Catchin' Up

Ben came to me tonight and dropped the camera and cables in my lap and said, "This isn't a hint or anything." haha! But I knew what his hidden meaning was... "Make a blog post!" :D

I really do need to catch up. I Hope you've missed me!

First up...Our NEW car!! If you've been reading my blog, you know how I completely destroyed the driver's side passenger door. Well, Genesis came to my aid that night and picked up the car and took it to his body work guy. I finally got a hold of Ben in Benakuma and he decided to re-do the entire car. It was rusted out in so many places and in bad need of a makeover. The guy did a great job and our car looks brand new! He even took out all the seats and scrubbed them! I didn't even recognize our car!

The kids have been diligently working in school and we have a big chart that we made. We mark off the days as we do them. It is fun to see the days disappear. Though we do have a lot of boxes to check off, it still helps them as they work toward a goal. With our kitty and puppy, they usually spend their free time outside. On Saturdays kids usually come up and they play outside with them. We didn't have any kids come up this past Saturday except Louis. He is deathly afraid of our dog...almost ripped my arm off one day trying to hide from Penny! I thought he was gonna pee his pants he was so scared! So, when Louis comes we hook up the dog so he'll stay. It was kind of a rainy day on Saturday, so Drew went outside to just visit with him. Drew had been reading one of those chick tracts and thought he'd go through it with Louis. Ben snapped a picture of them. Drew was reading the tract and then looking up the verses and reading them. I thought it was so cute! Our little missionary in training!And speaking of Penny, Ben found a great treat for her this week. He went to the meat market and saw one of those big cow bones lying there. He asked the meat guy what he did with those. Well, they burn them and feed them to the pigs. Ben asked why they did that...and I don't think that he'd ever been asked that before. His answer was, "That's just what we do!" Well, Ben asked him to dash us (pidgin for 'give us') one of those bones. He gave Ben two of them and he gave them to Penny as a treat and she loved it! This picture cracks me up. Ben wanted to get in there and get a shot of Penny eating her bone...she obviously didn't want to be disturbed! And you can see that Penny and Cuddles are starting to get along better. She was even willing to share her bone with the cat! And here is another sweet picture of them getting along. They do fight like cats and dogs (lol! I kill myself) Seriously though, sometimes Cuddles sounds like she is getting her head ripped off, but she survives and I'm tired of locking her in the store room. She is holding her own now, and I just let her roam and I think she is enjoying her freedom. Plus, I have a mouse in my kitchen and I need her to start earning her keep!
The kids came up with this great strategy to draw perfect pictures. They lay a coloring paper over our big magnadoodle and trace it. They are so proud of their creations and we have had coloring papers scattered all over our floor for a week now!I know these pictures are completely out of order, but they are from the last couple of weeks, so you get the point. Here is a picture of our neighbor, Jude. He is a good friend and we were sad to say goodbye to him as he moved to Younde to go to school. He takes care of our mowing and yard work, and so on his last day of work, he wanted a picture of himself with the lawn mower. He didn't say why, but I just giggled at him and told him I'd be glad to take his picture. He wanted the kids in it too. We are sure going to miss him, but he'll be back over the holidays.

That is pretty much everything new. I've been working on gathering pictures for a series of posts I want to start doing. It will be entitled "Fashion Faux Pas Friday." So be looking forward to that. I think you will get a kick out of some of our African Fashion Faux Pas! :D

My Mom leaves tomorrow to come here!!! I'm so excited and hope to update on her visit from time to time while she is here. She is so nervous about checking in bags, so I'm asking you all to pray for a miracle! haha! We need to save some money, but the airlines aren't very helpful anymore. An international flight is allowed one bag. Do you have any idea how impossible that is for a missionary to be restricted to one bag! A second bag is $50, and any additional bag after that is $200! We used to....a loooong time ago, get two bags at 70 lbs each. Then it went to two bags at 50 lbs each. And now it is one bag at 50 lbs. Pretty soon we will have to pay for any luggage at all. Really frustrating, but that is our life. We just need to deal with it and do the best we can. So in order to get some of the things out here that we'd like to have we have to pay for them. The problem is that their tickets are broken up into two separate trips. So some airline personnel are telling us that we will have to pay for the extra bags in Atlanta...AND in Paris. ugh! Some are saying we don't have to. My mom has done everything she can possibly do to try and get our luggage through for free on the Paris end at least, but to no avail. It is going to be in the hands of whoever is at the check-in counter that day. So, pray with us that God will work that out and save us some money! We know that God will provide and it is always neat to anticipate how He is going to do that!