Friday

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Ok, we are all caught up now. I will not be doing these daily posts all the time, but know that a lot of you want to know how we are settling in and what is keeping us busy out here. Some of you might be more familiar with the people and places that we write about because you followed our blog in 2008. For those of you who want more information, there is a link to our old blog under the picture of the tree at the top of the blog. I believe it says “our old blog”. Click there and it will open up a link for you to click on, which will then take you to our old blog. You can search for any of the things we write about now. We were there from early September to the beginning of November. There are a lot of posts! To see pictures, click where it says “pictures and movies” (also under the tree) and there is a link to our Picasa albums. You can see lots of pictures of our time in South Africa. We hope to be able to upload current pictures soon, but right now we’re still kind of settling in and just trying to figure out the best way to use the internet, since it is not available to us where we are staying and we have to mooch off of the kindness of others!

We had a nice day today. I think I am about 95% unpacked, which is a great feeling. We spent a lot of time over at TYB today and held some babies and played with a few toddlers as well. Our kids helped Amos sweep the patio, which kept them busy for quite a while. Then they decided to make mud pies, dirt roads and “mud” castles. I was just happy they found something to keep them busy while I worked on unpacking!

Tonight we made chicken noodle casserole. This has always been one of my go-to meals because it is so quick and easy. It took a bit longer to make here, but everyone enjoyed it. Normally, I’d boil 3 cups of noodles, open a can of cream of chicken soup, open a tin of canned chicken, open a bag of shredded cheese, then add these things together, along with a bit of milk and some garlic salt. Then I’d top it with more cheese and some crushed potato chips. Out here, we first boiled one chicken breast (so glad to find that boneless skinless chicken breasts are not too expensive!), then we made our own cream of chicken soup from a dry mix, boiled the noodles, scooped out half the soup to use later, grated our own cheese, then mixed these things together, added some garlic salt and topped with more cheese. We had eaten all of our potato chips or we would have added some of those as well. Everyone seemed to like it just as well as, if not better than what we made back in Michigan. So we’ll be making it again!

Now it is 6:30 and we are giving the kids a snack. Then they are both going to BED. It is pitch black here already and as I said in yesterday’s post, they are getting up earlier and earlier, so they both need the sleep! Darin got the movie “Ocean’s Eleven” from TYB, so we are going to watch that tonight. I am looking forward to turning on the space heater again and warming up my freakishly cold hands!

Before we go to bed, we’ll decorate the kids room for Jori’s birthday (yes, they are sharing a room, and while it isn’t ideal, it seems to be working for now). By the time you read this, she’ll have already opened up some of her cards and I am sure she’ll be so happy to finally be 5! She’s been waiting for such a long time.

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