We made it

Thank you all so much for the prayers - we've made it safely down to Iringa, and have been getting everything sorted out.

I hardly know what day it is right now, everything seems pretty jumbled up, but let's see if I can give you a bit of what's happened!

A truck came last Tuesday afternoon, and we were able to get everything loaded up, and the truck locked.  We had sleeping bags out still, so we slept at our house that night and got up early Wednesday morning and started driving!   

Mom and Dad were in the Land Cruiser pulling the trailer that had our suitcases and sleeping bags, etc. in it, and the boys and I were in the Wagon with the dogs.  Don and Axe were in the very back and they did great, except for getting really hot.  They made it through the trip without dying - yes!  I was in the middle seat with the ice chest and Panya.  She was really good too, just went back and forth between laying down and looking out my window.  She liked to growl at giraffes and impala we passed!

We got to Iringa at probably around 10pm, and slept at an inn.

The next morning we got to our house, and started getting everything unpacked!  Since then, we've pretty much been doing the same things - unpack, carry boxes, unpack, take apart empty boxes...ask other family members "Do you want this?" every few minutes.  Heh heh.

We worshiped with the brethren here on Sunday; the building is about 20 minutes from our house.  Mwakalonge preached a good sermon, and the people were friendly.  

Hopefully we'll get internet up at the house in a few days.  It'll be nice when things get settled in enough to get back into a regular schedule.

Has anyone made any goals for the New Year?  I've written down a few general guidelines for myself.  They're not resolutions, since I've been doing them anyway, but New Year's is a convenient time to look at goals, etc. you have.

Here are a few of mine:

 - Daily Bible study and prayer time

 - Drink at least a couple of glasses of water a day 
(I usually drink a litre or two a day, but this is just so if I don't drink that much in a day, I at least get something!)

 - Exercise 3 times a week\train to run a 10K
(Hopefully more, but this is so I don't set myself up for disaster, haha) 

So there we have it, hope you all are having a great week!

 ~

 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Philippians 4:4
 

 

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday, Luke!

-

 Yes, today is Luke's birthday!  We kicked off the festivities with singing happy birthday.  Then we proceeded to sing happy birthday... Followed, of course, by singing happy birthday.  We're going to make some homemade coconut-pineapple ice cream to go with brownies!

Panya is learning really fast to obey her commands.  She already knows: Sit, stay, lay, up (on her hind legs), give (release an object she has in her mouth), and how to play fetch.  :)  What a good doggie!

Yesterday I actually did almost everything that was on my to do list!  I usually don't end up getting everything I write down done.  I was actually going to do a longer post (complete with pictures) yesterday, but got too busy.  My daily list usually looks something like this:

| Bible study

| Clean the house         

| Straighten room

| Make supper

| Laundry

| Exercise

It's usually longer than that, but these are the ones that are pretty much always on there.  Speaking of which...I better go and get some more stuff done! 

Hope you all have a great weekend!  

Oh no...I have to think up a title for this...

         

Today we went to Merarani for worship.  We'd never been there before, and it was really nice to visit!  It was a bumpy ride, but thankfully not all that long.  Only about an hour of feeling like a rag doll in a dishwasher, hehe!  It's always nice to visit places that are out of the way.  They were renting a building to meet in...the same as alot of them around here - concrete walls with a tin roof.  It only had very few windows, and some were covered in tin.  It was really nice weather outside, but inside there was no breeze at all, and I could feel the heat from the tin roof baking my face.  All of us were squished together on a bench, and it was stifling.  I entertained the thought of what might happen if I fainted and fell off the bench, but since I've never fainted before, that wasn't very likely. {hehehe}

***

Wedding plans for Lee and Julia seem to be going great! Everything's going to be bee-yoo-tiful! :) {*happy sigh*}

***

Work on The List has been coming along just fine.  I baked some chicken yesterday, and it turned out really nicely.  It was a nice change to have it baked.  Sometime soon I want to have a ravioli making day...get a bunch of filling and dough together, and make them up and stick them in the freezer.

***

Mom and I have been drinking almost two liters of water a day, and doing pilates every morning.  It's been really nice!  If I'm not busy when the boys go running I'll go with them. 

                                                 ***

 Tomorrow's Monday.  Oh, Mondays used to be my least favorite day of the week because it was the start of the school week.  We all had a favorite line from Jake that went - "You know what's good about Mondays?  *pause* Nothing!! Hahahaha!!!"  Of course that's not true, Mondays are great, but it gave us good laughs anyway!

***

Happy week, everyone! 

***

"The List" - Hmm, sounds ominous!

First off, Lee and Julia made it safe and sound to Oklahoma!  Thanks for all your prayers!

~*~

So I've made a sked-jool (Yes, a schedule) for myself.  I think it'll be good to have what I need to do written down instead of getting most of them done, but having dust rabbits as my roommates.  In my last post, I said I'd tell some of the things that are on it.

These aren't in any particular order.

1)  I've gotten to be a little bit of a wimpy blimpy (Haha, not really...wimpy yes, blimpy not really.  I can't take credit for that phrase by the way...) so I do some cardio in the morning {all of two mornings in a row now! :) }, and a bit of yoga and stretching at night.  

2)  Cook a few meals a week.  (Doing the dishes is always a given, except sometimes an exception when I'm the one cooking the meal.  Dishes never make my list, hehe, you can't forget dishes!)

3) "Cleaning the house" sounds so quick, but people who actually do it know that it's not for the faint of heart!  Sweep the floors every day, dust on alternate days, pick up all the junk that you just put away...Yes, I think they have legs.  *shifty eyes*     

 ~

Fridays are also mop days - Bucket of water and a towel. 

~

Sweep my room, pick up clutter, dust, clean the bathroom.  Thankfully not all on the same day, but in the week.  {*cough* How long has that been there?!}

~

Tuesdays and Fridays are milk mornings.  I go outside, get the milk from "Mama Maziwa", strain it, pasteurize it, and put it in jars.  

4)  Bible study - The most important of all!  Very much enjoying these parts of my day!

5) Swahili - I haven't actually gotten around to doing this one yet, but I will!  It'll do me alot of good if I actually sit down and study it some more.

~*~

So there are a few samples of The List!

~*~

So this afternoon I made homemade raviolis!  I actually didn't mess them up, they were pretty good.  It took all afternoon though (literally), to make that and french bread.  It would take less time, but I had to figure out different sauce measurements and substitutes, and quadruple check myself to make sure I didn't do anything wrong!  :)

~*~

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

~*~