The Fey Family

I love my boy. He is getting so big and is learning so many new things. He loves being on the computer and is able to get around on the Internet just enough to play PBS kids, Lego Star Wars and watch videos on YouTube. The last one is his favorite thing to do on-line. Tyson is a really good reader, but sometimes he mixes the letters up a bit, especially with unfamiliar words. This morning he wanted me to find the words to a song he liked listening to on YouTube and he told me the three steps I needed to follow to make this happen. First: Click on MO-liza FireFox (also known as Mozilla) Second: Go to Swa-bucks (aka Swagbucks, our current search engine) Third: Type "Dynamite" ly-cris (or lyrics as they are more commonly known) He knew all the steps I had to take, but was just mixes up or leaving out a few letters. Yes, I did make him tell me what I had to do 3 times just so I could listen to his mispronunciations. I did not correct him and probably won't because it ...

Over Spring Break, we managed to take family pictures of all 18 of us. Not an easy task, but thankfully Mindy was up for the challenge! If you want to check out some of the pictures that were taken, just head over here . These are just a few of the pictures that Mindy took, but I didn't want to share them all as I am not sure what my mother-in-law or sisters-in-law have planned for the rest of the pictures and they might want some of them to be kept secret! Enjoy.

We first heard about this opportunity about a year ago. Less than a month later, we decided to take a leap of faith and head to South Africa. Since that time, I feel like life has become one long good-bye. For example, my mom came last October, which you can read about here , here , and here and when we had to say good-bye to her at that time, I was already thinking about BIG goodbye that would be coming up in the near future. Then we spent Christmas with my family in Washington and had to say good-bye again. I knew I'd be seeing my mom again soon, so it wasn't as hard to leave her, but I cried plenty saying good-bye to my dad at the airport .Then in February, my mom came to stay with us. She arrived the same day we moved into our apartment, so I was already feeling a bit emotional, which made our final good-bye on US soil even more difficult. Since then, I talk to my mom a few times a week (or maybe even a few times a day) and think about how easy it is right now to pick up ...

Yes, today's post has the same title as yesterdays post, only the dates are different. I have read and reread what I wrote last summer and am struck by how I still don't feel like I have a good answer to why we are doing this. If you want a good answer, go talk to Darin, but I am still in a place of questioning and doubt. Yesterday was April 11, which means we are flying out of our comfort zone and into a new life 2 months from yesterday. I still feel totally unprepared and overwhelmed, only now instead of a house sale looming in front of us we are to the place where we need to start packing our lives into 12 suitcases and a few carry-on bags. I  think I am still in denial that this move is even happening. I know, I should probably step into reality soon. I am just struggling to wrap my head around everything that is about to happen and all the changes that are coming up because right now our life is pretty normal. The kids still go to school, Rachel and I still swap kids, I ...

Lately I’ve been asking myself that very same question. In fact, last night I had a very tearful discussion with Darin about WHY are we doing this!!! Let’s see, about 3 1/2 months ago, Darin was presented with an opportunity to buy into a petrol station/convenience store a little ways north of Pretoria (actually it is now called Tshwane) South Africa.  At first this seemed a very unreasonable thing to do, because A: we could never come up with the money and B: we have never had any intention of running a gas station, anywhere, and have no experience with such a business. What changed our minds? A: we could buy in as partners, so we only had to come up with 1/2 the money and B: our partner, who also has no experience running a gas station made it all seem like the perfect opportunity for the Fey’s (that’s us) to get to South Africa. Now, to back up a bit, since Darin and I first visited this beautiful country over 9 years ago, we have often talked about wanting to go b...