Lake Fun With Our Friends

Living right next to the Botanical Gardens and Lake Victoria is awesome. Last Monday Melinda (my neighbor and mom to four little girls) and I took our girls (and Bridger) down to the Lake and had some fun. We were later joined by another friend and her little girl.

A highlight of this venture was seeing a big Monitor Lizard swimming around in the Lake. While the Ugandans were shouting warnings from up the hill, Melinda and I were drawn to it like magnets with our little girls trailing along behind us… :) It swam out too far for me to get a good picture of it though. I never knew that they were such strong swimmers!

Melinda and crew looking over the Lake

Ella and Janet “cooking” something, while Abby looks on

Melinda’s girls hard at work taming a log

Bridger fetching trash while Sanyu looks on

Sanyu wading (She actually has webbed feet but does she use them to swim? No!)

Janet and Ella giving Bridger “a bath”, while Abby looks on

Ella finishing up the job. Isn’t this a great dog? He just stood there collarless enjoying it!

Baby Hannah passed out under a tree

Waking up smiling, as usual. This child makes having a baby look easy and fun! Easy baby and a laid back mom (she is the fourth child after all!)

Buddies, Janet and Ella. Janet is probably one of Ella’s best friends. They are seriously just too cute together and love each other to death! Janet just turned 6 years old on the 2^nd. We are so blessed to have such great friends and neighbors!

This was a week of many firsts for ol’ Ella. I wouldn’t be surprised if she really turned four years old this month instead of in Feb. She has learned how to concentrate on difficult tasks and stick to them, rather then getting frustrated and cry. She successfully dressed her baby doll all by herself in shorts, a jacket, little dress, bib and hat – something that she couldn’t do before. She also learned how to pedal her bike down hill. Now, we have had the little trike since September I think, but she never learned how to pedal. She would only play with it when other kids or gullible adults were around to push her on it. Now she can get it started and pedal it down hill herself!! And she really loves it.

Ella also successfully washed a bunch of greasy dishes and did an outstanding job without a lot of coaching. Way to go L!!! She’s probably going to do a better job at this age then she will in ten years when she’s 14… ;)