Milestones

Our little boy is growing up. Just this past week he started riding a bike on his own without training wheels. He's doing great but still getting the hang of starting and using the breaks. I thought there would be a lot of tears and scrapes since we have no soft areas (aka grass etc) to ride on. He's done great, I think since he's cautious so far he hasn't had any major wipe outs!

Here he is riding by himself. This is a great place to ride. There's a lot of room and not much traffic. The cons are it's hard dirt and gravel!

Pete started out running behind and holding onto the seat and handlebars. Gradually he let go and just ran alongside. At first, I don't think Aidan even realized Pete wasn't holding on.

Aidan's been talking a lot about what he's going to do when he grows up. He's quite sure that he wants to be a policeman, probably in the states near Grammie and Grandpa. He did say that he might be a policeman here, but I said I wasn't sure if that would work or not. Another thing he has sort of decided is that he isn't going to get married! It's great being 5 and being the mother of a 5 year old. Here's a snippet of a conversation we had the other day, "Mom, I was talking to Daniel and he's not going to get married either. We think that we might live together." Daniel is his best buddy here. They play together as much as possible.

Late Christmas pictures

Elianna and Laura the carrot who talks when you bop her on the ground. Elianna was really quite taken with Laura.

A playmobile knight that Aidan got for Christmas. He loves to play with the guys along with his legos. Some days he creates quite the 'forts' for his creations.

A family Christmas photo.

Soccer Game

On Christmas Eve some of the Guineans hosted a soccer game in honor of the 'photes' pronounced fo-ta with a long a. It's the word for white person on one of the local languages. It was held at 6pm but didn't start till later than that. It was fun but different since some of us wanted to make nice suppers etc. Aidan had fun and wasn't shy at all, he went to sit with the kids and had a good time running around and playing with sticks. Here are a couple pictures.

Conference 2007

Here are some pictures from our annual field conference which was held in mid December. They're sort of out of order. On the last day of conference the teens organized a medieval fair for the kids. There were different booths/games that had a medieval theme. For playing the games and scoring etc. you could earn shillings. After the whole things was finished Aidan got the trophy for the most points scored in the activities. He gets to keep the trophy till next conference. His name and the year were burned on with a wood burner. He's also proudly displaying his sword which you'll read about below.

It was a great week of Spiritual and Physical refreshment.

This little guy from the village even got in on the fun. He got his face chalked! The damsel in distress picture.

Aidan's first time with a bow and arrow.

At the smithy you for 5 shillings you could get a wooden sword made. As soon as Aidan heard that he was eager to start earning shillings.

This was the jousting booth. Pete was injured so a fellow missionary helped Aidan.

At the Beauty Parlor you could get your face painted.

This was a unique booth, two opponets played hockey with mops on a piece of wet, soapy plastic.

At the Village Inn you could get drinks or buy candy with your shillings earned. The vendors handed out 'popsicles' or bonbons, an African popsicle, ye glaces. You just pour juice into a small sandwhich style bag tie it off and freeze it.

One evening we enjoyed a BBQ together and someone made balloon hats etc for the kids.

The adults had a great time playing volleyball, court soccer and floor hockey. Unfortunatley on Wed. and Thur. Pete hurt his ankle on one leg and then knee on the other. I'm glad to report he's doing much better. Our friend Brian had some pretty nasty looking road rash.

Enjoying Sports at the Sports Court. Which is just below our house.

During the mornings the adults had worship and teaching times. The kids had VBS style classes. They had a great time and enjoyed making crafts, like this crown!

Aidan is really starting to become a funny guy.

Christmas in the Air or not!

Merry Christmas. Here's a picture that Aidan colored. We wish you all a Merry Christmas. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

Elianna's Coloring. She called it rainbow. Making wreath cookies. Cornflakes are readily available and recently we've been able to get marshmallows as well. These were one of my favorites growing up.

Cookie Fun.
Notice the long sleeves, the mornings have been quite cool mid to upper 60's but the afternoons are hot with temps flirting with 100F.

A Nativity set that we had carved here in Guinea.

Our Tree

Getting ready to make gingerbread cookies. One of Elianna's favorite stories right now is the "Gingerbread Man." She runs around saying, "run, run as fast as you can you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man."

Since we didn't get any pictures in the mail for you all, here's one the Aidan colored the other day. His coloring has improved a lot.

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Catching Up

I haven't done too well at keeping up lately. We've had some busy times, don't we all! So now you'll get a bunch of pictures at once.

This is my house worker and her daughter. The other day was a holiday here. The people are socially obligated to get new clothes and get their hair done all nice etc. Pray that we will be an influence in the life of Adama.

They love to have pictures taken of their kids.

Another, fete, holiday tradition. The women who've had children in the last little while, I don't know the exact details. They dress up as men, with sunglasses and big mens shoes and come around asking for money. They sing etc. and are called in french, les comediens. I'm sure even the english speakers can figure that one out!

A couple weeks ago I got to go with Pete on a supply run. A fellow missionary family kept our kids for the day. I had never been before so I got to meet all the guys he buys from etc. Here he is in one of the stores with 2 of his suppliers. It was a fun, tiring day. No one would let me do anything like load boxes into the truck etc.

Another recent excursion. I got to go to the village up the road with a friend. She is a missionary who lives here on base for part of the week and part of the week she lives in the village with an African family in a room in their house. We rode bike for about 20 min. to get their. My first experience riding in a skirt, trying not to get it caught in the chain and to stay modestly covered, my knees. We walked out to the rice fields where they were harvesting rice. Here's some bundles of rice still on the stalk.

One of the ladies working. They lay the bundles on the ground and use their feet to twist/break off the stalks and take the rice kernals of the stalk.

A chicken house. Isn't it cute!

A platform they built to dry/lay the rice bundles on.

Another big crop her is peanuts. This is in the village with my house helper. She roasted the peanuts and we're taking of the skins.

family

It's been a while since I've posted and since I've posted a family pix. This was taken about a month ago for our Christmas cards.

We're doing well but have been very busy. Last week was our annual field conference. A great time but tiring. Recently several of us have had a stomach bug and colds.

Aren't they cute!