Christmas Activities

Christmas was a great time. It was full of activities. We had many of our annual favorites. Such as the building of the Christmas Hut, the Cotton/Cardboard Snowman, and many many treats and goodies. Finally after many laughs and many pounds, Christmas came. Everyone had a great time, and it was nice to see everyone so excited over their presents. The girls we very excited about getting the chance to save money and buy each other and their parents presents this year. Also I was soundly beaten by my wife this year, she is currently the reigning gift buying champion. She got great gifts, and spoiled my rotten. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Holidays Continued

Here are some more Holiday Photos

It's Raining it's Pouring

Playing in the rain. This is one of the parts of African life that our children love. Since Ghana is located in a tropical climate,the rains here are not cold. (At least not in comparison to Michigan rain). Every time the clouds become dark and the winds start to blow the kids ask if they can go outside and play in the rain. If it is not thundering, they get to go.

The rains themselves can be quite strong, but the down spouts make the front of our house almost like a water park. The rain water comes rushing off these spouts and create six jets of water. The kids love to run through and stand underneath them.

The last time it rained Andrew and I got to join into the fun. After filling up plastic buckets everyone had a hugh water fight. It was so amazing to see the two or three gallons of water dumped on the kids heads. They love it!

After the rains stop the kids like to play in the puddles and the mud. Overall it is just good clear missionary life fun. After about 30 minutes of playing the kids are shivering (they have African thin blood now), and are ready for a change of clothes ad something hot to drink.

Here are a few pictures from out last rain storm-

A Local Swing Set

Last Wednesday, while we were waiting for our friend to come for visitation, our kids went to play with the other children. Here is what they came up with... a local swing set. Our at least a Tarzan version of one.

Please click on this photo to see how high Junior is swinging! He is in the middle of the pictures holding on for dear life!

Family Birthday

It was that time again! Time for our family birthday party. Normally our family has this party in July. This allows us to celebrate the 4th of July (covertly) and Patty's birthday all at the same time. One might ask why we have a family birthday??? The answer to that is simple. Our daughters birthdays and my birth fall very close to a beloved holiday that falls in late December. Our families tries very hard to call and write during these times, but it seemed that with living so far away it was to much to ask for people to buy, mail, and remember to ship very early for all these different birthday around Christmas. So our family came up with the idea of a family birthday. Since we never felt very free to celebrate America's independents day, and since Patty has the lone birthday in the summer, why not celebrate it all together! Thus, the family birthday was created. Just one big envelop for cards, or one big box for gifts! It works great! But, this year it came early. The families, loaded my sister with gifts when she took here trip. (I think that they filled four 50 pounds bags). So after two weeks of waiting, our impatient took control, so we decided to have it early! Here are some photos from our big day.

The girls loved the new bubble wands. Ella was laughing and screaming trying to catch the millions of little bubbles.

Some of our grub! Patty bought me a new charcoal grill for my gift! So we had hamburgers for our dinner!

No I did not forget to turn the picture. This just shows how Carey loves to hang upside down and laugh!

After food we played games. Hop-scotch.

Bean bag toss. This big white-blue thing is the bean bag that Carey throw at me. I was laying down trying to take pictures, and she thought it would be fun to beam daddy! Well she did!

Throwing bean bags

After it got dark it was time to come inside and play our new game, Tumbling Monkeys. Thanks Aunt Lyn, the game is great!

Then another quick time outside in the dark with the new glow bracelets and wands!

Then last, but not least, the CAKE! Our theme this year was the beach and bright colors. So, Patty made a sand castle cake. It was chocolate, with vanilla frosting, with graham cracker sand! YUMM!!!