Family vacation

This last couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur... just so much going on while trying to get ready for our vacation (finals at bible school, church programs, kids getting ready for Teen Missions, traveling out to the village). Jake's cousin Jenna came in after a day's delay in Paris. She is such a trooper and is fitting right into our family, it is a real joy to have her here for a couple of months. There have been some major storms here the last couple of weeks and the electric and water have been off a lot. Our internet router blew up as well as our laptop cable (praise the Lord is wasn't the computer!). It took over a week to get back up online and we were able to borrow a cable from friends until we can get one here, but it is so good to be connected to the world again. Tomorrow we head to the beach for just over a week, we are all so ready for a bit of a break. In a strange sense of irony, we just heard that the electrical transformer blew up there and that there has not been electricity there for over a week... hmmm looks like we might be vacationing with candles :-D. Anyway, at least we will all be together having fun.

So I will be posting lots of photos when we get back. Be back soon!

Yummy Dinner

Why do I have a photo of food on my blog you ask. Well this is one of the hens from the first batch of chickens from the  Children's Home (and it was sooooo good!)

Cut back to a few days ago....

We have 50 chickens and we slaughtered 18 of them on the first day. Believe it or not, my Texan-Iowan-country-boy-husband had actually never killed a chicken! The way they do it here is not the most humane or clean way so we decided to youtube it and found some easy, quick techniques. It worked like a charm, the chickens were dead in a matter of seconds after cutting their throats.

Next we dipped them in scalding water (140-160 degrees) for a few seconds

Then they were plucked, the feather pretty much just wipe off

Then we cleaned them, of course nothing goes to waste here, head, feet, even the intestines are all eaten. I am now an expert chicken cleaner!

We had all the older kids helping, this is a great skill for them to know. The littler kids were hanging out watching and being silly. 

Jude enjoying his chicken dinner

So our goal is for the orphanage to have two chickens a week and then sell the rest to to cover all the cost of feeding and raising them. With this first batch we have sold well over half already. Chicken is probably the choice meat for Cameroonians, it is what you always have at weddings, church events, or when you go over someone's house. It is one of the most expensive meats. Generally our kids only get it at Christmas. We ourselves have it very rarely as it is costly and you have to buy them live at the market so it's just not very convenient. We seriously haven't had chicken for like 4 months, which I know is weird as chicken is so cheap in the States. Anyway, now we have a great source to buy from! We will be getting the next batch of day-old-chicks next week. 

Summer plans

Here's our plans for the next couple of months. 


June 20th: Jake's cousin is coming out till mid August. She is going to be helping at the orphanage and with our kids, all while experiencing Africa for the first time. She is also a runner so I will have a runner partner for a bit. I am really looking forward to her coming!


June 20th-28th: Finish painting the inside of my house, we've been living here over three years and I'm still not done. It's not that I'm procrastinating, I love to paint but it is usually down to time or finances. But now I have the paint and the time. I just need to finish the hallway, the boy's bathroom, Jake's office and my laundry room and I'll be all done (next year I'll tackle the outside). 


June 29th: We head to Douala, then on to Kribi for 6 nights. Kribi is the most beautiful beach in the whole world. We are going with our friends the Dibbits and staying at a little guest house. It is the bare minimum but that suits us just fine as we are out in the sun all day anyway. We can also bring our dog Strider along and we don't have to worry that he is going to dirty the cement floors. I am really looking forward to this break! No responsibility for a week (besides the kids and Jake of course :D)! We usually bring lots of snacks, eat out at the local restaurants, and buy fish fresh from the beach so I don't have to do too much cooking. We spend the evenings playing board games or watching movies. It'll be great to have some quality family time.  Then we head to Douala again and spend two nights there before heading back home. Douala is the capital city and great for shopping. You can just about find anything there is you have time from parmesan cheese to real ham to a new power steering pump for our truck (so now you know what we'll be looking for). The Baptist guest house there has a pool so the kids love being there too.


July 9th: The older children of HHCH head off to Teen Missions Boot Camp. We will try to go to most of the evening rallies. Always a lot of fun! The kids will be gone a total of 5 weeks I believe.


July 10th: Start doing some summer school with the younger children at HHCH with the help of Jake's cousin.


July 14th: Go get the three horses we will be baby sitting for a year, so excited! Their owners are heading back to the States on Forlough. Ever since we have moved to Bamenda we have been thinking about getting horses. This is the perfect opportunity for us to find out if we can cope having horses without forking out a lot of money to buy them and all the gear. The boys will get to see if they really want to get up earlier to do their extra chores and experience what hard work it is to look after the horses. We live in the mountains here so it is going to be wonderful to go riding up in the hills to waterfalls and caves.


July 19th: Head to Yaounde (6 hours away) to visit friends


July 20th: Travel to Dimako (another 6 hours?) to visit our friends, the Conrods. They are what I call real missionaries; ministering to the Pygmy Baka tribe, out in the middle of the rain forest, solar panels, water from a well, pet snakes, etc. We'll spend a couple of days with them, hopefully going to show them how to slaughter and process a pig. They have three kids right around Josh and Seth's age so they will have fun running around getting dirty. 


July 22nd: Head further into the rain forest to Mbang (another 4 hours?). This is where we spent the summer with a Teen Missions team back in 2007 (I think). We helped build a clinic for the Baka tribe, an awesome time. We'll spend a few days out there with the US team and visiting all our Baka friends. We'll also bring lots of snacks and goodies for the candy-deprived-teenagers :D. 


July 26th: Head back to Bamenda


July 28th: Continue on with Summer school with the kids


Early August: Have a VBS at our church


August 14th: School starts again with our SCA session (Home schooling co-op). I'll have a 5th and a 3rd grader!


So there it is! I also want to get some cheese making in and my vegetable garden up and going. Of course through most of this I'll still be teaching kids club twice a week, having library time, teaching Mami how to read, teaching Sunday School at church,  and doing some schooling with the boys. I also am aiming to get out with the kids at least once a week, whether it be to the pool, tennis court, or hiking.  There is also the possibility that Seth will go spend a few weeks with my folks in Florida (Josh did that last year).

Jordan's B-day

It's hard to believe but Jordan turned one on Thursday. This year has just zoomed on by! We decided to have a little get together at our house. Our missionary friends the Hamms are heading home on Furlough so we combined a goodbye dinner with the party. We had our friends the Dibbits over too. I went with a cat cake, Jordan's favourite animal. She just adores our cats and surprising they don't seem to mind all her chasing, squeezing, and kissing. So we had cake and ice cream first, we went and sat out in the garden so all the kids could run around. I made a huge spaghetti dinner and we had a great time of fun and fellowship. Good memories!

Josh helped me make the cake

Birthday girl!

Finishing School

We finished school last week, phew! There was a few days when I wasn't sure I would get through it with my sanity still intact but we did! It was definitely more of a challenge trying to keep Jordan and Jude entertained while doing 4th and 2nd grade with Josh and Seth. I remember one morning when I was doing spelling with Josh trying to concentrate, Jude was asking me to look at a picture he had drawn, Seth was asking me to help him with a Math problem, the doorbell rang, and I looked around and Jordan was standing on top of Seth's desk clapping her hands (she is out little spiderman!). I was about ready to do my Shrek roar! Thankfully, most days went a little smoother. Jordan has a good hour or two nap every morning which allowed me to get all my reading in. I'm believing that next year will be easier. I'll continue to do a little spelling with Josh thought the summer but I am looking forward to a few weeks break (at the end of the month we head to the beach for a week!). It has been nice not to be quite so rushed in the morning and making breakfast a little bit later. I have been organizing, cleaning, and gardening already.

The kids at HHCH are all finished with school too. They had an end of school and graduation ceremony last week. It lasted a total of 6 hours! Blessing and Aruna graduated primary school and will be going to secondary school in September (equivalent of middle school). Marvelous and Godwill graduated nursery and will be going into class 1 next year. We are looking at a new school for the children next year, we have not been completely happy with the school they have been in the last two years. Some of the kids are still not up to where they should be and the teachers aren't too concern about it. They have also been asking extra money for evening classes so the kids can pass their exams... very frustrating, surely they should be teaching that stuff IN school. Also the children have only gone about a 10th of the way through their consumable books, books the school insisted the children have, but then they hardly used them. So there is another private school that is close by, it is more expensive but we have asked for a reduction, we are waiting to hear from them, please keep it in your prayers. Blessing and Aruna will be heading to Government school as they enter secondary schools. This will take some adjusting for them as most classes have 100+ children but we are believe they will do well. July we will start summer school with all the kids (going to finish off those consumables!).

Our beautiful kids!

Blessing and Aruna, our two graduates

Marvelous graduating nursery (I couldn't get him to smile, but he had been there 6 hours, so I don't blame him!)

Godwill (placed first in his class!)

They whole crew