Random news of the week

A portion of our roof is being re-thatched. It has turned into a longer process than first thought as two new leaks were just discovered by bringing a hose up to the roof and seeing where the water ends up in the house. We now have a very wet living room and Jacuzzi room, but thankfully I do not have to mop up the mess. The kids have loved having extra people around and always want to see what “the guys” are doing. Darin has been gone a lot this week, so it has been my job to keep the kids from being too much of a bother. I only found Tyson on the roof twice yesterday, so I’d call that a success.

This past weekend our kids had their first sleepovers. We met a family at church that arrived from Missouri the week before we got here and their son is 1 day younger than Tyson and their daughter is 6 months younger than Jori and they also have a little boy that reminds us of our sweet Reidyboo. They came up for lunch last Saturday and took Jori home with them for a girl’s night of fingernail painting and watching the movie “Tangled”. We enjoyed a fun night with the boys, which included making an elaborate lizard trap from garbage and other odds and ends and watching “Night at the Museum”. The boys were up til 9:30 and awake again before 6. They headed right upstairs to play legos before it was time to head to church. We look forward to more sleepover swaps in the future.

Last night we saw a giraffe. We almost missed it as it was walking past SO quietly, but Darin happened to turn his head just in time to see it before it would have been out of sight. It was right on the other side of the fence, like so amazingly close we couldn’t believe we hadn’t heard anything as we were all sitting outside at the time. We were able to follow the giraffe (from inside our fence) as it walked around the property and ended up on the other side of our yard, near the watering hole. It was dusk and it was getting more and more difficult to see the giraffe as it moved about. It made me wonder how many other things have walked past us without us even noticing!

We took the kids to a little carnival that is set up in the parking lot of the Jubilee Mall, where we do a lot of our grocery shopping. The carnival has been up for a couple weeks now and as soon as the kids saw it they were just begging to go on the rides. Some of the rides, ok, MOST of the rides looked a bit sketchy. No safety restraints of any kind. The rides weren’t running when we first arrived (a little before 3 pm), but we were told they would be up and running “just now”, so we decided to go and have some ice cream at KFC. When “just now” finally arrived, we let our kids go on the two rides that seemed the safest; the mini 4 wheelers and the airplane ride. They let Tyson ride on the 4 wheeler by himself, even though the age limit was 10. Thanks guys! He was thrilled, of course, and if we are ever able to get our videos on YouTube, you will see his little tongue sticking out in concentration as he tries to make the 4 wheeler do something other than go in a circle. So cute. Jori was too small, so she had a man riding on the mini 4 wheeler with her. It was so funny looking and she just had this kind of half embarrassed/ half pleased look on her face the whole time. The airplane ride had no safety restraints in it, but it was so slow we weren’t worried about the kids getting hurt. In fact it was so slow that both kids looked very bored for most of the ride. And that was the end of our carnival experience. Jori really, really, really wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel, but there was no way I was letting any member of our family on the Ferris Wheel of Death, as I so fondly took to calling it.

Next week we are in charge of bringing dinner to our cell group. There could be 10 people there or up to 25 with kids, so I am not exactly sure how much food to bring. We do have a freezer, but our power has already gone out twice this month due to high winds, so it would be a risk to stick a lot of food into the freezer! I have decided to make sloppy joes. Last night we did a trial run here at home and the kids said they tasted the same as they did in Michigan. Score! It helps that we found Heinz ketchup, which is thick and red and not sickly pink and runny like the “tomato sauce” we have been using. So hopefully we make the right amount of food and everyone enjoys the eating sloppy joes for dinner. I am not a fan of cooking for large groups and these kinds of situations cause me to have a lot of anxiety, so pray for me, please!

Somebody locked the keys in our car 2 nights in a row, and that somebody wasn’t me. The first time, Darin and Amos were able to get the door open in about 5 minutes using a piece of wire. The second time I got to stand outside and hold a lantern while Darin wrestled with a piece of wire for a little more than 5 minutes. Not much more, but I was praying the whole time that he would be able to get the door opened as he needed to be on the road by 6 to pick Amos up for a quick trip into Johannesburg to pick up some items we bought from some friends who are moving back to the states today. They thought they would be home by 10:30, however I just had a text from Darin that the truck they are using broke down and they only arrived at our friends house around 9:15. Oh well.

That is all the random news of the week for now. I am sure next week will be full of more randomness for me to share.