The Fey Family

We are back out at the farm and it is SO good to be here. As we drove in on the "spooky road", also known as the back entrance, we saw a huge group/flock of ostrich running down the road. There was one male and 9 females. After we unloaded the car, Darin went to check on the garden. He thought he saw a large animal, but couldn't tell what it was. Sometimes we see something that looks large and it turns out to be the back end of a zebra, but we decided to pile in the car and go check things out. It's a good thing we did, because it was a rhino! This guy was huge and he just sauntered around, calmly eating grass as we followed him around our farm and the neighbors place as well. Mr. Rhino had to go #2 and then he kicked grass and dirt over it with his huge back feet. You learn something new every day! We also saw a herd of wildebeest with some babies, zebra, impala and blesbok. What a great welcome home committee! We have really appreciated all the suppo...

Case # 242/4/2012 is now officially registered with the Hammanskraal police department, according to the text message I just received.  This follows an hour and a half at the station yesterday, talking with police officers and detectives, and dictating an official statement under oath.  Let me take you back a couple weeks to fill in some details.  While talking to Amos one day about his new shop, we got on the topic of the soft serve ice cream machine that he had purchased back in September, as part of the building loan from us and our friends.  Ice cream was flying out of his shop for the first couple of weeks, with no other competition in the area.  Everyone was high-fiving as profits were great.  After a month, cones were only selling at a rate of 3 or 4 per day instead of 30-40 like the first couple of weeks.  It seemed that the novelty wore off and people weren’t so excited to spend their extra money on this kind of a treat.  Amos start...

I never thought I’d say it, but there are some parts of home school that I am really going to miss. As much as my kids drive me crazy, I am going to miss having them around and seeing the world through their eyes. Someday they’ll be in a school and they’ll probably leave the house at 8:30 and get home around 4:15. Then there will be home work, a little play time, dinner, a little more down time and then it’s off to bed. That makes me sad. Does this mean I plan to home school when we are back in the US? Um, no, but before we moved I did look into a program at Freedom Christian that was 2 days of home school and 3 days of being in school and I think that could be a pretty cool thing. This morning after Darin and Tyson got back from a bike ride, Jori said, “Why were you gone so short?”   I had to swallow a laugh because it sounded so funny. From her point of view, her sentence totally made sense because short and long are opposites and I’m sure she’s heard someone say “Why were you...

Our finances   I’m pretty sure Dave Ramsey would not approve of our current financial situation. I feel like he’d be telling us to cut our losses, return to the states, get a job (or two, or three) and start paying off our debt. I hear you Dave. I am not a fan of carrying debt myself, especially when some of the debt is owed to our family. Not cool. If you asked me a year ago what our financial situation would be like right now, I would have told you the forecast was looking good. Based on the information we had, which my super smart and cautious husband looked over with a fine tooth comb, I would have told you that by Mid April 2012 our family would be busy paying back loans and planning an amazing trip to Mozambique or Botswana with some of our “fun money”. Neither of those things are happening. Instead we are living off of French fries and digging ourselves deeper into debt. Our business Petrol station? What petrol station? Long, long ago, in April 2010 when our par...

In just over 2 months we will have an eight year old and a six year old in the house. When did my babies get so big? Tyson and Jori have both done so well with all the different things that have been thrown at them this year. They left their friends, their house, their stuff, their schools, their culture and all the things that were normal and familiar to them. I am just amazed at the resilience of our kids and how they have adapted to a life that is very different from the one they lived for the first 7 and 5 years of their lives. School is going great. Truly it is. I still do not have it all together or even half together most days. Our school year has been more of a day by day, cobbled together mess, but it works for us. Both kids are reading, writing and doing math. I’ve given up on spelling and social studies and science are pretty hit or miss, but I’m ok with that and the kids are too. The other day when Jori and I were at the playground she was asking where all the other kids w...

We have been here for almost 10 months. We ran through our savings about 6 months ago, yet we are still living in Africa. We have been blessed by the generosity of family and friends who have been willing to step up and fill in the gaps for us. These are people who know our hearts and understand why we love this country and why we are so determined to stay out here for as long as it makes sense. It may not make sense to anyone else, but it does to us! We received a decent sized tax return this year, thanks in part to our house selling for less than what we bought it for in 2005. If our house had sold for more, that money would all be invested in our petrol station. Instead, we have the money in hand and have been able to use it to meet our daily needs. We bought a computer for the kids to use for movies and computer games. It was an older computer to begin with and there have been many days when we thought the thing was as good as dead, but somehow it just keeps starting up again. Th...

Here is a book report that Tyson wrote early in March. We found a template for an animal book report and that is what he followed. The author is Jack London. The book has 240 pages. The main character is White Fang. White Fang is gray and white and looks like a wolf. He is fierce, he was a good hunter, he was smart, and he was loyal. He was with Gray Beaver and killed dogs. He stayed by Gray Beaver then was sold to Beauty Smith. He had to fight for him. He had to fight a Mastiff, a female lynx and a bulldog. Beauty Smith beat White Fang he and feels mad. Weedon Scott saw the bulldog fight and was angry and bought White Fang. Scott was nice to White Fang, he spoke nice to White Fang. Scott gave White Fang nice good. White Fang loves Weedon. He protected Weedon’s family from bad guys. Weedon’s horse threw Weedon off the saddle. Then White Fang went back and called for help. I would love to have White Fang as my pet. He would protect me from bad guys. He would cuddle with me. White Fan...