Life has been busy. But a good busy! So, I'll give you an update on what has been happening in the Sinclair house.
First and foremost...We are done with school! Yahoo!!! Family camp was coming up and I was really pushing the kids to finish. We'd gotten behind with some lessons b/c of sickness, so by doubling up and doing extra work the kids were able to finish the Friday before camp. Emma still has a little bit of work, but we are just going to do it together a little bit each day. No pressure. :)
I have been doing a little bit of sewing. Here are my latest projects. First is a dress I made for Kate.
and I also made her a twirl skirt.
I found this great pattern on www.youcanmakethis.com. I love that website by the way. There are tons of gorgeous patterns and they are all downloadable pdf files. You just print them, cut out the pattern peices and sew away. They are so much easier to follow than simplicity or any other brand pattern name! Yesterday I had a lot of fun sewing clothes for American girl dolls. While at Family camp a family there had their car broken into. It was some kids and they stole some odd things. One of them being the girl's American girl doll clothes. Not the dolls mind you...but the clothes. Go figure. So, the twirl skirt pattern that I'd made for my girls came with an American doll version. I couldn't wait to try it out. I also found some more free patterns at www.libertyjaneclothing.com Here is one outfit that I made...it turned out so cute!
Down the road when my girls get an American girl doll...I will be able to make them some cute clothes!
Some fun family things we have done lately:
Playing in the sprinkler. That was fun!! We have regularly scheduled rationed water now, which has been such a blessing. Every couple of days we get a full day of high pressure water. I take advantage of those days and get lots of laundry done. I also get in at least a couple showers! haha! Well, we decided on one hot day that it would be fun to dig the sprinkler out.
We also had a family bowling night:
Our bowling ball (one of those dryer balls) was not very effective. Ben finally dug out my HUGE exercise ball! That did the trick! Lots of strikes occurred after that! lol!
Ben had the opportunity to meet the U.S. Ambassador.
Tom Needham, a missionary near us, invited the ambassador up for a breakfast. He invited all the missionaries as well, but it was a little too early for my liking. Plus I wanted to keep the kids focused on school as family camp was the next week. So he went up and spent an hour with the ambassador. Keep praying for our CBF government approval. We brought the need once again to the ambassador's attention, and he promised he would keep bringing it before the president's office. All we need is the president's signature and we will have complete legal authority to plant churches. As an added bonus it will also make living here significantly cheaper!
The next big event was our missionary family camp. Each year all the fundamental, gospel preaching missionaries, gather up in Sabga for a conference. Sabga is about 20 minutes from our home, so we stay at our house and host some of the other visiting missionary families. This year we had Don and Ann Wright in our home. That was a treat. Some of you that comment on my blog may have noticed that Ann frequently comments on here. It was such a treat to have them in our home!! All of the other visiting missionaries stayed up in Sabga.
Our conference started on Monday night. Dr. Wayne Van Geldren and his wife came to be our speaker. All of the missionary ladies divided up the cooking responsibilities. Since I am pretty much by myself right now, I decided to do the meal on Monday night. I figured I'd have all weekend and all day Monday to prepare. So, I was a little loco and chose to do Tacos! haha! I paid a Cameroonian to make 150 tortillas. Ben and I ground up 10 lbs. of meat. I made a bucket full of chips. Two huge bowls of Salsa. Three jars of home made dressing and two big trays of salad fixings. I also made up a big bowl of nacho cheese sauce and made up a bowl of sour cream as well. The meal was an absolute hit. I was SO completely stressed by the end of that day, and was really thankful that I'd chosen to get my meal out of the way at the beginning of the week! lol! But thank the Lord it turned out yummy and that there was enough to feed over 70 of us!
We had three sessions a day and the children had their own special meetings of missionary and Bible stories and crafts. There was a zip-line for them to play on, and a volleyball net and a fun day of play in the water with a home made water slide. We came home exhausted at the end of each day, but it was a wonderful week. I always enjoy the fellowship with the ladies that I only get to see a few times a year. Some only once a year! Our family prepared several special music numbers. In fact the very first night Drew and Kate sang a special.
It was kind of an odd night. Right before the service started a big storm blew in. Tom was afraid of hail, so we had to bring both of the airplanes in the hangar. We all crowded chairs around as best we could. For the rest of the week, however, the planes were parked outside the hangar and we were able to sit like we normally do. Even in the craziness Drew and Kate sang and did a wonderful job. One of these days I'll have to post a video, but they sing parts so well. We also sang two family specials the next day. I had the privilege of singing a duet with Christine Mossman. We both love to just sing through music. It was SO fun to sight read music. I haven't done that for a while. We sang a beautiful choir number and also a ladies group number. During one practice I wanted to just sit there and cry...the words, the music, the parts...I just really enjoy singing and miss being able to sing through arranged music like that. It was an extra special blessing this week.
The kids also did a choir number
The boy to the left of Drew became Drew's buddy during this week of camp. I was so thrilled that he found a friend. Caleb Wright lives in the far north of Cameroon, so we only see the Wrights once a year, but since camp, Drew has already gotten an email from Caleb. I think they will become great friends. One of these days we want to take the kids up to the far north. The Bachman family and the Wright family serve up there and both are great friends. They don't get too many visitors, and I know it would be a neat experience for our family.
And I have to show you pictures of the make-shift water slide
The kids had a blast playing on this all afternoon. There is a nice waterslide that Tom made out of cement. But it had a big hole in it and wasn't repaired in time. So Kathy Needham came up with this great idea and the kids didn't even miss the other slide. They had so much fun!
The sessions and the preaching were so refreshing spiritually. I was challenged in so many areas. One of them being in my parenting. We received some great teaching this week of camp, and I am so thankful for the amazing week that God gave us!
So, that is an un-condensed update! lol! Now that the kids are done with school, we have started a summer school of sorts. They do review work every morning to keep them sharp on the skills they learned this year. They are each reading a book they have chosen and we are also reading one book orally as a group. For fun we are going to study each of the 50 United States and I'm hoping they can fill out a blank US map by the end of the summer. And I also have a goal of Drew and Kate memorizing their times tables! So, while school is done, we will have a much longer summer break than normal and I don't want them to forget what they have learned!
Next big thing on the agenda...our trip home!! In about 10 weeks we will head home to the U.S. and we will now start counting down the days!
