a bike ride and a different perspecitve

This morning i woke and had remembered my wonderful dream. It was all about Rwanda and how beautiful it was. In the city of Kigali there were good roads, a hostess bakery, and a cool water tower that had a shop at the bottom. Ha! Anyways it was all a dream and I am really hoping to see some of those things actually there. When I woke up I really wanted to be there. It makes me more anxious to get there now.
So... i decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather we have here in Dakar. Yes it was an awesome day. So awesome that we took 2 bike rides. Since Abby doesn't have a bike and because she doesn't know who to ride a bike she rode on the back of my bike in a kid seat. Abby absolutely loved it. Who wouldn't right? Luke is learning to ride so he still has the training wheels on his bike. Which makes the ride really hard since some of it is in the sand. Once we finally got on the sidewalk and road he was able to ride a little better. I think he would ride the bike better if the training wheels were off. Maybe tomorrow. So when we decided to take a ride we had no idea where we were headed. So... we just went towards the ocean. We made it there at it was awesome. We actually rode in where there is a place where people can come and shower use the restroom etc.. There were a few people praying and some sufers not cautching any waves. once again i got a different perspective... some people actually live no where. they come and clean them seves up with the water from the "outhouse" one woman was actually cleaning her child from the bucket. we really are blessed. Not exactly sure what this place is called. There is a picture of a Muslim guy painted everywhere. He has a white cross painted on his forehead. We have heard that this guy says that he is Jesus... and Muslin. Interesting huh.
Okay so we had fish, rice, and peas for dinner... it was yummy. We are planning on going to our pastors house for lunch today. Lunch is the biggest meal here. I think we are having yassa poulet which is our favorite meal here. I made a choclate pie to take with us. This was my first time ever making this sort of pie so I am using my pastor and his family as my guinea pig. ha!
okay all for now... love yall lots and remember... fish always taste better if you filet it yourself... take some chances JUST DO IT!
april

Christmas Day

Christmas day was a little different for us this year. We woke up to just our family. It was good but not as good as sharing the birth of Christ with other family members around. As they would say here... C'est la vie! That is life!

Okay so i was the first to wake up. I hurried and finished making my stuffing for the turkey and then put it in the oven. which the turkey was WELL worth the $50. it was soooo yummy (oyeah it did not have the feet atached) Just about the time I was finished everyone else was in the hallway. The kids were so excited to open their presents from Santa. here are some of the things we got this year for christmas. a huge portion of these gifts are because of our wonderful family and links churches back in the states.

Daddy - england soccer shirt, african shirt, african drum, wii, books, i-tunes, visa and mastercard giftcards
Mommy - daddy did a great job of finding really cool clothes for me... 2 dresses, shirt, undershirt for dresses and a necklace, wii, books, i-tunes, visa and mastercard giftcards
Luke - african drum, lots of star wars stuff, wii, candy, movies, cars, wii games, soccer clothes, a bag, i-tunes giftcard, lots and lots of stuff
Abby - huge doll house with barbies, movies, i-tunes, dress-up stuff, mixer for kitchen wiht apron, nailpolish, kitty (not real), wii game, can't rememeber right now...too much stuff

I think we actually had the biggest christmas EVER this year. We are so blessed.

so after opening presents we headed off to church for what we thought would only be an hour of singing.. haha nope it turned into almost 3 hours with an hour long sermen. then we headed home fast to finish cooking our portion of the christmas meal.... turkey with stuffing, birthday cakes, tea, peanutbutter fudge, and that's it ...i think
so next we headed of the the Ebys and had a huge and yummy meal with them and the Louw's. after we talked, played games and rested.

after getting home at about 10pm we talked with some family on skype and then headed to bed

so now it is the day after christmas and i am recaping the day as i am watching one of abby's barbie movies and waiting to play the wii when it is finished!
love you all tons and merry christmas!!
me

christmas pary

yesterday was full of a little more excitement. it started off with some yummy coffee that someone sent us from the state. we love starbucks! okay here are some of the highlights of the day.
during the morning we went and picked up our package. it was from sanctuary international church of the Nazarene in IL. it was AWESOME. as most of you already know i love surprises but can't wait for them so.... we opened the gifts that were in the box early. we got coffee, 7 movies, candy, magazines, stickers and crafts, hotwheels, dress up stuff, lots of other goodies. it was fun and the kids are watching dora the explorer christmas as i type this.
so after i ran or actually drove to the store and bought fish, baggies, food for the christmas party last night, sorry can't remember what else. on the way home we bought little baggies of nuts for the little begger boys. we like to give them food instead of money. i think they like it because we haven't given one away with out them immediately eating it.
after i fought again with abby on what she was going to wear... well mainly the fight was just about the shoes... i won again.. mainly because spencer told me i had to win.
the party was fun we played a game and luke won a box of snack cakes abby won a bag of chocolate i won a glass bowl with candles and spencer won some tea cups. ha i guess his was for me.
we got home and about 11 and had to carry luke in the house. the kids had a bath and fell fast asleep.
after checking email we went to bed. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
until tomorrow!

today!

so nothing really big happened today. a normal day here in senegal. okay so can you guess already that i am not fond of capitalizing words or using spell check so just bare with me :)
so this was today's schedule:
7:45 - was awakened by 2 lovely children... this time they just asked me if they could put on a movies on their daddy's stereo and daddy turned over and said yes! so i got to sleep in a little while longer. waahoo
8:15 - got up and gave the kids pop tarts (thanks to a church in the states) after we finished watching samantha, the american girl movie
10:00 - i start fighting with abby on what she was going to wear to church. this took a long long time but i did win...she wore the lovely white shirt with her pink skirt
10:40 - we headed off to church... stopped at the post office and was sooo excited to see we have package. off to the post office tomorrow
11:00 arrive at church
1:45 leave church wooow long servcies
2:00 - ate lunch with the eby's at a chicken place -yummy, well except i had to tell the waiter to bring me another piece of chicken b/c mine had blood running out of it...so apparently he just fried it more: same piece of chicken but no blood
3:30 came home for a nazarene nap
4:30 - some missionaries came over to look at our house..they are moving here and we are moving out
6:00 - watched goonies with the family
7:30 - the boys ate egg and bacon sandwiches and the girls had chips and dip
8:30 skyped with my parents
9:00 kids and bed and me typing this

okay so maybe tomorrow i can tell you that i saw goats ridding on top of cars or kids running the streets hungry and dirty or my househelp ironing my underware and towels, or someother crazy thing happen but.... until then this is all for now
thanks for reading - me

my mom says i have to

Okay so today is my first blog. SO.... merry christmas mom! I am doing this for you.

My goal on this separate blog from my families blog is to just get a little more personal about how i am feeling and experiencing. I am limiting access on who can read this so please ask me if you know someone who would like to see how i see life here in Africa. or where ever we may end up as missionaries.

So i will start with yesterday. It was so funny. I have been debating on whether or not to buy a turkey for Christmas. the turkeys here are about 6 dollars a pound. wow, right? anyways i bought one. as i was putting the 50 dollar turkey into my basket i remembered that people do things different here so i remembered that the head was probably still on the turkey. when i asked the butcher to take the head off he looked at the other workers and starting laughing. i think i actually made about 5 guys day. for some reason they thought it was so funny that i wanted the head of my turkey cut off and taken away. it was funny. when i got home i realized that opps i forgot to have them cut off the feet. o-well now i have a frozen turkey in the freezer with feet. i guess there could be more on there that i don't know about. haha!
For dinner tonight we had our first whole fish that i cut up myself. this was so cool to me. i have never cooked a fish that i actually picked out. it was fun. o-yeah it was tuna and so yummy. i Will do it again.

okay that is all for now.... maybe later

me