Not All Sunshine and Swimming Pools

Michael is not only a great guard and gardener, he is also quite good in the kitchen. Whenever you buy nuts here (g-nuts [ground nuts or peanuts],cashews, almonds...) they are raw. Michael and Jane have roasted and salted them for us and they are SO good. They also did a mass production of chapatis (kind of like tortillas) for us to bring with us on our road trip.

Rylea loves Jane, well, we all do!

Just before we left Entebbe, we enjoyed our first harvest of red bananas from our back yard. They are bigger-round than a "regular" banana and very, very sweet. The actual banana does have kind of a pinkish color.

Here is my clothes dryer. My mom said it looks like a high-capacity one :)

So, I realized that most of the pictures I've posted are of our big house, kids swimming, househelpers... while we are blessed with these many good things, there are also some tough things about living in Africa (just like everywhere, I suppose!). I never seem to have the camera, or think to take pictures in the middle of the tough things. Like the morning Samuel went outside right after breakfast and a few minutes later was screaming and screaming. I ran out and ripped his shirt off of him and his back and neck had a stream of pinching ants on them. I swiped and swiped with his shirt before the last one finally let go. He had a big welt and was in quite a bit of pain until I was able to put some Benadryl ointment on it. That day we learned from our friend who grew up in Africa, that the best thing to do is to just let them march through your yard and in a day or two they'll be gone.

Or the pictures of the giant cockroaches we've found around our house. Or the fact that the electricity goes off quite frequently in the evenings and we do dishes and baths by flashlight. Or how hard it is to try to find a church where we will be able to enjoy fellowship and the kids will not feel overwhelmed. Or how Ned has no friends his age in Entebbe and misses his friends (and his Uppa) so badly he will bury himself in a book for days at a time. Or how most of the friends we've made in Uganda are leaving. Or...

I'm not writing all of this for sympathy or to be dramatic, I just thought it'd be good for folks to know there's the good and the bad here, just like everywhere else. So, please don't stop praying for us!

Maisha's Birthday

Several weeks ago we got to go to the Lake Victoria Hotel with the Blacks to celebrate Maisha's birthday. She turned 7! We had a great day enjoying the pool. Leo and the kids had a blast jumping off the diving platforms :)

Here are Maisha and Kaiden. They're hilarious together. They crack each other up and it's super cute to see the things they will do to get the other one to laugh :)

Isaac, ready for the high dive!

And Malachi. He never actually puts his face in the water but he loves to wear the goggles! We are so thankful for the friendships God blessed us with our first month in Entebbe.

Kids Rooms

So, pictures are uploading. Let's hope this will publish! Anyway... better late than never, right?! Here is the boy's light blue room. We'll eventually have two sets of bunks for the four youngest boys.
Girl's orange room. It turned out a little darker than I thought it would, but it's alright. We are getting a set of bunks for their room too, so we'll have one set of bunks and one single bed for the three girls. We borrowed a pink mosquito net to match their sheets :)


And, Ned's little room. It's really the hot water heater room, but has plenty of space for a bed and desk and whatever else Ned may need in his room. It'll be really nice for him to have his own space!!!

Still trying...

I tried again today to upload pictures, but no luck...

Bummer

So, for some reason, pictures are not uploading now. I've got a bunch to post and will try again later today hopefully.

I wanted to put our summer update on our blog, but that wouldn't work either so if you didn't receive it by email and would like to, just let me know and I can send it to you.

We are well and feeling quite comfortable in our new home. In some ways, we are not at all looking forward to having to leave for a month. In other ways, we're always up for an adventure so we're excited to see what the next month will hold for our family. We will try to keep you updated as we go!

Upstairs

I am way behind with my blogging but am trying to catch up today. These first three photos uploaded easily and now no more upload, so I'll post this and then try again. We have finally finished painting (a couple weeks ago actually). This is the kid's bathroom upstairs. There's a tub and sink (and the washing machine) in it with a small separate room for the toilet.

There is a small little nook in one corner of our bedroom. This is what it looked like before it was painted.

And here is our BLUE room :) The big pile of clothes is because we are once again packing. We leave for Kenya for a month on the 19th, so we'll once again be living out of totes for awhile.