Granny goes to the zoo!

Hard as it is to believe, Granny has been here over a month and we just took her to the zoo this week! While Granny dearly loves her grandchildren, I sort of forgot how tedious it can be to be stuck with my two little preschoolers in a compound all day. I mean, I get out and leave and interact with other adults and stuff, but poor old Granny has been stuck with the grandkids pretty much 24/7. Which can get old, even with my perfect little darlin's ;)

Monday Granny and I went to an impromptu birthday party for a friend of mine, leaving the children asleep in their beds at nap time, under the care of Sarah. We actually went to a fancy restaurant, ate different food and chatted for several hours with other ADULT WOMEN, totally child free! Yes, it was a good feeling and we both greatly enjoyed it. Due to my charming and naturally warm and friendly nature (ha!), I rarely get out and mingle with other expat women. But we did on Monday and both mom and I had fun! This kicked off a string of "get out of the compound" activities and the following day we headed for the zoo. And as always, we had a BLAST!!! I love love love doing things with my mom!

We could hardly believe at how much "our" baby camel had grown! And she is SO friendly now and is simply precious and adorable!

Totally adorable! She likes to be pet and scratched and has the softest, curliest hair!

Taking a cat nap. The fat one on the bottom woke up long enough to bite the boy's tail and wake him up for us :)

What a crew! Love it!

Guess what? A new "baby" otter! So cute!

You know you go to the zoo a lot when you start recognizing the baby monitor lizards. We've seen this little fella here by the croc pens before. My is he growing!

This old dude looked really scrubbed clean for some reason

The Eland - my favorite antelopey things

Ostriches are the funniest, ugliest looking things!

Then we crashed a prayer meeting with the warthogs. Whoops!

This gal said she'd pray for us :)

Granny was even able to watch in proud amazement and wonder as her grandchildren exhibited their sensational camel and donkey riding skills. She got some good pictures but unfortunately, I can't get her pictures off of her camera :( She was particularly amazed at Frankie's firm seat and ram rod straight back aboard his donkey, and Ella's ease and nonchalance concerning hers. It was confirmed that Frankie is indeed a little Gracie, the way he loves riding the donkeys and takes it so seriously. She was also impressed with Frankie's enthusiasm and bravery in riding the big, noisy camels. Little two year old Gracie never rode camels, poor deprived little thing... :(

A picnic in the park :)

Wednesday I wasn't feeling so well so took the day off of work and we all headed to the Botanical Gardens for a picnic! We had a beautiful, relaxing afternoon enjoying each other, our dogs, the Lake and the beach. We ate our lunch in the middle of the gardens, then wandered over to the Lake and got the prime spot on the beach. I'd brought the kids swimsuits so the little munchkins swam and played in the sand while Gran and I layed on our mat, watching the kids and chatting, and my camera battery crapped out (thereby no pictures of the swimming/beach). A great afternoon!

The kids, munching their P & J sandwiches

Granny, eating her Ham and Cheese (yes, you read that right - HAM AND CHEESE!!!) sandwich, while attached to Sanyu. The shock collar we got for Sanyu isn't strong enough (these little red African dogs are tough!) so she is still under "leash arrest" whenever we go out, so that she won't attack anyone.

The gang, eating thier lunch. I've said it before but I'll say it again - we are SO BLESSED to live so close to the Botanical Gardens!! NO WHERE in Kampala or Entebbe can you find a place like this - quiet, clean, and without swarms of people.

Our man, Mr. Cool Dog

A shot of some of the picnicers, from laying on my back on the mat (recovering from my sickness you know!). That was before an ant climbed up my britches and bit me on the butt. OUCH!!!
The kids, dogs and Granny got a good show and nice view of my undies when my pants were down and I was hunting for that ant! I'm all about leaving sweet memories for my children... Memories that will LAST!!! Mom in her underwear in the Gardens should be one of them ;)

Dear Mr. Franklin went shopping for our picnic with me that morning and you know it's a bad sign when your two year old is yawning loudly at 10am in the store! The dear little lad sucked it up though and managed to make it with a good attitude and no melt downs ALL DAY without a nap! Way to go Fwankie! Frankie meltdowns in the middle of a merry picnic are not fun and the dear boy spared us one!

This was over by the beach where the kids swam. Bridger loved climbing up this cliff and looking down at us.

Mr. Cool Dude Dog again. He is not under leash arrest because he generally doesn't bite people, like Sanyu does. He had one lapse of judgement and went after a school girl near the end of our picnic/swim day and was leashed after that. But he was pretty tired by then and didn't mind so much.

Sadly my camera battery pooped out before I could get pictures of the swimmers/beach bums so I didn't get any pictures of that. The kids swam and played for about an hour and a half before it started to thunder and get cloudly. We headed home and shortly after getting back, it started to rain! So we all hunkered down and watched Mary Poppins. Granny and I slept through a large portion of it so we got our naps in! Amazingly, even without naps there were NO meltdowns before bedtime!!!

Nine Months!

Today the wee Frankie has been home nine months! Amazing! He has been with us now just as long as the time he spent in Nsambya Babies Home. What a changed boy he is now - self confident, friendly, funny, is completely monolingual in English, talks SO well, and his personality has really exploded!

The kids were in their room playing yesterday and I heard Frank's little voice say, "You're making me so mad, Ella. You're not sharing!" I couldn't help but smile and think back to nine months ago when he couldn't speak English and either screamed when he played with his sister or totally disassociated. Thank you Lord for helping us all hang in there through some really crappy, difficult months!

Ella's love, acceptance and devotion to her brother (even when he was at his worst) is truly convicting and challenging. Sadly, she has loved her little bro far more unconditionally than I have through these difficult times and I'm the "mature" parent! Adoption, especially with an "older" child, is truly about commitment and perseverance - those overwhelming feelings of love don't always come immediately and can take time (usually while the kid is fast asleep in their bed :). In some ways, it's much like marriage and can be hard. God does reward our commitment however, and I can truly say that I love my son now. In fact, I love him more and more everyday...

"Will they continue to make me wear pink in my new home?"

Every time we would go see Frank (several times a week) we would find him in pink! He is a rather pretty little boy to begin with and in pink, well, he looked just like a pretty little girl!

NO MORE PINK!!!

Then

Now

Then

Now - the way it should be!

Our "summer" goes on

We've been having a great time with Granny this "summer". We came home a day early from Mbarara last week and I took a three day weekend. This enabled us to switch our rooms last Friday (the kids are in the big room now and I'm in the small one) and I've gotten a LOT of my junk (and theirs) organized and cleaned out. Having Granny here inspires me to do so much! Last time she was here in 2008 we switched houses and I got some new, decent furniture :).

We've been having some fun too. It was hot last week but this week decided to get rainy and cold. We've needed the rain so it hasn't been to bad, but it does put a bit of a crimp on our outside activities!

Ella is wrapping up a week of VBS, which she's enjoyed. It was a small one and she was the youngest but did well and has enjoyed it. She attended VBS last year in Montana so this is her second :).

It was very hot last week and while I bathed the dogs, the kids had some water/trampoline fun. Since our water pressure is crap and can't support a hose, we just get buckets of water and throw on the kids.

Granny was a kick! She saw me throw water on the kids ONCE and thought that was just too fun! So while she was throwing the water I'd be hauling another bucket :) I bathed my dogs after Granny splashed Bridger! I could hardly believe that she'd do such a thing! You can tell she was getting overstimulated :)

Sploosh! (Granny didn't want me to post any pictures of her, but here's her hand!)

We were also able to get some bricks put around our sand pit, so that the sand doesn't wash away into the yard. We did it just in time too, as we've had some really hard rains this week!

Our neighbors, James and Hannah, tried it out and it worked well :) I love the way babies play - they sit right beside each other playing with thier toys and don't really interact at all!

Tis a hard life indeed that these poor dogs lead. Sanyu hates this picture of her double chin!

Miss Dave and the toy bunny that looks like her. Ella thought that they needed to be together :)

After we got back from Mbarara (we were only gone one night!) Ms Dave was SO AFFECTIONATE. It was a hoot! She was climbing all over Granny while poor old Gran was sitting on the couch, and was trying to lick her face and neck! Ms Dave is the funniest little rabbit I've ever known!

The kids lives were forever changed after watching "The God's Must Be Crazy". Here is Frank doing his Kalahari bushman immitation with a hankie.

Nice cheeks, Frank!

Last night at about 7:30pm we had a knock on our door and a little voice calling "Ella! Ella! Come!" - It was our 22 month old neighbor, James, calling for his friend! That cracked us all up - except for Ella who was naked in the tub vigorously scrubbing herself and could have cared less :).

Farewell to a great little cat, Cody

Saturday was a sad day upon the death of our little cat, Cody. I’m not a cat person but wow, Cody was quite the cat. I already miss him. He was a GOOD cat and will be hard, if not impossible, to replace. He was an underrated little cat and compared to the kids, dogs, Ms Dave and even the hedgehog, I barely even have any pictures of him!

What Cody liked to do best as sleep! Anywhere, even on my rocking chair!

From the time he was a kitten he would sleep with his tongue out like this!

We think he must have eaten something poisonous on Friday afternoon, as he began to vomit and was sick. Saturday morning we found him laying dead out in the yard so we were able to bury him. I am VERY grateful for that as dying cats mostly head for the hills and you never really know what happened to them.

It was also nice for the kids that we had his body. Because of their pasts my children are VERY mature in the area of death and saying goodbyes. When I was five years old I would have FREAKED at my cat dying but Ella was very calm and understanding about it, after she made good and sure that she couldn’t wake him up ;). They both petted him, Ella talked to him, thanked Jesus for him, told him goodbye, etc. She did, out of the blue, while we were standing around his little grave, start talking about her family and how she was so glad that she’d found one and wasn’t in the babies home anymore (odd I thought). I think it stirred up some feelings from the past for her, which she dealt with well. Frankie just petted Cody but was processing EVERYTHING in his quiet Frankie way, and has been talking about his cat being in heaven with Jesus ever since : -) (Since I don’t know for sure that animals do NOT go to heaven, I just assume that all of my animals do). He also started talking about Kayo, whom NONE of us have gotten over- and it’s been five months!

We buried Cody out by our swing set. This pile of flowers started looking a bit like a shrine! All we needed was a picture of him to stick on it : -)

We planted an elephant ear plant on top of his grave, that will hopefully grow

The kids are handling it far better than I am. I never knew that I liked and appreciated little Cody so much! Now I have been through a LOT of animals in my life time so I thought that I would be a bit more hardened, but losing Cody has brought up just about every animal death in my history and by golly, I’m grieving for them all!

I had had Cody for four years – longer than both of my children- having gotten him a year after I moved to Uganda. Because I was staying in a one room place at the time, with a cat hungry Lab on the prowl outside, I used to take Cody to work with me when he was a kitten. I’d stick him in my computer backpack and off we’d go on my little boda/motorcycle : -). He lived at the office for a while, while I was in Sudan and in between moves, so he was familiar to all. My mom even helped me neuter him during her first visit here in 2006 (sweet memories, eh? Nothing like a little mother-daughter bonding!).

He did not have the bad habits that most cats have (spraying and being annoying, mainly) and was really a low maintenance, fairly loyal kitty – very unusual for a cat! Everyone on the compound liked him and he liked to curl up and sleep on our beds during the day. There is just something like a sleeping cat body on a bed or chair that I’ve always found comforting. When Frankie came home the dogs were a bit too much for him and he really liked small, gentle Cody. I never remember Cody EVER biting or scratching either of the kids. He also helped keep the snakes out of our compound and was a good little hunter. I already really miss that darn little cat!

Westward Ho!!

Last Wednesday the kids, Granny and I, hit the trail and headed west to Mbarara!

My mom sponsors several children through Compassion International, one of whom lives in Kisoro, along the western boarder of Uganda. Since I wasn’t exactly up to driving my small car quite that far (I wasn’t sure what conditions the roads would be in), we agreed to meet Rosemary about half way, in Mbarara.

It took us about 7 hours to get to Mbarara on Wednesday, but that included our stop at “The Equator”. When you live the lifestyle we do, you take any chance you can get to play tourist and get some tourist pictures! The Equator consists of this thing and a line of souvenir shops along the road (of which Ella wanted to check out each and every one!).






We spent Wednesday night at a nice hotel in Mbarara (boy are the prices better in the west than in the eastern part of the country!), met with Rosemary and her Compassion worker on Thursday morning, then left for home at noon and made it home in only 5 ½ hours!


I had never quite seen anything like this posted in a hotel before. “2. Bed-wetting or acts leading to the same should be avoided.” Luckily they didn’t bust Frankie or Ella at dinner when they shared a Pepsi! (normally I don’t give my children pop at night but we were all really dehydrated!)

The wee ones were tuckered and thankfully, didn’t wet the bed!

Ella is quite enthusiastic about traveling and staying in hotels. She reminds me SO much of my sister Becky when we were young! Not only did she just LOVE the hotel, but she gasped at the view and raved at how beautiful it was. I eagerly looked out the window and cracked up because...

....this was the “beautiful view!” Ha ha!!

We had a lovely visit with Rosemary and Peace. It was so fun to sit back and watch the delight on Rosemary’s face as she talked to my mom and looked at the pictures and small bag of doo dads that Mom had brought for her. I am so, so impressed with the work of Compassion International and trust me, I am a HARD, cynical person to impress.

Mom had brought Rosemary a Uno game which we played and it was a GREAT way to spend some time together getting to know each other.

Mom and Rosemary. She is a LOVELY 17 year old girl who is a hard worker and is at the top of her class of 92!

A large part of the success of Compassion is the quality of their field staff – people like Peace here, who has been with this project for 9 years. It’s so encouraging to see a Christian organization that cares for the holistic needs of those in poverty. I think that it is SO important to help support families in poverty stay TOGETHER and children out of orphanages or abandoned on the streets.


I had been in western Uganda only twice before – once in 2005 for work (it was a fun trip and we covered a lot of the western country!) and once in 2008 when my parents were here before. So it had been a while. After this trip I have come to the conclusion that western Uganda is my favorite part of Uganda because it reminds me the most of “home” in Montana!

We passed a LOT of cattle and matooke trucks headed with full loads to Kampala, and you could see why! They have big fenced fields for their cattle (as opposed to here where they either tie them up here and there or wander around after their herds) and huge fields of matooke “plantations” that they use TRACTORS to cultivate. None of this manual labor stuff! The terrain was much flatter and drier and more like southern Montana and northern Wyoming (although still not half as dry as they still don’t have to irrigate here). It is also less heavily populated than in central and eastern Uganda. I really liked it!

Western Uganda reminded me bit of the “old West” with it’s little sparsely populated towns with tall fronts. Of course many of them were bright pink thanks to the Zain, the mobile service provider : )

Just like in the States – a little “farm house” and out buildings surrounded by dry land. I imagined myself galloping through the brush (on a horse OR a camel!) rounding up my cows the entire way home...



Add a couple of hitching posts, change these boda’s to horses and put a few people in cowboy hats and this could be a scene from the old west! Kind of.... ;)

Drums

Chickens