentary when we watch people playing - they describe people by the color of their shorts :). There are Red Guys, Black Guys, Yellow Guys, etc. It's also usually a big deal if we see a "fat" guy. That may sound mean, but it's not. Like good little Ugandans, my kids LOVE fat. Especially big, chubby black men! It is the funniest thing! So I was "The Fat Guy" (because the fat guys are always the coolest), Ella was "The Blue Guy With Pee On His Pants" (She had a little misfire during some Montana Pee Time behind a bush) and Frankie was "The Short Green Coach". I was a bit surprised that Ella could actually make baskets! I think I was about 25 before I could do that...

What a great day with my tots :) Merry Christmas, everyone!

Bizarre Crafts

2011-12-23T19:34:00.000+03:00

The following post is an attempt to prove to the world, and most importantly to myself, that I am indeed a wonderful parent. And also because my friend Amber dared me to post the results ;)

Knowing that Christmas was just around the corner, that I had done absolutely ZILCH with the kids to prepare for it, and that I had a few days off to take before Christmas, I looked on the Internet for some simple crafts to do with the kids. Found a great sight in the process http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ and gleaned a few simple projects that didn’t require a) any fancy materials and b) a lot of skill. You see, I HATE crafts. I am NOT a crafty type person and crafts are not on my fun list. But I just happened to have a daughter on whose fun list crafts seem to be near the top. Crap.

The set up. Look how nice and tidy everything is. I made the kids help me clean the house before we started :)

Bulky me, wrestling with the top of a Christmas tree. 30 has not treated me very kindly, physique wise. My head shrunk! I have a tiny head now, which makes everything else look really big ;)

The "3D" Christmas trees. Frankie said they were "super beautiful."

Frankie posing with Ella's Christmas tree. Yes, I got the wrong tree with the wrong kid. Oh well!

Ella, with Frankie's Christmas tree

I put the star on the top of L's tree :)

On to decorating stars. You have NO idea how many attempts it took me to get these stars to turn out!

Frankie decorating his Santa star. This was beginning with the children's fetish over cotton.

Wooo! Ella's fuzzy Santa. My how L loved that cotton!

Ella struggling to hang up her Santa star

After a long struggle (she didn't want any help), mission accomplished!

Needless to say, poor old Santa lost a bit of fuzz during the hanging up experience! Not quite as fuzzy as when he started, that's for sure...

Frank's finished Santa star. Not quite as fuzzy as L's!

Ella observantly stated, "Frankie is really focused." The vocabularly that young children aquire after watching three series of The Dog Whisperer - more than once!

Ah... and the fuzz continues!

The little hands reaching for the big pile of cotton in the middle of the table got me inspired....

Grab a glue stick and first... a moustache!

Well, as you can see, one thing led to another...

...Until finally - hello Father Christmas!

The now Father Christmas/Old Saint Nick/Santa Claus, still focused on his project

Ella hanging up her fuzzy star in the kitchen

In all it's stunning glory

So pleased! She calls this "decorating"

Santa, still focused on chopping bits of construction paper

After these pictures of more "controlled" crafting, the children went free style. Basically lots of cotton cut up and pasted onto bits of construction paper and placed ALL over the house and compound. I have to wonder what the guards thought to find a construction paper and cotton decoration hanging on the gate. And imagine my surprise to find one of these little decorations placed carefully on the toilet seat! Ha ha!

Ella was thrilled that the house is now "decorated for Christmas!" What I thought would be several hours of controlled fun turned into an entire day long marathon of H craftiness :) I've a feeling we haven't seen the end of it either!

Christmas party at the ZOO!!!

2011-12-16T22:36:00.006+03:00

Today we had our annual office Christmas party -at the zoo again! Now it's been a while since we've been to the zoo. It's a crime really. We are zoo lovers and sort of feel that this is "our" zoo. Our zoo pass expired in April and since that one was such a pain in the arse to get, I just put off getting another. So we were good and ready to return to the zoo today! And wouldn't you know it, I was able to EASILY get another zoo pass, too! The first quote the gal gave me was 250,000 for a years pass and I was like, "Um... no!" but then she "lowered" it 100,000. Yeah, I think someone was wanting a little extra Christmas bonus!

Oh how we missed our zoo - and we were THRILLED to see the new baby elephant that is resident there, too!

The tots are finally big enough and coordinated enough to work a teeter totter by themselves! Helps that Frankie weighs 20 kilos and Ella 22 :). That's right - Ella is only 2 kilo's heavier than Frankie, who is 2.5 years younger! That boy is PACKED.

Ella and our spunky little friend (who is moving in January -crap) riding the camel! I think it was our little friends first time and her parents were pretty surprised. You never know just what will happen with your kid when you send them off with the H's... Which is probably why I rarely if ever babysit! Your tot just may end up on the back of a camel :)

Frankie, our little camel lover and enthusiast, actually missed out on the camel ride because of - get this- a TOOTHPICK.

Our office group ate first and the kids (and I!) had a blast because we didn't sit together. Frankie and Ella sat with Simon, who works one day a week at our house when he's not at the office. Well, Frankie got into the "control Simon" mode and was having a ball.

We headed out to the playground and were diverted by the camel laying there, ready for riding. Frankie decided to run back to the restaurant while the girls were boarding the camel, to tell Simon to bring him a toothpick (!), oblivious to my shouts.

The girls got on and Frankie happily came back, as happy as a clam. Soon after, Simon came out with Frankie's requested toothpicks and proceeded to pick Frankie's teeth for him!!!

Now, my kids don't get much opportunity to so openly exploit the kind intentions of adults like that, so Frankie was pretty smug. The smugness turned into absolute shock (and horror) though after the girls got off the camel and we had to join the rest of the group before he got a ride! He did not cry but fixed me with his steely glare for the next 30 minutes or so. He did not want to hang with the girls, much less me, but he can not have fun when burdened to control adults. So I insisted that he stay with us and by the end of the time he was having fun again!

"Merry X-Mas!" Courtesy of the crocodiles. Ha ha ha!!

Nothing is better than visiting the zoo, unless you can do it with twenty of your best friends! Oh my, did Ella ever enjoy herself! She got every ones thoughts, feelings and opinions on their favorite animals, the most scariest animals, you name it!

Lydia, Irene and Prossy

The office crew. We all work together in the office in EBB. Not everyone could come, but this was most of us. We're a fun bunch :) I love working with these folks!

The four EBB "missionary kids." There would have been more "normal" kids there too but two went to their mothers office party at the Serena and the other three were recovering from their circumcisions. Ha! I just love Uganda :)

This way of exercising your kid is somewhat like a hamster wheel. Our little friend would run around and around in circles pushing, while my two did tricks on top :) Gone are the days of just sitting on it. My little ones are growing up!

So big! Notice Ella's bare feet. Again - I just love Uganda!

Frankie climbs up the play area much like a floppy or drugged little monkey

Then he jumps off! Absolutely no fear! I mean, I had fear that he'd break a leg and have to go to the hospital, but he sure didn't have any!

And of course, what one must do the other must also do

I had read in the newspaper a couple of months ago that the zoo had gotten an orphaned baby elephant from Queen E park, and we were hoping to see it. It wasn't on display yet though, so no luck. Until we were heading out and there it was, being exercised in the waterbuck and forest hog pen! The little guy/gal (I didn't find out which) is six months old.

It was amazing to watch him use his little nose to touch things. It reminded me just of the way a baby touches everything! Ella was worried that he'd eat his nose :)

All the poor waterbuck were like, "Holy crap! What's that?!!!!"

And last but not least... "Coke does the body good!"

Ella’s great idea – A new job for Granny!

2011-12-15T12:43:00.002+03:00

The youngsters talked to their grandparents on the webcam the other day. Granny showed them a set of new plastic golf clubs that she had waiting for them, much to their delight. Now the kids are golf enthusiasts because they get to take golf lessons every year at the EBB golf course, with a bunch of other middle class and rich kids from the area. They enjoy the comforts of a Club House (with satellite tv!), soda on occasion at the Club House bar, and people who retrieve and gather up the golf balls that the kids have knocked around.

In Ugandan English “pick” is used the same as “get” in American English. Sometimes we use Ugandan English but with an American accent. Yeah, it’s weird.

So Ella has given these poor young fellows the label of “Ball Pickers.” Nice. I can barely keep a straight face when she matter of factly discusses The Ball Pickers and I think of these, sometimes rather shiftless lot of young men, standing around, um, picking balls.
Ella started pondering (out loud of course) golfing at Grannie’s. Her and Frankie will have the golf clubs. Her and Frankie will have three golf balls. All good. But who will keep fetching those three golf balls for them? There will be no Ball Pickers at Grannies (thank God!). Shorty, Granny’s Corgi, would just run off with them, so he wouldn’t work. Hmmm. Moment of contemplation, then the “aha” moment and she states matter of factly, “Granny can get the balls for us.” Ha ha!! Case closed. Granny’s going to be a Ball Picker next summer. The thoughts of Granny running around the 3 acre front field repeatedly “picking” the three golf balls for her pampered EBB grandchildren is funny enough – but at least it’s not Grandpa!! Grandpa standing around picking balls? NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Of course, after this old picture that I found, Granny just might be game for it! She made a pretty good horse holder for our photo shoot, in her awesome umbrella hat, so why not fetching golf balls for her grandchildren? Sort of a jack-of-all-trades, our Granny ;)

Tis the season to be.... GOLFING!

2011-12-13T20:32:00.005+03:00

Tis that time of year when the H's start to golf! This will be Ella's third year of golf lessons, and Frankie's first (officially anyways). As usual, they are loving it!

These photos are courtesy of Sarah, who takes them for two hours every morning while I'm at work.

Third year Ella flanked by first year Frank

Steady

Aim

Fire!

Frankie's got the first step down - balancing the ball on the tee

A little coaching...

A year ago this would have made Frankie freeze and go limp. But not this year!

Ker Pow!

According to Sarah, everyone is quite impressed with little Frankie's golfing skills. To be honest, I am not too surprised as he's always had extremely good motor skills and can usually do things as good, if not better (don't tell her!) than his sister, who is 2.5 years older than him.

I come home and Ella tells me all about the different squabbles and drama's that happened amongst the golfers that day, Sarah tells me about Frankie's plays and what the instructors have said about him that day, and Frankie just hangs around with a little smile on his face :) When asked he tells me that he "golfed up" really well. Ha! What he failed to tell me, and his sister did for him, was that he told a kid at golf that they would go to hell if they killed his grasshopper! Whoops - better start working on this kids theology more I guess...

He's pondering something alright. Maybe the other kid going to hell?

The end :)

A visit to Santa’s Workshop – on the Equator!

2011-12-12T19:46:00.005+03:00

I never knew that Santa had a workshop on the Equator- until I visited it on Saturday! I was under the impression that his workshop was in the North Pole and that he only employed Elves. Well, now I know different!

Saturday the kids and I hitched a ride with a friend of ours to a paper making workshop about a fourth of the way to Kampala. They not only make all kinds of paper there out of recycled paper, pineapple tops and banana fiber, but they make soap, glass beads which they use in necklaces and earrings, and assemble all sorts of papery products that are found at places like Banana Boat.

They gave us a little tour of the place and explained the different steps that were involved in making paper. Too bad I didn’t think to take my camera (or my money!)– I had no idea this place was going to be so neat!

Inside a half finished house however was indeed Santa’s workshop! Probably 10 or so people sitting around at different tables happily assembling photo album covers, paper boxes, decorating soap, putting together cards, you name it! There were no noisy machines or anything – just pleasant chatter and a little tv in the corner (which Ella was glued to.) I swear, one little guy even looked like an elf! The man in charge was an old slight fellow in big glasses that seriously reminded me of Papa Elf, too!

To add even more tranquil elfishness to the ambiance, found tucked in a corner or under a table here and there were boxes with blissfully sleeping, beautiful and angelic little brown babies. I kid you not. We found a total of three precious little ones peacefully sleeping in soft beds while their mothers happily worked nearby. Baby would wake up, fuss a little, mama would take baby out, breastfeed it, pass it around a little to have its cheeks tweaked by the other workers, and then back into its box it would go – a happy and contented little baby. I almost wanted to climb into one of those boxes myself! Only I don’t think the outcome would have been as idyllic…

To round out our weekend of “Christmasness,” Sunday we tried out a new restaurant with our friend, Tanya. Imagine our surprise when we walked in and the waiters and waitresses were wearing antlers and Santa hats! Add to that, little Christmas tree center pieces, a tasteful Christmas tree, some other nice Christmas decorations and Christmas music quietly playing in the background! Say what?? Where are we? The equator and it’s ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Yes, you're right - she doesn't get out much!

But when she does just look how happy she is!

All in a days work

2011-12-03T21:30:00.005+03:00

Many people might wonder why I have so many dogs and just what these dogs do all day. Well my friends, let me enlighten you! These are working dogs, in that they generally work all day, household chores and security being their main, but not limited too, responsibilities.

There is shopping to do at the market each week. This really helps the Pack fulfill their hunter gatherer instincts

Then of course there are kitchens to clean and dishes to wash

Nannying or child care

Thorough cleaning, even in those hard to get places that you can't see

Mopping/Squeegeeing the floor (while taking care of little ones no less!)

Then it's nap time for the babies - and if you can get a couple winks in too, why not?!

And then there were... five?

2011-11-21T20:48:00.008+03:00

I'm finally getting around to posting something on this blog again! The reason being (or at least partly so)... a lot of cats!

A week ago Tuesday we were merrily taking our evening Pack Walk and we came upon these little two week (best guess!) old kittens, abandoned in a jerry can along the side of the road. Being such little tykes we knew they wouldn't survive for long left there and gullibly bundled them up and brought them home. I'm quite sure that the whole thing was planned and just knew that everyone we passed was snickering at the dumb suckers who fell for the "abandoned kittens" trick! We basically take the same Pack Walk every day so if anyone wants to dump tiny little creatures in hopes of gullible people stumbling across them, they know the time and the place to do so!

They were so tiny that I really didn't think that they would all survive, especially since our search around Entebbe at 7:30pm that night didn't yield any goat milk like we'd hoped. I syringed some watered down plain yogurt down them that night, and then one of my friends in Congo told me about easy to make kitty glop. I googled it and wow, what a life saver! Amazingly, one and a half weeks later the kitties are not only all alive, but thriving!!

We've been feeding them on evaporated milk mixed with water, a little bit of plain yogurt, egg yolks and a touch of veggie oil to keep things moving :) An eye drop bottle made the PERFECT kitten bottle, too!

As you can see, there are three little calico's - so three girls! We plan to keep one and give the other two away. Imagine the lines that will form in hopes of getting one of these bottle fed kittens!! ;)

Madea would have been an amazing mother! But, just looking at her, you can obviously see why she was spayed (and no, the same rule doesn't apply to humans! I'm not spayed ;). She'd practiced mothering her Kong and now she's doing a GREAT job mothering these baby kittens!
She gets a little more feedback from the kittens than she ever did from her Kong :)

I also learned from the Internet that young kittens can't stimulate their own poop and pee. Their mothers do that for them. When their mother is not around then someone has to do it and thankfully Madea happily and diligently took up the job! This may sound gross but it sure has made my life a LOT easier. No rubbing kitty butts with cotton or cleaning up their poop for me!

Madea also kind of wanted to nurse the kittens but well...

She was a little too ticklish!! Yikes!!!!

One little, two little, three little kitties

The dogs have been great with the kittens - even Billy is fairly gentle with them. It's Ella who we've had to be worried about, due to her enthusiasm and big feet. She gets so excited that at first I thought she was going to start juggling them or accidentally step or sit on them!

Bottoms up, little one!

One is a 'dilute' calico

Ranger, Frankie, and a kitty

"All I need is my Kong and my kitty. That's all I need!"

The Cat Kids

Mama time. Inter species adoption seems to work for Madea!

She's still loyal to her Kong though. You can see it still laying beside her :)

Now we've also learned that kitties need a soft, warm, comfortable place to sleep. Billy's tummy will do!

Sanyu's view of cats is the same as mine. Sometimes you just HAVE to get away from them!

Ms Dave had to inspect the kitties too. She was really not all that impressed.

Little Billy LOVES kitties!!!

Frankie sort of loves the kitties. I think he would love the kitties more if his mom wasn't so preoccupied with them!

Our big kitties, Rowdy and RODEO, are good friends

You may be asking, "Rodeo? I thought her name was Jeanne?!" And it was, until I discovered little balls on "Jeanne!" Ella quickly changed his name to Rodeo :)

Indeed, God surely does have a sense of humor. For you see, I am a dog person. Like, a raving dog person. As I've gotten older I've found that cats actually sort of creep me out. They slither! And I don't like slithery things. Snakes are slithery.

And now, here I go to work in the morning, with my computer in one hand and my crate full of CATS in another. Oh yes, I take them to work with me. There I sit with my office mate, Richard, with a basin or crate full of kittens. No, I've NEVER pretended to be cool and YES, everyone knows I'm weird anyways! So it's not really any big surprise to anyone. And it's not the first time I've taken a cat to work with me, either. I used to take my kitten Cody with me too. Only he came stuffed in a backpack riding on my boda!

So yes, for the moment we have FIVE cats. Ha ha!! But it won't be for long. I plan on getting them spayed just as soon as I can and finding two of them homes! Three cats are okay - five are not!

This n that

2011-11-07T21:02:00.003+03:00

Ella conducted her first independent animal rescue yesterday. We were driving home at about 8pm last night and saw a kitten walking along the busy road amidst a group of people. That didn’t look right as people usually don’t go out walking into town with their kitten in tow! I pulled over and Ella jumped out and grabbed the kitten before it got smushed on the road. The folks walking laughed and cheered for her, and thanked her for saving the kitten. It was a hoot! I asked if it belonged to anyone and nope, it was all ours : )I was very proud of my six year old! And glad we have another kitten : )

The last two nights in a row Ella has left her shoes outside. Therefor she has lost TWO pairs of shoes to the Puppy Monsters in the last two days. Thankfully these shoes only cost $1.00 brand new and the others we bought used for about $2.50 over a year ago. But still! They were good shoes…

Billy has started surfing. Counter AND stove/dinner-still-in-the-pot surfing. I’m not trying to judge Billy, I’m just sayin’… I think he has a little problem there in the surfing department. I did wonder why we were having fewer and fewer leftovers though – Billy was stealing them out of the pot on the stove!

We got six new slip leashes for only $6.00 from Amazon! All multi colored and let me tell you, the Pack looks smart strutting their stuff on Pack Walks these days : ) Here’s a picture of Ranger modeling them. Love all the different colors!

A guy who does some work in a sister organization of the one I’m affiliated with is from Montana and brought us a suit case full of Christmas gifts from Granny this weekend. In it was fresh POPCORN CAKE from my Mom!! Oh wow… I really had to examine my heart before I could bring myself to share it with the kids! But here is proof that I did. I love me some popcorn cake for sure!

A week or so ago I found Ella talking to herself with a British accent, while busily washing her Tonka truck down. It was… odd!

How To Catch a Bee

2011-11-02T19:19:00.004+03:00

How To Catch a Bee (should you ever want to)

Step 1. Look carefully in shrubs and flowers. Two are better than one so a hunting partner will help.

Step 2. Have the right equipment. A net and a small bowl are ideal

Step 3. After you've caught your prey, carefully transport it to a holding facility

Step 4. Transport the bee from the net into it's new home.

Note: You will need a trusted and capable assistant for this. We do not recommend that you try this step alone.

Step 5. Place net, with entrapped bee, over the bee's new home and wiggle it out. This step takes the utmost concentration and skill. Not to be done by amateurs!

Step 6. Carefully check to see if you succeeded in a successful transfer

Step 7. Carefully insect your bee for injuries

BE WARNED:

Bee catching is a delicate operation and should NOT be handled by amatuers. Many will volunteer to help you but below are some types that you should avoid in your potentially dangerous bee catching endeavours.

Guys like this

Blonds.

I can not stress enough, do NOT allow blonds, such as this one, to assist in this delicate operation.

Volunteers such as these two. This is not a good crew. Note their lack of proper equipment
and seriousness

Those with long ears.

And guys like this who will simply eat your bee

Amazingly, no child was harmed in the taking of these pictures. At least 20 bees were caught and flew away, er, were released....

The Kiss

2011-11-02T19:07:00.004+03:00

"Well, since we're sitting here Madea I think I just might want to..."

"... sort of give your cheek a little ...."
"Ewwwww! No Billy!!! Ewwww!!! No!!!"
"...smooch!"

Then? The awkward moment.

“When I die…”

2011-10-27T20:45:00.002+03:00

This was a conversation that went on at my house, while the kids were rubbing my feet earning a movie (yes, I unabashedly perpetrate child labor).

Ella: [while rubbing my foot and thoughtfully looking at my rather chunky calf] “If you died Mom, I think I’d eat you.”

Me: [nervously]“Oh.”

Frank: “I wouldn’t eat you. I’d take you to the hospital and tell them to bury you!” [Dear boy]

Ella: “How would you know what number to call? You don’t have their phone number.”

Frank: [not to be deterred and eyes beginning to sparkle] “I’d put her in the car and drive her to the hospital!”

Ella: “Oh! I could help you drive! We’d get there and I’d say, ‘We have a dead people in the car.’”

So yes, if you see my tots driving about in my car, don’t forget to look in the trunk. You just might find a dead people there. These kids are planning ahead, which I’m glad to see. Although I must admit, I am watching my back around Ella, especially since she’s always hungry and I’m, well, um… you know. Not skinny!

The kids were getting a bit worried about me dying (“Who’d feed us?”) and what would happen to them in that event. I told them that I wouldn’t die until they were both grown and could cook for themselves and I was a really old lady. That assured them somewhat but yeah, they continued making plans on what they’ll do after my death. And as far as I can tell it’s NOT grieving….

Ella: “I’m going to go to Canada for a visit and see Spronk when you die! And I’m going to buy Spronk a hedgehog.”

Frank: “I’d buy Spronk a hedgehog too.”

Ella: “That’s good, then Spronk would have two hedgehogs. She’d love them. Then I’d buy another hedgehog, kill it and bury it, so that it would go to heaven and Mom would have a hedgehog with her in heaven too!”

Nice to know that my children are thinking of the afterlife… I guess. Cannibalism and animal sacrifice!

Happy 4th Birthday and 2nd Year Anniversary, Frankie!!

2011-10-22T21:49:00.016+03:00

Sunday was Frankie's 4th birthday AND his second anniversary of coming home. My how fast the time goes by! Seems just like yesterday that we brought this fat, bald little two year old feller home.

He ain't so bald and fat now let me tell yah! My Frankie is a four year old stocky bundle of hair and, um, er, muscle? Okay, maybe that's a stretch but he's lost some of his baby fat and is growing like a weed! And he does like to show people his muscles. It must be a Y chromosome thing...

A boy and his cat are a beautiful thing

The day started out with scrambled eggs and a little "candle practice" in preparation for the Big Cake later on in the day.

Yes, candles in scrambled eggs makes this boy happy!

Let 'er blow my man, let 'er blow! And he did!

Aw yes, the boy and his cake, complete with the backwards 4 on it. I can't even use dyslexia as an excuse!

The simple frosting on this cake took me an HOUR to make and plaster upon it. Ella helped by placing the candy around the edges (her idea!) but no, a six year old did not decorate the entire thing. As you can see though, Frankie has no great and lofty expectations - he was just happy to have a cake with a couple of horses and his name on it!

Because cooking gas has been harder than hens teeth to find around here and we were almost out, I had to make a special trip on my day off and cook this sucker at the office. But that happy little face made it well worth it!!

Like all good birthday boys worth their salt, Frankie had help take care of the left over frosting

Okay, we had a very special birthday celebration this year, for two reasons. One was that it was my Frankie's fourth birthday and the second year anniversary of bringing him home, and Two, was that our friend Harriet had just brought her baby boy home one week before!! So we got together and celebrated our baby boys together!!

My four year old Frankie and Harriet's eight month old Jason!

Now Harriet has been planning and waiting to bring a baby home for a very long time so to finally see her with a baby of her own was indeed special! Harriet has taken care of countless babies, but always for other people - none of her own!

Jason and his obviously loving big sister Jackie

Oh my, what a SMILER little Jason is! He'd been home for one week and acted like he'd always lived there!

Okay, there were some "interesting," rather "unusual" elements of the party ( to say the very least!), like when Harriet's friend whipped out an accordion and started honking away on it. Yes, you read that right, and accordion.

This was Frank's face when the accordion got started. This look really said it all. Um, Frankie? Your GRANNY plays the accordion my boy, so we'd better work on a little accordion appreciation!

While the other children danced to the, um, accordion, the Birthday Boy laid on the couch and entertained himself by catching his balloon with his feet.

And finally!! The moment he'd been waiting for, for weeks!!! THE BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

He'd matter of factly stated that morning while he was watching me struggle to frost it, "I'm not four until I eat that birthday cake."

This was the only batch of children that I've met where even the baby and the two year old liked wearing their party hats and didn't try to eat them!

Brothers! This is such a sweet picture of Jacob and his baby brother, Jason

And best of all - FIREWORKS on the cake!!! It does NOT get much more cool than that folks! And it didn't even catch any ones hair or party hat on fire!

In true Ugandan birthday party style, the birthday boy gets to cut the cake. It's usually done with a huge butcher knife but we settled for a smaller one this time. This picture accurately depicts my careful little Frankie. Look at his concentration!

We saved the birthday gifts for when we got home. He received a pair of scissors as a gift which he proceeded to carefully cut open each and every one of his gifts :)

AND, to make a good day even better, we found a cylinder of COOKING GAS on our way home!

Aw Frankie, I love you! You make me want to tear my hair out at times, not because you're naughty but because you're too darn smart and I can't figure out WHAT is going on inside your fuzzy, sensitive little head!

You are a funny little boy too - not the comical, goofy funny that your sister is, but the "WHAT did he just say?" funny. Articulate and straight forward, you matter of factly state the obvious. But you're kind too! Like when we were discussing racial differences and you told me, "Your skin looks bad. But I still like it!" Thank you my kind, straightforward, thoughtful little boy!

Hana W*lli@ms

2011-10-21T21:22:00.003+03:00

So I just read this story yesterday. And then, because I couldn’t leave well enough alone, I read this. It's not the first time it's happened, either. Check out this.

Now this case is particularly disturbing in SOOO many ways. When a child is killed it’s bad enough, but this case hits closer to home (she was adopted AND from Africa) and somehow having your parents torture and kill you seems like the ultimate betrayal. Especially knowing that Hana was adopted as an older child and undoubtedly already had feelings of abandonment, trauma and grief to begin with.

Yes, a murder is a murder, but somehow the more extended psychological abuse that Hana is recorded to have gone through (ostracized for her Hepatitis, kept outside or in a closet and excluded from the family, her hair cut as a punishment, told she “didn’t deserve” to celebrate her birthday, starved, etc) is even more heartbreaking to me. Ms Williams seemed to have genuinely hated both her adopted children and inflicted cruel torture upon them.

And it makes me wonder, why?

Yes, when you adopt a child that child brings along some baggage. Sometimes lots of baggage. And that can be frustrating. It can cause you not to enjoy the child. You will have to work harder to really love that child. You will have to parent the child differently than a biological one because the kids been HURT, their brain thinks differently, and they need help rehabilitating (not to mention they might not understand what you are saying to them in English!).

I can sympathize with frustration. When I read that Hana had “issues with hygiene” and so was not allowed to use the family bathroom but instead had to use a porta potty outside, my first was thought was “fecal smearing”. This is quite a common behavior with troubled children from similar situations as Hana and although neither of my children have ever exhibited it, I can not imagine how awful it must be for parents to have to deal with. My little Frankie has commonly used toileting issues as a source of control but thankfully he’s never gone as far as that!

But no, Hana did not have a problem with anything like fecal smearing. The poor kid touched things (like the door knob!) in the bathroom without remembering to wash her hands first! That was the extent of her “rebellion” and “poor hygiene” that got the poor kid stuck using a porta potty outside and taking cold showers in the hose.

From what I read in the report, it did not appear to me that Hana even exhibited RAD behaviors, which I fully expected. Nor did it seem that her little brother, also abused and adopted, did either. Not that RAD would be an excuse for um, torturing and killing her, but it would help in understanding the mothers behaviors a bit easier. Yes, I’m sure they were less than perfect children and had annoying issues but really, making them sleep in closets and the bathroom for years? Spanking the Deaf boy because he “pretended that he couldn’t hear them.”?? Um, no.

What continued to disturb me is how the older children, boys, would also beat Hana and that she was forced to bathe naked outside under a garden hose. You’re talking a girl hitting puberty here! That struck me as really disturbing and I hope that the boys can get some help. Otherwise… oh dear.

Sadly, this is not the first case of something like this happening. So what’s the connection? What is the “cause”? They all contained the same factors of adoption, Christianity , homeschooling, spanking and No Greater Joy teachings – all of which can be controversial and people could point fingers at.

Interestingly, I have experienced personally the first four things – adoption (I adopted my own kids), Christianity (raised by Christian parents, am a professing Christian today), was homeschooled, and spanked on occasion during my childhood. I have lived these things and no, any of them in their true form will NOT lead to the torture and murder of a child. It will NOT. They are fundamentally the exact opposites.

Thankfully I never experienced, as a child or an adult with my own kids, the Pearl’s No Greater Joy teachings but I’ve read one of their books. And they do promote a lot of the ideas of “punishment” that the Williams used on their daughter, Hana (bathing a child in a garden hose, beating them with a plumbing hose over the entire back of their body, and withholding food, to name a few). I was actually given one of their books by a “whoop ‘em till they’re broken” couple who unfortunately had a lot of adopted children that they didn’t understand and regularly beat the crap out of. So my radar was up to begin with. But I digress…

I think that the lethal ingredient to these components is LEGALISM. Okay, I believe that legalism is at the core of No Greater Joy and may be its MAIN ingredient, but for the others it’s not. But when added – watch out!

I would hope that the American church isn’t using “Adoption” as another notch in a Christians belt. And honestly folks, we ALL struggle with legalism, genuinely wanting to serve Christ but to also “look good”. But when you add legalism into Christianity, adoption, homeschooling, raising and disciplining children, things go wrong.

So I guess my point is, Christianity, homeschooling, spanking, and especially adoption, are not bad in themselves but they can be if you add a good does of legalism to them. In the Williams case, it didn’t look to me like they especially wanted those children and I wonder why they even adopted in the first place. I mean, it’s not easy or cheap to adopt. You don’t just “end up” adopting internationally! Could it possibly be because “the thing” to do as “good” Christian, homeschooling parents is to adopt as well? It's so sad that when something as beautiful as adoption(and the others!) can be twisted into something sick and lethal :(

Family Fun

2011-10-09T11:41:00.007+03:00

I love how Ellie is modeling The Packs resourcefulness. In the absence of a dog bed, a purse works for your pillow, Spiderman slippers cushion your bum, and stuffed animals soften your shoulders. It’s a darn good thing we don’t keep a tidy house or our Pack would be sunk!

Then there's Billy. He uses a shoe under his butt and that's it! The neck twist doesn't look very comfortable but hey, who am I to judge?!

Ella's starting to learn about the Pilgrims, in her History. This is a fine example of our make shift turkey!

I had to post this picture of the pupil, simply because she's looking so big! Like, she almost looks like a GIRL even though to me, she's still my baby :)

This cracks me up. The kids planted beans in their sandpit the other day and well, in Uganda, when you plant something it GROWS! Even when you plant it in your sandpit!

Saturday we went to Kampala to go bowling and party with our pals, the Schrocks. Here is one of the enthusiastic bowlers.

In between bowling herself and helping the kids with their turns, Amber would plop down and furiously keep knitting this baby blanket, that was due to be a gift the next day. Ha!!

Bowling with a hankie slung over your shoulder

They are H's, hear them roar. Or something. More like, "Don't drop those suckers!"or "Please hurry and take the picture, Mom!"

The kids and their coach. I got some pretty good, literally "behind the scenes" pictures of this coach coaching the children, but I won't post them because a) Amber was helping my kids, and b) I'm a Christian and all ;)

A cool view of Kampala!! This picture amazes me. No trash, not a lot of traffic, is this really the Kampala I know?

There is a nice FREE play area in Garden City that we took the tots to. They loved it!

Look at that! She's playing like a normal child!

Oh crap. You're not supposed to do that on the slides! She's as bad as a baby goat or a monkey!

Kitten sits on chair and tries to smack puppies head. Whose gonna win this game?

There's a lot that could be said about this picture. A LOT. They were, um, watching the coffee pot making coffee. The coffee pot that is on the ground beside the radio. Um, yeah. Nuf said.

Get a load of how big little Billy is! He's almost as tall as Madea now, and a lot thicker!

Tug o war! Ranger and Madea are a year old now, and Billy is about five months.

Rowdy

Obviously I didn't have enough to do the other day, so I popped Madea up on top of the car :) She didn't like it!

Kids, Dogs, a Grasshopper and a Rabbit

2011-10-03T20:10:00.004+03:00

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days.

Frankie with his large, prized hopper. For some reason he wasn't wanting to smile for the camera although...

... This little lass sure was!

I bought the kids five new hankies at the store and since they were all new and matching, we figured that The Pack needed to model them before they got all used and snotty. A fine looking Pack, if I might say so myself. This is the best picture of all the dogs but Ellie's hankie had fallen off, so I had to take another picture :)

And here they all are! My stylin' Pack! And yes, that's Bill in the middle. He's almost as big as Ellie!

Ella having a little Ms Dave time

Frankie having a little hopper time

Frank having some hopper and bunny time

The kids and Ms Dave.

This is Bill, posed and ready for Ms Dave to poop so that he can gobble up the little "bunny chocolates." He's even licking his lips in anticipation!

Frankies reaction to little Billy's snack. Have I mentioned before that Frank is more of a cat and grasshopper lover? Well, he is. And I can't imagine why! ;)

A girl, her rabbit, and her dogs... (the dogs were patiently waiting for you-know-what!)

This little chap caught his dinner on the ceiling of our porch!

Who would have thought? Not me!

2011-10-02T22:01:00.002+03:00

So, I never thought that I’d ever be raising my kids like this. Like, ever. Little farm girl, 4-Her Gracie? No way.

I was brought up rurally. My kids are growing up urban.

I grew up not only in North America, but in Montana and Wyoming, a class all its own. My kids are not only growing up in Africa (and that’s a looong way from Montana!), but in urban Uganda. Like, not even cool mud hut, rustic, haul–water-on-your-head Uganda.
More like wow, I really feel like a homely frump while waiting in the line for the ATM with a bunch of meticulously and stylishly dressed women, not a Carrhart to be found, Uganda. The traffic is stinky, everyone’s on mobile phones, and look out for that cow sleeping in the road right next to the internet café and the woman driving by in the $100,000 Land Cruiser. Oh, and don’t forget the Russians. Our lives would not be complete without the creepy Russians. Yeah, weird.

I grew up feeding my dog crunchy dog food. My kids are growing up feeding their dogs a mixture of chicken mash (no kidding), corn flour and full bodied, dried little fish that we have to cook up in a big pot each day.

I grew up thinking that goats were kept in pens or fields. My kids are growing up thinking that goats are kept tied by one leg, anwhere. There is no limit to where one can keep a goat. The middle of a busy town? No problem. Tied to the tree in your yard? Why not?

I grew up shopping with my mom at a supermarket, Blairs, riding in shopping carts down shiny smooth floors with deli’s, public restrooms, cash registers and stuff. My kids shop at the market which is held once a week in a soccer field. It is like a supermarket in that you can buy just about anything there, but yeah, the floor is far from being shiny and smooth, there are deli's, no restrooms (which honestly doesn’t seem to stop some people), and no cash registers.

I grew up not seeing naked people. Ever. My kids are growing up seeing naked people all the time. Like, naked children don’t even faze them and they don’t even bat an eye or make rude comments when observing someone breastfeeding. And trust me, they don’t use little blankets to cover themselves here! You see all. Consequently my kids don’t mind baring it all, themselves. Little Gracie never would have been caught in her unders in public let me tell yah!

I grew up not having the foggiest idea what a mobile phone was (they hadn’t really been invented yet – and neither was the laptop!). My kids are growing up with at least three toy mobile phones and their own toy computers.

I grew up not ever seeing real poverty up close. My kids are growing up seeing up close and in your face poverty all the time.

I grew up hardly ever going out to eat. My kids get to all the time!

I guess what gets to me the most is the sheer urbaneness of my children’s upbringing, which is sooo not me. They are used to the sheer mass of humanity that we pass every week in the market, when we drive to the store, go to Kampala, or walk down the road. They are CITY KIDS!!

BUT. If I must raise my children in an urban environment, at least I get to do it in Entebbe where we have neighborhood cows that we can go watch be milked and there are always lots of chickens and neighborhood goats scampering around. When we get back from our furlough next year we are going to get some chickens and goats of our own, so I might be able to appease myself a bit. Our land is further out of Entebbe too, so it won’t feel like we’re living right in the middle of town as much. It won’t be Montana but it will do good enough!

Ella's been picking out her own clothes lately. And tying her (filthy) hankie on her head backwards. And yes, she was at a restraunt in this picture, holding sticks. And what you can't see is that she was barefoot!

Um, have I mentioned before that Frankie really likes his cat? Well he does. A lot. Almost too much...

Thus far Rowdy has survived being dunked in the dog water, stuffed in a plastic container and being tied up and carried around in a plastic bag. I'm thinking Frankie means well, but he's just too young to know yet that he could actually kill his cat doing things like that! And let me tell you, it's hard supervising him all the time. And is impossible when I'm at work!

We continue to talk about how kitties aren't like toys and that they can accidently be killed, like Bronco was. Billy didn't mean to kill Bronco, it was an accident because he was playing with him the wrong way! So we'll see if cats really do have nine lives and Rowdy survives his kittenhood!

We noticed Bill sleeping like this because he was snoring so loud! Probably not the best position for sleeping...

Work and play (with the cat)

2011-09-26T21:11:00.004+03:00

Um, so, I figure I should post something on my blog! I haven’t really taken any pictures of the kids in the last few weeks, or much of anything, but I did find a few older pics of Billy (big surprise) and the kids playing with the cat that I had on my camera.

Last week was pretty crazy at work. Not only is it nearing the end of our financial year, but we had one of our project funder reps in town, who just happens to be from Montana :). I got a phase review of one project and an extension request, complete with updated budget, done for another, and we left both on the same page which is always a huge step in the right direction. Hooray for Montanans! We cut the blab and just do the job : ) Also met with our newest translation team, the Kwamba (from Bundibugyo and DRC), and got their work planned out in detail for the next three months. Thursday I didn’t get home until 7pm and I had to go in on Friday for a few hours, so it was a busy, long week.

And how can I forget! Late the night of the 17th one of my bestest friends – PROSSY- came home! She’d been studying in the U.K for the last very long year and is now home again, much to my selfish relief. She’s staying with us until her new house ( which she found within the first week of being home – no, she’s not a procrastinator like me!) is ready to be moved into, sometime the beginning of October. Not only is a relief to have her back in the country, but it’s always nice to have another adult in the house. Especially one that will cook dinner now and then, AND clean dishes : )! And no, haven’t gotten a picture of her yet. She doesn’t look that different than when she left, to tell you the truth! Although I’m sure she’s smarter with all that added higher education ;)

This week the rest of our translation teams come in and we get end of the financial year finances all squared away, and go over each of the projects goals and translation schedule for the next year. Today I sat down with our two Uganda based consultants and we somewhat finalized our FY12 consultant checking and training schedule too. All of the translation teams and all three of our consultants (one is coming from the U.S) will be working in EBB next and the following week at a two week Paratext workshop, but I’m not responsible for that (we have a great I.T department!) so it won’t be any extra work for me. And I’m excited to see the amount of work they can accomplish in doing basic checks on all their previously translated work.

I also started a group Bible study – something that I haven’t participated in for 4 years! We are going through the study guide to Shepherding a Child’s Heart, by Ted Tripp. We’ve only done two chapters so far. I’m also reading The Five Love Languages of Children by Chapman and Campbell, which is a GREAT balance to Ted Tripp. I’m still trying to figure out Ella’s love language (quality time perhaps? Still not sure- that girl LOVES them all ;) but Frank’s didn’t take much study. He is a snuggler, touchy little boy and when asked how he knows his mom loves him he says, “Because she hugs and kisses me!!” So yeah, his love language is definitely TOUCH!

So, anyhoo – all that to explain why I haven’t updated my blog as of late!

And finally, here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Baby of the Pack - my how he is growing! He's going to be a BIG dog if he keeps this up!

Odd ball of the Pack. Sorry, but he is.

Somewhat of a mutual understanding.

Don't fart, Billy!

Ella, proudly presenting her tupperware with...

... the cat inside (who was gasping for breath, poor guy!)

The gloved hand reaching for the cat was the surgeon. They were pretending to do surgery after surgery on the cat (no real knives or needless, don't worry!), hence the "surgical" gloves.

This is a little safer activity - getting pushed in the stroller. I'm not sure but I think he still might have been a bit dazed for lack of oxygen...

The cat torturers, I mean LOVERS!

Who's the Pack Walk for?

2011-09-12T22:19:00.005+03:00

Me, in all my bulky, Pack Walking glory ;)

So, I started taking a daily Pack Walk with my Pack about five or six months ago. I was sort of testing out Cesar’s theory about the importance of a Pack Walk. After about six weeks of the walk, I noticed a MARKED difference in Madea, our most excited/anxious dog. It was great for the kids and the rest of the dogs and I enjoyed it, just knowing that I was doing what was best for my dogs.

After a recent two week hiatus from this activity I came to realize who the Pack Walk really, truly has the most benefits for. ME!

You see, I struggle with depression. It’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older and runs in the family. Life is a bit overwhelming right now and to be honest, work sucks. Thankfully I have my kids to keep me going so I don’t slip into total and complete comatose depressed oblivion. But I can get to be a pretty cranky mom! And we all know that children or dogs won’t follow a cranky depressed Pack Leader – they need a calm, assertive one!

The children have started staying behind on our Pack Walks. It’s pretty much a power walk and I felt a bit bad for the wee ones. They would much rather prefer being planted on their little butts in front of the boob tube watching and singing along to a Cedarmont Kids DVD (it was the Christmas DVD tonight ;) for 45 minutes than trying to keep up with a marching mother. We have 24 hour security so there is always a responsible adult on the compound and I tell them that if there’s a fire or the house starts falling in, to run outside and get on the big trampoline.

For an introvert, the Pack Walk gives me some alone time without chattering children, and a break from being “mom”. I can relax without worrying about either child getting hit by a car (Frankie gets pretty focused when he’s on the trail of grasshopper or dragonfly!) and just march along at my own pace. It’s my “Me Time” ;).

It also gets my endorphins pumping which simply feels good! I also have a bad back and a vigorous walk with The Pack really seems to help it. A lot!

To be honest, there is also a real feeling of accomplishment in being able to calmly walk half a dozen dogs along through such a target rich environment of people, vehicles, chickens, monkeys, cats, barking dogs, goats, birds, you name it! I truly do feel like The Pack Leader and my dogs are so much more obedient at home, without any additional training! I noticed this when it came to clipping toe nails. Bridger’s always put up a fight and I was floored when he just calmly laid there wagging his tail the last time. It has got to be so much better for him than me sitting on him!

And last but not least, I always end up having a good laugh on our Pack Walk. And laughter is good medicine, right? Like today when I was marching coolly along with my Pack, visions of Cesar in my head, only to have Happy Bill strutting along with a big piece of jack fruit clamped firmly in his mouth. He must have walked for 10 minutes that way! It’s hard to be cool when your dog's packing along fruit!

Our Happy Bill :)

Welcome to the Pack, ROWDY!

2011-09-09T21:53:00.005+03:00

Due to a horrible, puppy induced accident a few weeks ago, our little kitty Bronco died :( This left a very large hole in the Pack and Frankie's little heart. Because Frankie you see, is a cat person, like his Grandpa, and he loved his kitty Bronco!

Believe it or not, I am not much of a cat person. I know, who would have thought? If it weren't for their excellent hunting abilities and the fact that rats and bats abound here, I wouldn't even think of getting one. But the most compelling reason Bronco was because of my little cat lover. The boy NEEDED another kitten! And so, I obliged.

There was quite a bit of debate between me and my mother over letting Frankie name the cat. I didn't want to. I do not believe that small children should be allowed to name family pets because they often end up going through life like poor Ms. Dave. Or worse. But in the end, I caved and let Frankie name the cat - but only because I liked the name he came up with!!

So please, meet the new member of our Pack, ROWDY!

We had gone to see Rowdy and his beautiful siblings several weeks ago when he was five weeks old and too young to leave his mother. He was the plainest cat but Frankie claimed he was his favorite. We were going to wait until they were 8 weeks but then this week the lady that had them called me up and said, "Can you take the black kitten?" The other two PRETTY kittens had been taken. So it all worked out and I brought home Rowdy.

What was fun about it was that I didn't tell the kids and I surprised them!! Now, I generally suck at keeping a secret so this was really hard for me. But I did it! I actually had told them the day before that I was getting them a surprise (see? I really can't keep a secret) and Ella said, "Oh, a kitten?" and I just laughed at her like she was stupid and I was all mysterious. Yep, I'm a good mom like that ;)

But come Tuesday afternoon the kid really had no idea what I was bringing for them!! Frankie's generally NOT very hard to surprise, being as he's not as snoopy as his sister, so he was tickled pink that I'd brought him a kitten :)

Rowdy, giving what for to Arnie the Lamb

Not sure why the cat was in the travel pillow but he didn't seem to mind!

Now is this one pleased little cat loving boy or what?!

Some guys keep a parrot perched on their arm, others keep a small cat

A couple of boobs watching the boob tube together

This is my cat training device. This little cat was causing problems for himself because he was TOTALLY overreacting to the dogs and hissing and spitting at them while they were fast asleep. This would wake them up and naturally they'd want to stop him! Sanyu was taking it personally that he was growling at her and Bill wanted to play with him. Not good.

So, I took it upon myself to put a stop to the behaviour. I mean, you can't be yelling at the dogs all the time when the cat is instigating it! He's MUCH better since he was on Tuesday but I figured that I should just treat him like a dog - if he exhibits behavior that I disagree with, I squirt him. This also redirects him and with one swift squirt at the curious dog, redirects them as well, in a painless and screechles way.

The gun also works for instances like this. I don't agree with this behavior ;)

And, well, some of us still think that a good dog is hard to beat!

Breaking Pack News - A New Diet!

2011-09-09T21:14:00.006+03:00

It's been a while (who am I kidding?) since I've updated on the Pack. There's big news in the Pack world actually - I've changed their feed! To a person (and her Pack) who doesn't get out much, this is exciting!

Puffy Face Frank, before his allergy medicine, sandwiched between Bridger and Sanyu, watching a movie. This poor little feller is our cat lover. BUT the dogs were there first and he voluntarily crawled up between them, so I don't have that much sympathy for him!

Bill's feet are the ones on the right, Rangers are the ones on the left. Notice how much bigger Bill's are than Ranger's and he's less than six months old! If this boy grows into his feet and tail (Have I mentioned before that Billy has a super long tail? He does!) he's going to be a good sized fellow!

My big ol' lumpy corn fed puppy!

Like I mentioned before, I changed the Pack's feed to posho (corn flour that you cook up into a tasteless lump), cooked in groundnut sauce, with a carrot or two (for their eyes you see - they are WATCH dogs after all, and duh, a WATCH dog uses their eyes a lot), and a handful or two of little dried fishies. Previously I was feeding them Vitagen Purina with a bunch of the little fishies but gosh, it was expensive and everyone (except Sanyu - we're alike in that we're easy keepers!) was looking a little thin. Plus, I had to go to Kampala to get the Vitagen, which is not fun.

I switched over to the posho, which is cheaper and I can feed more of, and then read some things on the Internet about how you shouldn't feed your dog any grain because dogs are carnivores and it's unnatural, blah, blah. I also read that avocado's are supposed to be lethal for dogs, which is just plain WRONG as dogs here feast on them, especially if you have an avocado tree. So I determined that a lot of that was just dog food companies trying to convince people to buy their products. I'm proceeding to feed my dogs corn, fish and peanut sauce for protein, and carrots because, why not?

And oh my goodness do the dogs ever look great on their new diet! Billy is a down right pudgy LUMP (soooo cute!) and all the black dogs have SUPER shiny coats. They're not as hungry either and everyone knows that a satisfied dog is a happy dog!

My next experiment is buying chicken feed, which is even cheaper than posho, and because a lot more is added to it than corn, I'm thinking it will not only be cheaper but more nutritious. And who knows, maybe the dogs will start laying eggs! It's not like chicken feed in the States, but is powdery, like the posho, and can be cooked up.

I've also started being able to feed skinny little Madea twice a day, like a young dog should be. Bill still eats three or four times a day, which could account for some of his lumpiness :) Ranger still gets fed only once a day, even though he's young, just because he is a bottomless pit and looks fine.

My incentive for finding cheaper and cheaper ways to feed my Pack is a) I feel guilty spending so much money on DOGS in a country where the majority of people are living below poverty level and b) If it's not so expensive to properly feed them, I can get more dogs!! But not for a while, don't worry Mom!

Despite their new diet, they would still really prefer a sandwich instead!

You'd have to have a pretty cold heart (or a hungry belly!) to say no to these guys... ;)

Mystery SOLVED!

2011-09-07T20:51:00.003+03:00

So, after googling "Child's facial swelling" on Saturday, reading about all sorts of terrible causes for it (kidney failure being the most common!) and Frankie waking up looking like this Monday morning... I finally buckled down and took him to the Doctors that morning.

They took a urine and blood sample (little boys are so much easier to get urine samples from than little girls!) to checked his kidney's and his blood count, which both came out CLEAR. WHEW. Thank you Lord! The doctor prescribed the lad some allergy medicine, Cetzine, which he is supposed to take once a day and VIOLA!! He's been fine ever since!! Man, what a relief.

And all of that, a doctors visit AND medicine (six days worth), for around $12. That my friend, can't be beat ;)

Mystery, mystery, what could it be?

2011-09-02T15:02:00.002+03:00

So, we've got a little mystery here at the H house. It all started last Sunday morning when Frankie woke up in the morning looking like this.

Hmmmm, maybe he got bit or stung by a bug while in his bed....

Antihistamine didn't seem to help. At all.

Then Monday morning he woke up like this. What? Now the other eye is swollen shut? Blankets and pillow were changed so the child had fresh bedding.

Tuesday morning, the lad was fine. Whew! Problem solved. He had something in his bed. Until...

Wednesday he woke up looking like this! The FRONT of his face was swollen!! What the heck?

Get a load of that top lip!

We have wracked our brains as to what could be the cause. Perhaps he's developing an allergy to something? We haven't eaten ANY thing different, used different soap, NOTHING new in the last week or so. Nothing.

For a while I thought maybe he was having a reaction to his urine as both children are bed wetters and don't get their blankets changed every time. However when he was put on a new mattress with fresh bedding, in pull ups, he woke up again with not only a slightly puffy face but with welts on his stomach and arms as well. Nice. A swollen distorted face and itchy welts...

Antihistamine does work for the welts and he hasn't been quite so puffy or swollen on his face, so I guess he's sort of getting better. Our dear little cat, Bronco, was killed last week and he was Frankie's favorite little pet. In true Frankie style Frankie did not cry or express ANY grief over the death of his beloved cat. But as the week wore on he began to exhibit some unusual behaviors which were his own weird ways of dealing with the loss of his cat. So, we're kind of wondering if these physical symptoms could be a result of the stress he's putting his little body through, trying to grieve for his cat.

Praying that his swelling just stops and yes, we are in the market for kittens. We all miss our Bronco! But luckily not all of us have swollen up about it ;)

Reading the Classics

2011-08-31T20:15:00.004+03:00

So, little L is plugging through the first grade. I really am a crappy teacher because I do not enjoy it like I should, however it IS fun and encouraging to see her making great progress, especially in her reading!

Because we are SUCH highly sophisticated people, I've started her reading the classics. The classics of Dr. Seuss that is :) And she loves them! They are great beginners books, have a lot of repetition, good pictures, and are really long. To be honest, with her looks and crazy personality the child could be in a Dr. Seuss book herself!

Not sure why these are sideways, but these are the books she's reading!

Now, I haven't read Dr Seuss since I was a child. I know that he's great, his books are GREAT for beginning readers, but... I couldn't help but find some of the pictures in his books just a tad disturbing!

Okay, so this thing is a bit odd, but get a load of Jim!! Maybe it's too tiny in this picture but trust me, little Jim is SCARY and EVIL looking!

And... what can I say. What are all these guys all doing in bed together?? It doesn't say, but I bet one of them has a rubber band ;)

My sister sent these "old" books (plus a lot more!) a while back and they are PERFECT also! In her Language Arts Ella is learning about long vowels and there is at least one book of each, in addition to consonant clusters and other things.

Now, Ella is the type of learner/person that she is totally unmotivated by phonics. The girl needs a STORY, not phonics rules, to get a point! So these books are perfect and she's learning to read them well. And really, the whole POINT of phonics is so that you can read, so as long as she can read, who cares about phonics?

Danger Ranger, after being read a good night story...

This weeks pictures

2011-08-28T21:20:00.006+03:00

Whew- what a week. Filled with a family tragedy back in the States, then a smaller tragedy at our own home here. Yuck. Before that I had a lot rolling around in my head to blog about but now there's pretty much nothing left in there. So I thought I'd just post some pictures of our last week. I mean, if you have a blog you have to post something I guess!

A big event was getting new desks!! That's right, the kids actually have a place to do their school now!! Frankie'd pretty much dropped out because there wasn't room at the table for the poor lad. Too much junk on it. So now he has his own little desk and I guess I'll have to teach him something.

Ella is halfway through 1st grade Bible, Science and History/Geography. I'm proud of her. She's doing well despite a VERY crappy teacher. Who complains a lot... :(

Another wonderful thing was this "new" little fridge and sink set!! Oh my, the kids LOVE it!

It's got a really cool little faucet hooker upper that I need to get rigged up to some water. But it's cool even without running water and a great place for keeping your plastic food out of the jaws of the puppies!

She likes it :)

Ellie and Madea sleeping amidst the shoes

Kitchen helper helping to clean off the groundnut sauce that boiled all over the top of the stove.

Thanks old buddy

A little peanut butter in the Kong helps keep a teething puppy occupied for a while

Saturday the kids friends A came over for the day. Her mom took this picture a while back and I thought it was a cute one. These three are just as ornery as they are cute - TRUST ME!! They're a fun bunch!

After watching an Andy Griffith show where Opie was working to earn money, Ella was inspired to work for her own. So we found an empty jar and made her a little bank to save her money in - a foreign concept for L. She has started cleaning the kitchen on the weekends and earning around 500 shillings a pop - but ONLY if it's done well. She is pretty impressive - a six and a half year old cleaning the ENTIRE kitchen? Like, washing the dishes, putting them away, sweeping the floor AND clearing the counters?? She does it and I help her check her work and point out anything she's missed. Yes, I'm picky. Even though she's only six. I want her to learn that you really do have to do a GOOD job if you're going to get paid for work - money is not automatically owed you. Your job is to keep your employer happy - not the other way around!

I was of two minds about this. On one hand I really do want to teach my child to work for her money and learn how to manage it and all that, but on the other hand I don't want the kids thinking they should be paid in order to contribute to the family. I mean, I never was! And I'm still not :). But in the end I figured that a six year old cleaning an entire kitchen on her own was above and beyond a six year olds normal call to duty!

Frank was a bit pissed at first that he wasn't getting money too, but I explained how he could when he got older - now he can practice taking care of his stuff and doing smaller work without pay, in order to prepare him for the day when he was bigger and could do bigger jobs that you get paid for. He thought about that and the clincher was when I asked him if I got paid for any of the work at home that I did :)

The fruits of her labor -and another tooth! 4,000 shillings (less than $2.00) before she tithed 400 shillings of it.

The youngsters children's church was leading the church services today at church and didn't Frankie just wake up this morning looking like this! He got into a tangle with something that stung him last night, so woke up looking like he was at the receiving end of a bar fight. I gave him some antihistamine (which didn't' appear to do much good!) and took him to church like this. And he even sang in the choir! Only in Africa man... anywhere else I'd get thrown in jail for child abuse!

L's the one with the microphone pointed at her head, and Frankie's the little dude in the orange shirt beside her.

We got to church at the ungodly hour of 8am and FROZE during the first service. It was freakin' cold!! Started to rain and just didn't quit. I wimped out after the first service and we didn't stay for the second. Rather we came home, put on some warm clothes, ate pancakes, drank hot cocoa, the kids watched two hours of The Andy Griffith show and I dozed on the couch for a total of THREE hours!! Yeah, what's up with that?? Sure was nice though :)

The last week - in more pictures

2011-08-21T20:37:00.005+03:00

So, I've had a lot rolling around in my head this last week that I've been meaning to blog about, but when push comes to shove, it's just easier to post a bunch of pictures of the kids and dogs. And I doubt no one cares much about what my opinions is on crap anyways!

So, rather than my thoughts, our strange life, in more pictures!

Ever since Granny sent the first little bug cages for Easter, Frankie in particular has been OBSESSED with catching grasshoppers and dragon flies. They caught this huge monster last weekend. I couldn't help but love the look on their faces :)

The grasshopper is talking to Frank. He said that it was saying, "Let me out of here, you idiot!" Sometimes grasshoppers have foul mouths, I've noticed....

He was a monster. Lasted almost an entire week in there, feeding on grass. It was actually pretty neat to watch him hold a blade of grass in his hands and chew it! They move their mouths a lot and our expert in the field of grasshoppers says that spiders (?) and grasshoppers talk a lot only that we can't hear them.

We live within easy walking distance to a new swanky meat shop that sells LUNCH MEAT and CHEESE among other types of meat, that we like to get stuff for sandwiches at most Fridays on my day off. I try to incorporate our pups whenever I can, since it's good socializing for them AND the psychological part of it poops them out. This day we had Ranger come along and help us carry stuff in his packs.

Hmmm, now what do I want?

Packing it home. Couldn't figure out how to get the baguettes into the packs without looking weird. Yeah, I know. Make that, without looking weirder.

And here's the poor dogs reward - getting dressed in Frankie's shorts. Much to our amusement, he didn't seem to mind them and proceeded to saunter all around the house!

Billy found the flour!

The H Pack. These guys are my escape from reality. I have a lot of responsibility in my life right now and these guys help me forget it all when I'm with them!

Baby Billy, zonked on the couch

This is where the "twins", Ranger and Madea, sleep - in plastic chairs on the front porch. Strange.

But wait! It gets even stranger!! Madea likes to sleep with her head hanging down like this (?)

Ellie was teaching everyone how to obsess over monkeys. Frankie was taking her teaching quite seriously!

Since Ranger is the same colour as the tree, he thought he could just climb it and catch those monkeys because they'd never see him coming! This was about as far as he made it though. Ranger is not much of a climber.

Sanyu and Bridger took turns carrying our snacks for us. Such thoughtful creatures.

This goofy look is the result of monkey obsession I think

The Pack

Bridger the Magnificent

This was pretty cool - that is a LOG that the GIRL is sitting on, paddling around like a boat! It's unusual to see a girl of this age out having some fun and not cooking, cleaning, or taking care of babies and children.

Bronco hearts pillows and he doesn't even mind sharing them! I found them like this when I checked on them before I went to bed :)

I've a sneaking suspicion...

... that one of his ears is going to stand up!! I sort of wanted ONE floppy eared dog but it would be kind of cute if he has matching ears like old uncle Bridger :) Nice shot of his ridge, too!

Frankie takes after his grandfather in the cat department. The boy loves his cat :) Imagine just how messed up poor little Frankie will be- a cat lover growing up in this house?! The funny thing is, is that Bronco has NO idea that he's a cat!

Life as we know it

2011-08-11T21:54:00.006+03:00

Looking back, it doesn't seem like I've posted many recent pictures of the kids for their Granny. This usually always happens when we get a puppy - the next few months are full of puppy and Pack pictures!

So here you go Granny, some recent pictures of your rapidly growing grandtots and even some of ME, all cleaned up with my new haircut! And of course, more of the Pack.... ;)

Sharing a little bit of precious mother/son/Madea time

This is an awesome dog. This was the puppy that was so homely and so what I was NOT looking for that at first I wanted to give her away. But wow, what a personality! It only took a couple of days to realize that no, as homely as she might be (who keeps a WHITE dog in red Uganda dirt?) she was indeed a keeper!

Thankfully I had just become a Cesar M*llan follower before we found her and I have raised her "Cesars way." Which is a darn good thing because unlike her brother Ranger, who has GREAT calm, medium low energy, Madea has excited anxious dominant HIGH energy. Had she not been raised Cesars way this dog would be a monster! But instead she is a submissive, smart little dog who is a lot of fun!

Ranger doesn't want to miss out on all this lovin'! Can't figure out if he was trying to sniff Madea's butt, Frankie's hand or my crotch ;) I heart dogs because they're just like that!

Dear little things...

Okay, Frankie looks like he's gettin a little bit sick of all this lovin', and the rest of the Pack seems to think they haven't got enough! Would you look at how tall Bill is getting? He was in the process of attacking Ranger and almost biting my leg.

Grannies got some pretty little grandtots :) And I have a nice haircut!

Our friend Tanya arrived from Canada last week, en route back to her country of work, and brought us an entire suitcase full of goodies, including these little crafts. Ella and Frankie attacked the project in their usual Ella and Frankie ways.

Pulling the little sticky part off the little squares and sticking them on his globe thing was NOT a problem for Frankie. Easy smeasy man, if you just furrow your brows and concentrate on it.

Man, Ella had those little squares flying everywhere , ended up crying in frustration, then got a glue stick and ended up finishing the project up in about five minutes - after about 10 minutes of chasing little squares and getting frustrated! Fine motor skills are NOT her thing ;)

Frankie's finished product was a lovely green frog and Ella's was a nice little pink pig!

I am at a distinct disadvantage having such good looking kids. I mean, I didn't used to look this homely when it was just me and Bridger!

Have I mentioned that these two really like to climb? Up everything? The house, the water tower, the car, the tree - you name it, they'll probably climb it.

And, because I have so many, some more PACK PICTURES!!

This is how Madea likes to lay. Like, she sleeps like this. I think this dog would be good at Twister!

In the suitcase that Tanya brought for us were three new H*lti's! We LOVE them! I'm a big fan of them as I feel even more comfortable that the kids can handle the dogs safely on the busy roads we walk on. Sanyu and Madea use theirs exclusively and Bridger and Ranger alternate theirs.

Pack dinner and psychological exercise. No fighting EVER!

Another wonderful item that came for us out of Tanya's suitcase was Cesar M*llan's book, "How to raise the perfect dog." Let me tell you, what a great book and very timely as I have three puppies! I loved it and had many of my dog raising questions answered!

I had heard him mention in one of his Dog Whisperer episodes that tug-0-war with powerful breeds is not a good game to play. But I'd wondered about playing tug-o-war with my dogs, who are not powerful breeds. He answered my question! He says that with any breed of dog, be it a Chihuahua or a pit bull, tug-o-war between dog and human is not good. It gives the dog dominance over the human which can lead to imbalance. However dogs DO need a challenge and learn to play appropriately with other dogs, so games of tug-o-war between supervised calm submissive dogs is a good thing. So let the games begin, my little ones!

In Tanya's suitcase came a new squeaking W*bba and a K*ng. The pups LOVE playing tug-o-war with the W*bba and I love to watch them! The Kong is great because it has a very erratic bounce to it - you never know where it will go after it bounces off the ground!

Get a load of how big Billy is getting!

They're actually pretty evenly matched and I think that each one won at least once! Madea is by far the most enthusiastic W*bba puller, chaser and squeaker but the boys give her a run for her money as well!

Cesar also says that puppies need a beginning and ending time to play that YOU, the Pack Leader, make call on, so when I had deemed them finished, I ended the game and took the W*bba back inside. It's not really meant for chewing - more chasing, fetching and pulling.

Bill, exactly one week after coming home from the vets to recover from nearly fatal Parvo! This little dude has probably eaten enough rice and yogurt to feed a small starving village, and he literally has BOUNCED back. At first I thought he was simply happy to still be alive, but actually I think he was just super happy to be eating rice, yogurt, canned dog food and avocado every two hours!!

Score one for Billy and the W*bba! I am so grateful for the recovery of this pup - I've probably thanked God at least twice a day for him this last week! So, so good to have our happy Bill back :)

Goodbye warm fuzzy feelings- welcome harsh adoption reality!

2011-08-10T21:59:00.003+03:00

One of my few pictures of baby Ella, in all her baby glory :)

My little Ella is getting older. And more fun. But as she gets older we are starting to deal with “bigger” issues than at three, four and five years old. Now, we are a very adoption oriented family, for what should be fairly obvious reasons. To the kids the whole adoption thing is the norm, while other families where adoption is not involved are the exceptions. Which babies homes the kids have come from is common knowledge, and Ella has shown surprise before that I didn’t come from a babies home too. I’ve pretty much been floating through the “feel good” adoption issues – my kids think that adoption is the norm, babies come from babies homes and they’re so glad that they have a family and aren’t stuck in a babies home! Ahhh, warm fuzzies all around.

Until yesterday, when the actual realities of adoption just happened to hit six year old Ella for the first time while she was, um, er, ah, not really sure how to say this… on the “think tank” taking a … think.

I happened to be laying on the couch (something I like to do whenever I get the chance!) listening to my little thinker start to think. Questions started coming out of the bathroom, totally out of the blue. “What happened to my mother? Where is she? Do you know her name? Do you have her number? Can we find her? Was she sick? Does she miss me? I miss her! I miss my mother! Is she thinking about me? Does she know where I am? Mom, I just miss my mother!” Then the tears started. And the absolute most heartbreaking question of all wailed from the bathroom – “Why did she get rid of me?” Now, I’d been trying to play it cool – calmly empathize with Ella, let her know that it’s normal and GOOD to miss your birth mother, that it IS very sad, but not to overreact and spur on teary drama just for the sake of drama. I mean, anyone whose ever had a six year old knows that added drama is just plain old fun for them. But wow, that one really got me : (

Sadly, about all I could say, was, “We really don’t know. I’m not sure.” I don’t want my kids to be angry at their birth mothers, nor do I want to mislead them into creating unrealistic fantasies about their birth families either. And the honest, absolute truth is, we don’t know. Not entirely comforting to a six year old and a LOT to wrap her little head around. When she finally finished taking care of business in the bathroom, I told her that I THINK her mother loved her a lot because she was such a healthy, well cared for little baby, but that I had no idea what circumstances led her to believe that abandoning her precious baby was her only option. I went through the whole spiel about Frankie’s mother, too. He was right there with a big smile on his face (always his look when something serious happens) listening to everything and offering cheerful comments. We did come up with the concrete gem of info that their birth mothers were brown. Of that I’m certain!

I could see her train of thought turning to herself, little baby Ella, and what little baby Ella did to make her mother “get rid” of her, so I tried to nip that in the bud. We discussed our friends baby, and how was it his fault when he fell? His fault when bad things happened to him? Well no, of course not. So NO, it was NOT baby Ella or baby Frankie’s fault that they were abandoned. It was no one’s fault, really. That reassured Ella and the loving, forgiving little child said, “And it’s not my mothers fault either!” She’s going to get FAR in life with that mentality, I think. No blame, no bitterness. Love that kid.

As Christians, we know and believe that God is ultimately in control of everything. I could honestly tell the kids that while what happened to them was very sad, that God was and is in control. He is with their birth mothers, where ever they may be. This may seem like a pat answer to many, but to me, it’s not. It’s complicated far beyond me! It’s not something to easily dismiss yet it’s NOT something to feel guilty about. For me or my kids. We are all thankful to God for the family that we have today. We are sad for the birth mothers who do not have their babies and kids anymore, and we are sad for baby Ella and baby Frankie who were abandoned. BUT, we are thankful for what we have now. We know that God is in control. And God is good. All the time. Even when circumstances aren’t.

I finally had to put an END to the conversation when Ella started recounting tales of her mother and how, get this, she remembered what her purse looked like. Yeah right! You were three months old! But I AM glad that she’s starting to process this all at six years old, and feels comfortable and secure talking and grieving about it. I pray that Frank will be able to do the same and am glad that he has his sister to help!

As usual, our dogs played into the conversation too. None of them know where their mothers are and all but Bridger were abandoned too. But, look at Ranger. Does he look sad? No, because he’s moved on and he’s living in the moment (dog psychology). He’s happy for the Pack he has now. And no, we are not going to go tell the guard how much we miss our birth mother ;) We are going to be like Ranger for now. Finish your dinner. Then we are going on our Pack Walk.

Ella's Stories

2011-08-05T19:45:00.002+03:00

We had our friend, Tanya, staying with us for a couple of days en route from Canada to where she works. She is a literacy specialist person so knows all the best ways to get people reading and such. So, while I was at work she sat down with Ella who dictated some stories.

Lets just say that sometimes I am completely amazed by what my children say. They are intuitive and can show some genius type knowledge and qualities. And then other times I hear what is coming from their little heads and I’m like, “Um…. Maybe not so genius…the apples not falling far enough here.” Here are some stories that came out of Ella’s deep, genius little head and thoughts.

Story 1.

Liddy and Danny had a big plan.
So they went to the sheep place.
Liddy said, ‘This is the best sheep ever!’
Danny said, ‘Let me take it home and feed it some warm milk.’
Then Dan said, ‘I have an idea, too! I want to go pick up a dog! This dog is the most perfect dog ever! I like it. I’m going to go home and feed it dog food.’
The End

Um, okay, not bad. Nothing too odd there.

Story 2.

Tom and Jackson had a big fight.
They had a plan.
They were going to do something fun.
They went to meet their pets.
They loved it.
Then, one day, a guy with a rubber band came and said,
‘Hello. This is my friend and would you like to spend the night with me?’
‘Yes,’ he said. And then they became friends again.
The End

ACK!!! What’s this? A man with a rubber band? Who wants Tom and Jackson to spend the night with him? Whoa baby. Yes, we DID live by a bunch of promiscuous Russians but whoa boy, nothing like this!

So yeah, we do see the common theme of um, pets and animals, but what’s with the rubber band and spending the night with the guy who has it? Seriously, I don’t know!

Parvo SURVIVOR

2011-08-05T14:39:00.004+03:00

Little Bill came home yesterday!! Our little PARVO SURVIVOR!! Yes, rather than the corn cob that I had thought might have gotten stuck in his gut after he gulped it down, dear Billy had the puppy killing disease, Parvo. And the amazing thing, thanks to GREAT vetrenary care and being a particularly plucky little pup, Bill has survived! He came home yesterday and is the same old happy Bill, whose joyful energy we've really been missing!

Poor little fellow has lost so much weight that his entire body has shrunk - all but his feet and his ridge that is! He sort of had big feet before but now they look HUGE and his ridge looks really tall too! But we are SOO glad to have our little man back :)

The little lad was opened up to hunt around for a possible obstruction in his gut, so he's sporting some stiches on his tummy.

Skinny boy. But boy is he HUNGRY now! He's being fed a little bit of rice, plain yogurt and canned dog food every two hours so hopefully he'll be able to put a little bit of his wieght back

Before Parvo

A week or so later, after parvo. It ain't fun folks! And we are SOOOO glad our puppy is still alive!

Although thin, he's still his happy, playful little self who was glad to catch up on some play time with Bronco!

Madea was SOOOO glad to have her little brother back and cleaned him all over - especially inside his ears!

They licked and licked each other - Madea would have made an awesome mama!

So, we're praising the Lord that our little Bill is back with us again. We're also thanking Him for a good, affordable vet who gave Bill the absolute best of care. We're in for a much better week I suspect!

Rough week :(

2011-08-01T21:54:00.002+03:00

Wow, what a crappy last week we’ve had! Last Tuesday Bill swallowed a corn cob and by Wednesday he was skipping meals, Thursday he was off his feed completely and puking, and by Friday he was getting lethargic. Add to that a REALLY crappy situation at work AND our vet being out of town and you have, well…. Crap.

I took Bill to a different vet on Friday, where the vet looked at him, gave him a couple of shots, charged us a lot and sent us home, but thankfully our vet came back on Saturday and picked the wee Bill up. All this time I was playing nurse and syringing water down the poor dehydrated boy as well as trying a bit of yogurt. By the time our vet took him on Saturday he was thoroughly fed up with my “nursing” and was growling at me : ).

Now, if you know me or my family at all we are NOT vet people. We do as much treatment as we can ourselves, buy our vaccinations from the livestock supply store, and our pets seem to live forever. Heck, my parents have a BARN CAT who is 20 years old! So for me to be concerned enough to take my dog to the vet means that I was really convinced that it was beyond home health care. Not good :(

Bill was opened up on Sunday, after a night of close care and being on a drip to get hydrated, and the corn cob was nary to be found. He’s been diagnosed as simply having a viral infection, the poor babe, and his chances are about 50/50. You’d think that with five remaining dogs his absence wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but holy smokes is that wrong. We all really miss our little Billy! Even the other dogs do!

Digesting a corn cob and feeling sick :(

One of our last pictures of Bill, before he was admitted :(

Madea spent the night being his “nurse” and sleeping beside him. She came to wake me up once and I quickly checked to see if something was wrong with her patient. I mean, you read stories about that kind of stuff happening. Only nope, not with Madea- she just wanted up to sleep on my bed.

Sanyu taking refuge from my endless fussing over the patient

The little girl who couldn’t quit crying after her puppy was taken away , surrounded by her loving and caring Pack – who were taking full advantage of their chance to nap on the bed!

Last picture of a healthy, happy Bill :(

I found a bit of comfort in sticking Madea in a pillow case. Yes, I know that's strange.

Cat's have SUCH an ornery sense of humor. Bronco KNOWS that Ellie isn't exactly fond of him but look where he chooses to lay?

So, I try to be the calm and assertive Pack Leader. I really do. But I knew that my energy must really suck when I forgot to feed the kids breakfast (oops), my patient was growling at me, Bridger wouldn’t come inside, Sanyu spent her day in the bedroom on my bed and Madea was found sleeping in the bathroom (??? She’s blond, what can I say?). Ranger kept slurping up Bill’s hydration fluid so he felt great! And poor Ellie just kept wondering how in the heck she ended up in such a crazy Pack with a Leader who was giving off such weak energy.

We’re still praying that Bill pulls through and are keeping our fingers crossed. He’s not getting any worse (good) but he’s not getting any better either (bad). I simply can’t imagine how parents manage when their CHILDREN are in the hospital and are sick. I keep telling myself, “This is JUST A DOG – thank God it’s not one of the kids.” Can’t. Even. Imagine. So yeah, I feel a little stupid about getting so emotionally involved in a sick puppy when so many parents are watching their children die : ( Could be worse, Grace, could be SO much worse.

Ella and Ranger comparing heights. Ranger is slightly taller but he won't be for long!

I'm a tourist I guess

2011-07-26T20:50:00.005+03:00

My little L is starting to consciously differentiate between races these days. She's six now, so it's normal. We can differentiate between Ugandans, Indians and all white males with a beer are Russians. The kids are halfway scared of Russians yet on the other hand, their Grandpa looks like a Russian (as in, he's old, white, male and balding) and they love him, so the white male thing they're still a little confused on :)

We were taking our pack walk the other day and a van full of tourists went by.

Ella: "There's a bunch of people like you!"
Me: "Wow, those are a lot of tourists!"
Ella: "Oh. Are you a tourist?"

Ha ha! Might have to introduce the word "Caucasian" or the kids will get really confused when we're the tourists in Canada next year! We've still to find an appropriate word to describe a half Ugandan, half CAUCASIAN/Tourist person - so far all we've come up with is "like James" whose our little half and half friend :)

We've also started "judging" people by their accents, too, to figure out their nationality :) That's actually pretty fun! We focus more on nationality than race. And if we're stumped, all black people are Ugandans and all white people are tourists :)

What you'd call a person like this I'm really not sure! Flower Child perhaps?

Fashionable Footwear

2011-07-24T20:40:00.002+03:00

So, for anyone who doesn’t know us personally, this will probably give you a pretty good reason of why to be glad that you don’t.

For less than $4.50 total, our family was able to go to the market and purchase brand new plastic shoes. Yep, you read that right, plastic shoes. Remember all the hype about Cr*cs and how the non Cr*c wearers would bash the Cr*c wearers and self righteously expound on how utterly stupid plastic shoes made you look? I totally agreed with them – plastic shoes do make you look dumb and frumpy, and come on people – who would pay that kind of money for a plastic shoe? I sure never did – I went for the off brands : ) At the same time though, who cares HOW dumb they make you look, as long as they’re comfortable? And really, a plastic shoe can last FOREVER. Even when your dogs chew off the backs. You can get them wet, you can clean them easily, they float in water and are brightly colored so you don’t lose them in the Lake, they’re easy for even a two year old to get on or off by themselves… Plastic shoes were God’s gift to people. Especially Ugandan people and those of us who live amongst Ugandan people.

Now, before I paint for you a picture of all Ugandans tromping around in stupid looking brightly colored plastic shoes, let me make this clear – they don’t. The middle to upper class would probably die before they stuck their feet in such a stupid looking shoe. Instead they would rather walk MILES (seriously) in high heeled or stiletto (so not kidding!) shoes for the women, or shiny black REALLY pointy toed shoes for the men. And these shoes require POLISH – and lots of it! I doubt most of these people would even put their children in such tacky looking plastic shoes either. The rest of the population, and the Graces who don’t really fit in anywhere, we’re the ones who wear plastic shoes. And if the adults still can’t find it within themselves to wear them, they put them on their kids! Which is why these suckers are so cheap. I bought Frankie’s for $1.00 and Ella and mine for about $1.50. Brand new.

Ugandans are SMART. Not only did they figure out the wisdom and durability of a plastic shoe, but they started making different DESIGNS as well! So now a family like mine can all be wearing plastic shoes but not only in different colors but different designs! Seriously, talk about a different plastic shoe for all occasions. Jeesh!

Ella's style are the cutest, me thinks!

I just got done reading Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. Lets just say that the book was so well written that it even had ME convinced that I myself was truly born to run too, and in my bare feet! It had quite a lot of interesting information about the sports industry and most notably, the sports shoe industry, and about the human foot and how, quite simply, it was made to run, carry your weight, and not cause a lot of injury to the rest of your body while you were running on it. Duh, I mean, it’s on the bottom of your body and God did put it there. Sports shoe sellers however lead you to believe that you can’t run without an expensive sports shoe, which actually end up causing a ton of running related injuries. By actually running bare foot your body naturally figures out the best way to carry yourself when you run, to avoid pain. Which is why so many bare foot cultures who do a lot of running, don’t have running related injuries. Expensive shoes provide so much cushion and try to help the runner avoid pain, that the runner can then run however they want and end up throwing out their back, knees, tendons, you name it.

So anyways, after reading that, I was ready to confiscate my children’s shoes and make them walk with me bare foot on our daily evening Pack Walks. But instead I compromised by buying us all new, cheap plastic shoes. Now we should be all set to hike Mount Kilimanjaro!

Medical emergency week

2011-07-23T13:11:00.000+03:00

This last week was our “medical emergency” week. Well, not really, but for this household where anyone rarely ever gets hurt, it was. Kinda.

Tuesday the excitement began by getting a call at work from Sarah, saying that I should come home because Frankie had fallen off a tire and hurt his arm. It is highly unusual to get a call from Sarah in the first place (usually if I do get a call its with a questions like, “should I cook these beans?” or, “Where is Ella’s swimsuit?”) and highly unusual for Frankie to not stop crying when he’s been hurt. Yes, this is the child who could whine and cry all day if he wanted but when it comes to actual physical injuries, they don’t seem to faze him . So, I was concerned!

I rushed home to a red eyed Frankie who was needing some serious snuggling and “mom time”. I called my friend, who’s a nurse, to see if I should take him in or not and she had me do some “experiments” with his arms and neck, to see if maybe he’d broken a color bone or something. So I poked and prodded and had him do some crazy things with his arms and the end story was, he was sore but nothing appeared to be broken. Nothing a little pain reliever and sympathy from his old lady wouldn’t fix : ).

So, while all this was happening Ella was flitting in and out of the house. Soon I heard a nervous, “Mom?!” from the front porch and the hair on the back of my mom neck stood up. Now, usually I ignore my kids but I knew something was up. Poked my head out the door to find Ella standing in a puddle of blood. Serious! It was splattering everywhere and my very primal dog Pack was even waking up, their noses twitching! Ella had snuck inside, stolen a RAZOR BLADE from the bathroom and proceeded to slice the tip of her finger almost off, while trying to chop a leaf. I knew head wounds were supposed to bleed a lot, but fingers? Good grief!

That was a huge, bloody mess, which fortunately Sarah hadn’t left yet so quickly cleaned up before the dogs got a taste for Ella’s blood ;) I proceeded to wrap the kids finger in a wet washcloth to stop the bleeding and was amazed at the amount of blood that was pouring out of my child. Blood doesn’t bother me too badly, and I used it as an excellent “teaching” and “lecturing” moment. You see, we have had a this conversation before about razors. Hopefully now she will have learned her lesson?

The next evening, because apparently I hadn’t had enough medical drama that week, I decided to neuter the puppy, little Bill. He is growing FAST and the smaller the little balls are when you band them, the lest painful they are. Bill’s the third pup I’ve done this year and holy cow!! Never had we seen such a more dramatic pup! HE cried NON STOP for one very long hour, and was scooching around on his belly. We took our Pack Walk, which he did fine on, then when we got back home he crashed. Zonked. The rest of the Pack had their dinner and baby Bill never stirred. I brought him inside where he slept in a coma like state for two hours, then he was up and hungry again. The next morning he was up wrestling with Ranger and by Friday he was eating like a horse again : ) I’m glad that I didn’t wait until he was any bigger!

So, I’m thanking the Lord that Frankie’s injuries weren’t any worse and praying that hopefully Ella has learned her lesson about razors and OBEYING MOM when I tell her something. It’s only the Lord’s protection that keeps my kids as injury free as they are, as they’re pretty darned active. And I’m not the most safety conscience parent. I’m also glad that my entire Pack is spayed and neutered now : )

Pictures from the week

2011-07-23T12:39:00.005+03:00

Here's some random pictures from the last week or so. Mostly, um, of my dogs, although I did try to stick a few of the kids in there!

This was going on over our wall last weekend. They were boiling up big barrels of tar to lay on the road that's up from our house. Think chopping wood all night to keep the fires going, think barking dogs at all the commotion and worse of all, think SMELL! Smelled just like a traffic jam. Nauseating!

Filling the barrels up with tar to cook. Right on the otherside of our wall :)

Hmmm, a fire truck? That didn't exactly inspire my confidence until we saw that they were using it to pour water on the road.

This is Bill laughing at a good joke :)

Brothers sleeping. Bill is HUGE and eats almost three times as much as the other dogs!

The Pack Pups

Okay, NOT a great shot of Ranger, who looks like a clown, but a good shot of Bill's ridge!

Baby of the family :)

Tug-o-war with the Wubba. Strangly, at about 10 months old, Madea has actually started fetching toys when I throw them! Before neither pup had any interest in toys, which was a bummer since I find it therapeutic to throw toys to dogs ( I am a very, VERY simple person).

Our chums who live in Karamoja, brought us this Karamajong spear for our guards. Sort of fun to play with too, you know?

So, this picture sort of demonstrates what happens when you keep a woman cooped up in a walled compound in the company of only two children and a pack of dogs. She's harmless, for the most part, but yeah, there is a reason why she's not let out much! Plans are to get her a haircut and clothes that fit soon. And no, she didn't kill the puppy.

Little Billy Long Tongue :) I love getting pictures the dogs in various stages of a yawn!

Frankie hunts grasshoppers and dragonflies ALL THE TIME.

Sweet Ellie has learned to cross her legs like a H dog :)

Bill's famous show quality ridge. I really heart this ridge :)

The sleeping pack, which wouldn't be complete without Bronco snuggled up in the middle of them!

Pack Picnic with friends

2011-07-17T14:47:00.005+03:00

A couple Fridays ago I had the bright idea to have a picnic in the Gardens. So I called up my friend, Menda, and a picnic was on! I brought my Pack of six dogs, plus the two kids, and Menda brought seven of her eight kids, plus three adults and three more kids! Yep, you've got it - a PARTY! Or a circus, we weren't quite sure which... I know, what kind of idiot brings six dogs to a picnic where kids sitting on the ground with food are involved. Me :) Bill was a bit all over!

This was baby Bill's FIRST time at the beach!

Lots of dogs and lots of kids splashing around out there!

The adults tried to set up camp a safe distance away from the wet dogs and wet kids. Too bad hose wet things are mobile!

Running down the beach in your swimming cap with a stick and your dogs

Ellie is really fitting into our Pack well. She is such an easy, sweet dog. She doesn't actually drink from the water bottle though ;)

Little Bill played and played, hunted up all sorts of bones and crap, and then crashed. In a hole. With his butt up in the air!

While the children, pups and Bridger frolicked and hunted for bones, us "older" gals chilled by the mat. Sanyu because she didn't have a choice and Ellie...

...because she needed to sunbathe.

The kids swam in the Lake non stop for over an hour after our friends left. The benefit of them wearing swim caps is not only to keep their hair dry but it makes them easier to spot, as well!

The Life Guards

Nothing like bobbing amid the algae!

Dang I'm cold - hand me a cucumber please

On the road home after an afternoon swimming :)

I'm really ready to move to our new house but in the mean time, it sure is nice to live so close to the Lake and Gardens!

Bike Tricks

2011-07-15T22:03:00.007+03:00

The following are some bike "tricks" that I took pictures of several weeks ago and forgot to post!

They are so typical of the kids :) Ella has never been much with her motor skills. She's REALLY coordinated on the trampoline and such but coloring nevers been her strong point, writing took her a while to get a handle on and well, she's just not that tricky...

Then there's her little bro, Frankie. He colors like a champ, is starting to write legible letters at 3.5, and has just always had far better motor skills than his sis! These pictures sort of demonstrate the differences in the two kids... ;)

The bike is stationary now, but just wait... ;)

Maybe he'll be a trick rider (on a horse!) when he grows up? His mother has been known to do a bit of trick riding herself, in the past....

Big Sis doesn't want to be outdone!! But wait, is this really a trick?!!! Um, er, seems so...

A safer version of Frankie's stand-on-the-seat trick. This is a squat-on-the-seat trick :)

Oh dear!

2011-07-15T20:46:00.001+03:00

I was out on the front porch sewing a button onto Ella’s jeans one afternoon when I heard Frankie start his wailing in their bedroom. Not totally unusual, especially since he’d been whiny and easily brought to tears ever since I’d gotten home. I thought nothing of it and continued my sewing. Then I heard Ella walk out into the living room and smugly say to herself, “Well, he’s not going to bother me again.” Oh dear! A thug!! The extremely ironic thing was that this was the child who had gotten 100% on her Bible test just that morning!! HA!

Some thoughts on international adoption from Uganda

2011-07-15T20:31:00.003+03:00

I watch the adoption world swirling around me. It is great that the Western world, especially the U.S, has caught the vision of adoption. Adoption is a WONDERFUL and BEAUTIFUL and BIBLICAL thing and has blessed the lives of my entire family immensely. I only pray that this vision will wake up in the Ugandan church as well.

But I also see some disturbing trends. Like any good thing (money, sex, marriage, you name it) Satan can twist it into something that’s not so great. And I’m seeing that happening too. And it makes me want to run or hide my head in the sand.

I see how very, very good hearted Christians in the U.S have unintentionally begun to aid in the exploitation of Ugandans (not just the children by the way, but entire families) with their compassion and willingness to adopt any little Ugandan that “someone”, be it an orphanage director, social worker, lawyer, or adoption facilitator, puts before them as an adoptable child in need. Not only are the children being exploited but often times their families as well.

A lot of things like this happen simply because of ignorance. If you are planning on adopting from Uganda, please educate yourself first! Don’t take ANYTHING at face value. Really pick apart the files you are given and QUESTION and FOLLOW UP YOURSELF if you have to on your prospective child’s case. I am shocked and sickened at how with only just a few simple PHONE CALLS, Karen has been able to reunify previously “adoptable” children back with their LOVING families. The same is true for this couple of YOUNG girls working in Jinja. These folks aren’t professionals, nor are they old hands at living in the country – they are people just like you and me! And what a beautiful thing it is to see families reunited again! Really, could anything be better? When you encounter road blocks in the adoption process, don’t automatically assume they are “Satan’s attacks.” Maybe they are the Lord’s leading and working instead?

I will admit to guilt in this area. I too was a bit naïve and irresponsible in assuming that my children’s cases had been adequately investigated, and took the babies homes word for it that my kids relatives were non traceable. With one child in particular, now I wonder… After our adoptions are legally completed I will fearfully try to look into the one child’s case a bit more and perhaps trace their family if at all possible. I would just be SICK knowing that I put my child through the unnecessary trauma of international adoption if it wasn’t 100% needed, but on the other hand I would LOVE for my child to know more about their roots and where they came from.

Ugandans, educate yourselves! Think twice before you send off a child for international adoption. Do everything you can to keep that kid in Uganda, in a family here. Think past the “wealth” you will be sending this child to and instead think about life as the racial odd ball who has to relearn an entirely new culture and language and lose almost all of their ties with Uganda. Don’t try to make your American friends happy by providing them with a child until you have exhausted all other options for that kid.

I read somewhere where a blogger was so very touched to visit an orphanage and to see the children praying for “forever families in America.” Not only did my heart break, but I got physically nauseous as well. Situations like this make me want to RUN. Completely disassociate from international adoption. Do people really think that a home in the U.S would be better for Ugandan children than a home right here in their own country, where everyone else looks like them, sounds like them, smells like them, and shares a culture with them? Obviously these poor children were directly or indirectly being told that! Adoption is hard enough on kids without the added factor of language and culture change thrown at them! Add race and you’ve handed your kid a LOT to deal with. And really, isn’t life in Uganda just as intrinsically worthy and valuable as life in the United States?

My excitement over Americans adopting from Uganda is waning. I mean, who wouldn’t want to adopt a Ugandan child? I am turning my focus more on domestic adoption here in Uganda and on reunifying children with their families so that adoption is not necessary in the first place. Not to say that I’m throwing the baby out with the bath water – I do still believe that there is a place for international adoption in Uganda. Only the adoptive parent must take the responsibility themselves as to having it done ethically – don’t rely on the orphanage, the lawyer, the high court, the U.S embassy, the probation officer, a social worker, or anyone else to make sure that your child has a legitimate need for you to adopt them. I wish that I had.

So my thoughts on international adoption from Uganda? Do it CAREFULLY. Don’t let your emotions take a hold. Or all the “orphan hype” that is out there. Don’t take anything at face value. Question everyone that you deal with. Have the case reopened if you have to. Try to find out if everything really was done (and done thoroughly!) to try to trace the family. Was the proper follow up really done? If not, then maybe God has chosen YOU to be a part in reuniting this child with their family, even if it’s not yours like you had thought. What could be better for a child than that? If you’re adequately satisfied that EVERYTHING possible has been done to answer these questions yourself, then go for it! It's too easy to adopt a trafficked child.

The All Important Pack Walk

2011-07-10T20:26:00.005+03:00

So is it just me or does anyone else think it’s pretty cool when a 3.5 year old can control a lunging Rottweiler who wants to go after some monkeys? Or a 6 year old who can walk two dogs at once, one on each side, down busy roads, past people, chickens, loose barking dogs and goats? This evening each kid had a dog and we walked past a big group of “man boys” (upper teens/lower 20’s) who had a lunging dog on a leash (whose name just happened to be Cesar!!). Let me tell you, my two little Pack Leaders had more control of their dogs than the big group of happy man boys! Our dogs stayed under control and no fights ensued. Which was a good thing because ours would have whipped the other dogs butt… ;)

And that makes me very proud. Proud because my children are out walking their dogs every day. They are learning about not only exercising their dogs and keeping them healthy and happy, but doing the same for themselves. We walk for about 30 to 45 minutes everyday and let me tell you, we’re not dawdling, we’re marching! There is no whining or complaining and if we have to wait for somebody it’s not for long.

I’m proud because the kids are learning about taking responsibility for their animals/property. Obviously I love dogs. I don’t necessarily care if my kids ever love dogs but I do want them to learn to take the absolute best care of whatever they own and to be good stewards of what God has given them.

I’m proud because my kids are practicing being calm and assertive every single day while on our Pack Walk. They are not mean to the dogs, do not jerk on the choker chains or strangle the dogs into submission. But neither do they let the dogs drag them hither and yon, sniff and pee at will, or lunge at people. They’ve learned when to give correction and how to give it. Not bad when the dog you’re controlling is as big as you are and has you out legged!

It almost makes me tear up when I see little Frankie, who has suffered so long from Post Traumatic Stress and feelings of helpless worthlessness, marching confidently along with his little Rottweiler (dog of choice since she’s the slowest ;) or Sanyu or Bridger, past monkey’s and other dogs. You’re not helpless anymore if you can handle dogs who are as big as you are!

So, it is more than just about walking our dogs. Cesar M*llan is right – a Pack Walk is important! But he never mentioned that it was just as important for KIDS as it was for dogs!

There is so much to teach your kid from owning a dog. I don’t know how parents can raise their kids without one! Or, um, five or six…. ;)

And Pack Walks do puppies quite a bit of good too!

4th of July Festivities!

2011-07-08T16:44:00.004+03:00

Sadly for me, my favorite two holidays are the 4th of July and Thanksgiving – two distinctly American holidays and well, obviously not really widely celebrated in Uganda!

This year I decided to do something fun and totally different for us! Every year the American Recreation Association holds an annual 4th of July party with fireworks and such, held by the ARA and U.S Embassy. Now, um, that’s not really my crowd, believe it or not, and I don’t really have any chums in Kampala anymore so it’s not something that I’ve ever really been interested in – until now!

I heard that there would be children’s games and fireworks so even though I couldn’t find anyone to go with (Hmmmmm ;)) thought it would be fun to take the kids and let Frankie experience a little bit of 4th of July fun. He’s never been to the States so has nothing to compare it against : ). Also, I thought it would be fun to rub shoulders with some other Americans who weren’t missionaries!

Unfortunately it was visitation day at one of the high schools between here and Kampala so we found ourselves in a MAJOR nasty jam (like, I’ve never seen anything like it in my six years of traveling that road!) but I really wanted to go, the kids really wanted to go, and there was no power at home, so we soldiered on. An hour and forty five minutes later we arrived! Usually the drive only takes 30 to 45 minutes but I thought of all the people who have fought for our liberty and freedom and channeled that into fighting traffic so we succeeded – and I felt very patriotic in the meantime ;)

We arrived an hour late, and thereby missed out on the kids games, but we arrived just in time to see the Police STUFFING a guy into the back of their police truck, underneath the little seat in the middle. Oh boy did the kids have a lot of questions about that! Ella wanted to go and HELP the poor guy but I assured her that he was a bad guy so probably needed to go to jail. I love my little Ugandan – she asks, “Are the Po Po gonna beat him up?!” I didn’t lie to her – just said that I didn’t know!

Each kid did get a free glow stick, we spread our mat in front of the stage, and were entertained by acrobats (cool!), a karate demonstration (not bad), a children’s choir (yawn) and some stuff about American history (yeah!). I was entertained by the American crowd around me and their American sense of humor. Sometimes it is just nice to be surrounded by those from your own culture and there were plenty of mixed race families like ours to make us feel at home and blend in!

Frankie got to eat his first cotton candy and got his face painted. The food was lame – only ONE hotdog or hamburger each (and they were small!) and a soda. And we’d paid a fair bit to get in in the first place! But the fireworks were awesome and the kids REALLY enjoyed themselves, and I had fun, so it was worth it. We ended the experience by the kids peeing in some bushes since we couldn’t find the bathroom. Yes, there are more than financial reasons why Grace and family do not belong to the ARA…

Nah, we don't get out much, which is why the children looked like this almost the entire time!

Cool acrobats!

Three on top of the other

Jumping through the hoop! This was really cool!
The fun crowd

Frankie's first taste of cotton candy! Oh the joy of pure sugar!!

Happily sipping their soda's, after quickly polishing off their tiny hotdogs

A children's choir, full of smiling, dancing, Ugandan children who had just been on a tour to the States. They were raising money to bring awareness for the hardships of the African child. Or something like that.

We stood in line for like, EVER to get Frankie's face painted

We were happy with the results though - a pink (?!) and black tiger!

It was getting dark but this was the Cultural Troup that performed. They were really something...

... and Ella was clearly almost traumatized by this aspect of her Ugandan "roots!"

But then it was time for the FIREWORKS!!! Now I LOVE fireworks!!!

And apperently Frankie LOVES fireworks! His face just lit up!

This is the greatest picture ever! Apperently the fireworks were a bit LOUD for Ella :) And look up my nice clean nose!

Being as Madea didn't get to go (she hates being seen as the obvious "adopted child"), she got to share in the festivities by wearing a glow stick when we got home.

So, this is an event that I think we'll start attending annually when we're in Uganda!

New toys for ME!!!

2011-06-21T21:22:00.005+03:00

This week we've gotten THREE new things! And almost all of them were for ME!! Ha! This has been a really good week for me!

Sunday morning our friend, Ellie, showed up from Tanzania. We'd never met Ellie before but she is here to stay with us until her family moves to Uganda next January. She is a lovely six year old Rottweiler whose owners work in the same organization that I do. They have a little girl and boy Ella and Frankie's ages so I'm hoping that Ellie won't miss her kids as much, now that she has substitutes! Ellie is a calm, submissive dog who has done her best to blend into The Pack and our family. Phew! Her and the cat have an interesting relationship. Sometimes you'll see her chase him or sometimes he'll be chasing her with his tail all poofed out. Being as he thinks that he's a dog, he can totally hold his own :)

Okay, she's not exactly "for me" but I do enjoy dogs and she is nice and easy so I will enjoy her!

Our second big "me" thing was a mega sized American trampoline!! After jumping on our friends big trampoline at Easter i thought to myself, "Boy would it be fun to have a big trampoline that I could jump on, without worrying about hurting myself or squishing one of the kids." Frankie's been at the receiving end of my big old butt more than once and i would like to see him live through his childhood. But of course I can't (or wouldn't) get one shipped from the States so it was just something that I dreamed about. Until I heard about some missionaries who were moving and had their big trampoline to sell! And we got it!! We'll sell our old 8 footer, which is relatively knew and is in great condition, and I'm pretty sure that I can sell it for about $50 less than this new big one I bought. So I upgraded for only $50 and maybe the price of a few new springs!

And oh my goodness is it ever fun! I haven't jumped a lot for about 15 years (I jumped last summer at my parents but not that much!) and to be honest, I was never very tricky to begin with. Jump jump, sit, jump jump, sit... You get the idea. The hilarious thing is that my kids are AMAZED at my FEW, very simple tricks that I still know how to do. They seriously think I'm so cool! HAAAA!!!! And of course I get up there and act all bossy and like an expert and they buy it, hook, line and sinker! It's great family fun though and is much safer for Frankie, although I can still send him flying! But now at least I don't land on him as much. Ouch.

The third thing that I bought, since I saw it at the house of the folks who are moving and sold me the trampoline, is a bike! Yes, a bike of my very own! So now I can return the neighbors and will have my own bike to take my dogs on Pack Runs with!! Yeah! It's a nice bike with a really cushy seat, too. I didn't get a picture of it but I'm so happy to have my own bike!

Our new temporary Pack Member, Ellie

New Pack line up - missing baby Bill who is still too little to go on Pack Walks
Now I made a mistake here, faithful disciple of Cesar M*llan that I am. I thought it would be a good thing to take the Pack on a Pack Walk Sunday since walking together is such a primal thing, a good way to burn energy, etc. Well, I didn't stop to consider that Ellie would be WIPED OUT from her two day trip from Tanzania! I knew that she went walking and jogging (yes! Jogging! I can't imagine!) with her owner so figured she was in fine shape. Well, not so much!

We let her off leash and about 1/3 of the way through our walk I noticed that she was getting slower and slower. So I leashed her up again and gave her to Frankie (who LOVED a low energy dog that he could walk!) just so we wouldn't lose her!

Pretty soon though, plop. The old girl wasn't moving. Now, I could totally sympathize as Ellie is built totally like ME. Short legs (she's only as tall as little Madea!) and a VERY stocky body. An easy keeper is our friend Ella (and, um, ME!). I'd had a past experience like this with a flopping Rottweiler so after my initial panicked thoughts of either Ellie dying on her first day in Uganda and the pain and grief this would bring to her family (think two little kids like Ella and Frankie who LOVE their only dog!), or me having to lug her on my back all the way home and possibly dying myself, I remembered my past experience and just let her take a little break. After several of these she was good to go and made it home in fine shape! We're letting her rest couple more days until we take her out again :)

So yep, we are "those" kind of American missionaries now. I mean, Americans sort of have a bad stereotype sometimes with all their many, BIG, over-the-top fun things and well, we're living up to it now! Just get a load of our yard :)

Jumping with Frank. I noticed later, in trying to pick pictures to post, that my mouth was open in almost all of them! I think I was either GASPING for breath or yelling. And my kids thought this was cool? Yeah, go figure.

Showing off my famous "touch your toes" trick. Franks like, "Wow! Mom's really breathing hard! And boy, I never knew she could do such outstanding tricks like touching her toes!"

Ho ho! The sit down trick! Oh yeah!

Woohoo! And this is simply the "over the top!" trick! Look at me go!!! You don't HAVE to breath to be able to jump high!! And look at all that room between my big flying butt and innocent, vulnerable little Frankie! Safety first man! Glad we have a bigger tramp! This boy just might live to see his fourth birthday!
And here I thought it would be hard for them to get on the trampoline. As you can see, Ella simply bounces up - not a problem.
The wee Frank has perfected the method of using one of his LONG big toes to help clamber up, much like a monkey.
Mind you it did take him a while to perfect his technique and he did have a few "How did I get like this?" moments. Never one to needlessly pamper my youngsters, I stood around helping him figure it out and offering lots of advice and suggestions:) I ain't raisin no wimp!
Thankfully jumping off is way easier. And no, he didn't land on the dog!
They are SO happy to have a new trampoline! This is a great picture of a "natural Frankie" who was laughing because his sister had just let a LOUD and STINKY fart :) She's looking pretty pleased with herself, too.

More pictures of dogs, kids and beautiful weather

2011-06-18T20:02:00.005+03:00

We went to the Gardens yesterday evening - what a beautiful day! It has really been a huge blessing to live so close to the Gardens.

The Pack

Ella kept charge of Madea the whole time! We kept the pups on leashes for a while just so that they could exercise their minds. The only thing is, I'm not sure that they really have minds in the first place!

We had to stop half way for a Pack Snack, carried for us by Sanyu

So what does a Pack Snack consist of? Little candy dog bones of course! The dogs had treats too!

Thank you Sanyu, for carrying our water and snacks!

I love Rangers face in this one - he was yawning

Kids and dogs having fun - beautiful! Makes me want to be a kid again :)

Sanyu, Ranger and I didn't run. Me and Sanyu aren't the running types :)

Whew!

We ended our Garden Pack Walk playing a bit on the beach

Madea trying on Sanyu's packs before a Pack Walk

Get a load of this face! She didn't like them... :)

Ella learned how to make scrambled eggs this weekend. There was raw egg everywhere! Luckily she has her faithful K9 to offer clean up services. Yes, we have a damn small kitchen - but get a load of the nice spice rack that me and Frankie built!

Dear little homemaking Ella even washed the pan afterwards, under the careful scrutiny of over half the Pack. Maybe that's why the kitchen seems so small... ;)

The Pups have welcomed Baby Bill with open arms - or jaws!

Why I don't like the kids to eat gum. I thought these days of gum stuck to the dogs was over! Unfortunately gum seems to be an intregal part of Ella's education at the moment. If she doesn't fart around and does a good job she gets some Easter gum. Many times it's all that keeps her going!

Extensions are out! Waiting for the next due.

Sleeping baby :) He's not big enough to go on Pack Walks yet!

1st Grade continues, + some other stuff

2011-06-17T22:48:00.009+03:00

Life in first grade is going well. I'm beginning to like the Lifepacs more now that we're through the first workbooks. Ella is not much for review and gets bored easily. When she's bored she really starts fooling around so the first workbooks were a bit exasperating for me. I figured out that you DON'T need to do all of the teachers activities that are in the teachers book and that teaching ONE child, fresh out of kindergarten, is much different than teaching a class of little youngsters (like the teachers books are geared for).

I'm liking the worksheets that they provide and the SIMPLE crafts/worksheets that you can copy. I am NOT crafty AT ALL so this really helps! And Ella really likes to cut and paste things, so it makes her happy too.

Ella with her little Joseph's. I colored the one on the right and L did the one on the left.

You can't see it too well, but L is wearing a hat that I helped her put together. SERIOUSLY crafty for me! The point was to somehow drive home the point that God made her special... Yeah, whatever - through making a hat?

One of the perks of doing your work without farting around - you get to hold the puppy :)

Web caming with their Granny - I think she was reading them a book :)

Awwww, seriously, what could be cuter?

Maybe this? He's growing!

And, since I don't want to leave Frankie out...

The Hunter, stalking a grasshopper. This activity can occupy him for HOURS.

He catches them and then, um, talks to them. Really long conversations until he accidentally squeezes a bit too hard and the guts come out. Then it's off to find another little "friend." Here he is waving to the helpless little grasshopper.

Life (and our trampoline) is a battle field

2011-06-14T20:51:00.009+03:00

I was enjoying an evening off from 1st Grade, reading a WORLD magazine out by the trampoline, sort of trying to ignore this. But I gave up after a while and just got my camera out, in hopes of getting some pics for Granny.

Little did I know the fun that could be had with bouncy ball on a trampoline. Or that a bouncy ball could double as a weapon! And that beating your sibling, or being beat yourself, with a bouncy ball could be so darned fun.

Surprisingly no child was injured during the course of these pictures. Then I decided to humor the children a bit and jump with them, did a "bottom" (yeah, what was I thinking with a butt as big as mine?!), sent Frankie flying, he landed wrong and hurt his leg. Figures! An ice pack, movie and a sucker, and an hour later and he was fine. Yep, I'm definitely up for Mother of the Year award for sure!

BAM! Perfect aim!

It's so funny to be choked!

Get her while she's down! Show no mercy, little bro!

Cuz she sure isn't going to show any mercy to you!

Ranger made the mistake of jumping onto the trampoline. Yeah, what was he thinking?! It was rather like watching a baby monkey fall into a pen of hungry lions...

He didn't actually HIT Ranger - probably because I was sitting right there but he sure did sound scary! ;)

Good use of your feet, Ranger! And your nice long legs! Right in the gut!

Survivor. Saved by those long legs.

I know, what kind of a mother sits out watching her children beat the crap out of each other and the dog with a bouncy ball? Me.

Faithful God

2011-06-14T19:42:00.002+03:00

Four years ago I was almost kicked out of the mission organization that I work with. Why you may ask? Because I told the director that I felt the Lord was leading me to adopt a little girl, who was two years old at the time. That started what would be two of the hardest, most spiritually stretching and growing (funny how those two go hand in hand!) years of my LIFE. God clearly said to OBEY Him, whether I fully trusted Him to work things out or not. Just OBEY. He’d been faithful in the past so He would be faithful to work this all out for our (Ella and my) good and to His glory. Just OBEY Him. Hmmm, okay…

Now four years ago I was a different person. I didn’t like to rock the boat. I somewhat wanted to fit into the common “missionary mold”. Go with the flow. Be “normal”. Have the approval of the leaders in the organization. But God had a different plan. He knew that this is not what He’d called me to. He also knew that He had MORE for me – a LOT more! More than I EVER could imagine (just like the Bible says, wouldn’t you know!).

So He took me on a journey. A journey that involved being told that if I wanted to adopt a child that I would have to leave the mission organization. Being told that having a child and doing the work I do in bible translation would not be possible. It would be incompatible. A child would ruin my opportunity for work and ministry in the area of Bible Translation. My child and I would be a “liability” to the bible translation, literacy and scripture use work going on here in Uganda and Tanzania. There were more personal attacks but the bottom line was, adopting a child and continuing on with my ministry in Bible translation was impossible and a detriment to the entire organization. It would never work.

Fast forward four years. I am responsible for and manage the translation department for six translation projects in Uganda. In one year I will be the expat “missionary” whose worked here the longest. The other missionaries, including the director who was so opposed to Ella’s adoption, have all moved on. Those who I work with now are more objective. Not only do I have one child, but I have two. We own our own land and are building a house. My children not only bless me but they bless others. My relationships with Ugandan colleagues have been enhanced because of my children (funny how kids have a way of doing that!). The Lord continues to faithfully and generously provide for our material and financial needs through our amazing supporters.

I have been struggling with some major burn out lately. I am tired of my work. I am tired of working with other missionaries. I am tired of working with our organization. I feel like missionaries, myself included, are all a farce. I complain a lot. I have not been content. I have been frustrated with the slow construction of our house. I have been questioning God as to why He gave us the land and house in the first place. Does this mean that I have to stay here?

And yet all I have to do is stop and see the journey God has brought me through in the last four years and I know. I know that this is exactly where He wants me. I am doing exactly what He wants me to be doing. True, I will not be nominated the member of the year in our organization. I do not work 40 hours a week (or 40+ hours a week, which is the norm among single missionaries). I still rock the boat (and don’t mind doing it anymore!). Our family is unconventional and makes a few people uncomfortable. We will never “fit in.” But one look at the way our life is now and how the kids fit into and enhance my life AND ministry perfectly, and I am SO THANKFUL. Thankful that God keeps His promises. Thankful that I chose to obey Him even though I didn’t really want to go through all of that. Thankful for my family who have stood behind and supported me the entire way. Thankful for friends who have stood behind us and embraced our family for who we are – five dogs and all :). THANKFUL FOR MY DAUGHTER AND SON. And most of all, thankful for a God who is true to His promises, who wants good things for us, and who provides all that we need.

Dejavu

2011-06-01T21:35:00.005+03:00

So lets see - it's happened again -for the fifth time! A wee little puppy was abandoned not far from our compound and toddled his way to our gate. Yes, I'm a sucker, and as far as I know that very well could be stamped onto my forehead. But I can not STAND the idea of a puppy out by himself starving to death and well, animal lover or not, I was raised that you do what you can to help others, even if it is just an animal. Oh, and the fact that I'm a HUGE SUCKER for dogs plays a part too. To be fair, it runs in the family, so it's a genetic thing. Not my fault. I am a victim of a disease ;)

Yes, I needed another dog like an alcoholic needs just one more drink, but the thing about this puppy is that he has a RIDGE on his back. Yes, a ridge! I have wanted a dog with a ridge on it's back since FOREVER and have lived in Africa, home to the Rhodesian Ridgeback, for over six years now and all four of my dogs have smooth backs (they're more like a Basenji - of which I never had a desire to own!). I've enviously eyed the scruffy mutts with ridges on their backs wandering around, but have never had a pooch like that of my own. So you can see why the temptation to keep this little dude is pretty strong!

Checkin' him out. Isn't he cute? Looks like a little baby Bridger! Except with that all important RIDGE on his back!

Thorough inspection by everyone

"I don't care how cute you are - I'm NOT nursing you!"

And THIS kid was beside herself with joy. I mean, she's usually pretty enthusiastic about everything but it's like she's never had a dog before or something. I got SO many joyous hugs as she was just THRILLED to have found a puppy!

Even in our excitement we didn't forget our dog psychology. Part of our program was seeing that little Will/Bill ate with the rest of the pack.

Sorry boy, no one to nurse you here. Ella wondered if any of our girl dogs had milk for him :)

Like all the other six puppies that we've found, this little guy was covered in fleas. Not as bad as the other pups we've found (I have NEVER seen anything like Ranger and Madea's infestation when we found them) but bad just the same. Our puppy finding ritual is to immediately bathe them in flea dip and powder them, which we did with this little pup too.

Hims was exhausted after his bath :)

We all just really like to hang around and watch him :) Note that Frank is our "watcher" and Ella is our "grabber." They compliment each other well. What if Frank was another "grabber?!"

So, we'll see what happens and if we keep him or not. I always hope to find a good home for them but once they're named I can't seem to let them go. Hence Madea. And this pup's already named. For VERY personal reasons I wanted to name him Bill or Will. So right there is one strike against me. Not to mention the ridge on his back. And, this is terrible and REALLY immature, but I keep thinking, "What if I give him away to our friends and he turns out bigger and prettier than my other dogs?" Yeah, I know, lame, but that's how it is...

One interesting thing about Will/Bill is that he has dewclaws on his back feet! None of my other little dogs have dewclaws. I think he might be a big cross and I LOVE big dogs! Ranger is taller than Bridger now but still isn't going to be a big dog. Maybe this little guy will be?