MO

well, we are here....

we'll start job hunting and house hunting on monday. please pray that we will know when the lord is telling us to rent and when the lord is telling us to wait or something else. we'll put up pictures as we have time and as we remember to take them.

spain

here we are in spain with paul and liz. it will be interesting to see what the lord does with us. i wish we could push fast forward and skip this time of waiting. on the other hand we do know that it will be a rich time of patience and a time of seeing the lord lead us and show himself faithful to us. we are in missouri now and will start job hunting on monday.

paris

well, about 8 billion things have happened since last time (october). here are some pictures from our time in paris for our debrief. it was three cold days but a great time. it seems like a couple years ago now. strange.

the trail to the falls

everyone started to hum "going on a bear hunt" on the trail.

the falls

here are some pictures of the falls. it was a perfect day. the sun wasn't too hot and the water felt great. i really felt like i could relive those hours at the falls for the next 3 years. it was great for everyone to get out and do some relaxing....it has been really busy around here the last 2 years.

sunrise

this morning we got up at 4:45 and tried to beat the sun to breakfast. we hopped on ed's yamaha 125 and took off for the bluffs. if you go past the hospital for another half hour on a roller coaster dirt road you come to where we went. it was BEAUTIFUL. the sun came up and the birds were a-singing. it was truly something out of a movie. ellen gets sandwiched between tessa and i everywhere we go. she loves it and moves from side to side to peek around me. on the way home she fell asleep on tessa's arm with a big smile on her face. it was really cute.

swimming

the braafhart's have a pool in their back yard. yesterday we went for a swim. ellen tried out for the koutiala swim team. she came in .03 seconds behind the last qualifying swimmer. we'll be back next year.

believe it or not, the water was extremely cold.....that could have thrown ellen off a little bit in her qualifier.

"mousat"

so, we have this scampering above our bed every night. it sounds more like a boeing 747 going through than anything else. we were told that mice get up in there sometimes and the rats stay outside so we had nothing to worry about. well, i set a trap and we got this bugger a day later. looks like a pretty big mouse if you ask me. one down and at least one more has been spotted.

"R-O-U-S's....i don't think they exist."

cupboards

ellen still loves to pull things out of the cupboards and climb in as well. she is getting our gas tank ready for a refill. no smoking in that one.

this is a pretty funny clip. ellen is really trying to talk. she copies everything we do and say these days. we put our favorite part on the end for some extra laughs.

box

a sea container got delivered on thursday of last week full of goodies from the states. ellen had some fun in one of the boxes.

sheep herding

a herd of shep came by our place a couple days back and ellen ran out with her staff and harmonica to join the crew.

moto

last friday ellen and i ran out into the street to take some pictures of tessa pulling out to go to the hospital. 3 days a week she takes that hog to the hospital. she can do 0-40 in about 10 seconds. a while back bob tried to pop a wheelie on it and came out with a raspberry on his forehead. funny stuff.

busy

i have been working in bob's house the last couple days. i told him that he has been too busy and probably hasn't had time for himself. i told him to think of things that he needs done on his own place and i'd do it for him. about .8 seconds passed and he said, "you can tile my house." i guess all the tile in their house has asbestos in it and they have been dying to get it out of there. no pun intended. well, maybe it was. so for the next week or so i'll be ripping up old tile and putting in new "fresh air" tiles as his kids have come to know them. the bedrooms are done and we are going to start on the hallways and the dining room on monday.

dancing baby

this is ellen dancing to a ringtone on our phone. she really likes some of the songs. all her dancing seems to go this way no matter what the music sounds like. she dances around and punches buttons. sometimes she scrolls through the songs, sometimes she stops the songs and gets upset with the phone, sometimes she dances the night away.

major let-down

watermelons will be in major supply soon. so far koutiala has only seen four of them and we have consumed one. it was the best watermelon we have ever had. (that may be partly due to the fact that it reminded us of home) well, we went back to look for more and went a couple days without seeing one again. major let-down. then one day we were riding our little yamaha moped through the market and bingo.....watermelon. there was only one left and it was a beauty, as you can see from the picture above.

as the knife sliced through the outer shell our mouths began to water from the anticipation of the sweet, cool fruit that would dance on our tongues in a few minutes. as the knife clicked on the cutting board we noticed that the inside was a little white. wait a minute...the whole thing is white. it smells funny too. "not ripe yet," says tessa. major bummer. we were about to throw our prize watermelon away when i noticed that it smelled strangely like cucumber in the kitchen. upon further inspection our watermelon was diagnosed as a giant cucumber.

i made a mandate that no future angelo will eat cucumber again. they are a cursed vegetable, full of wickedness and deception.

books

ellen loves to read books. we are currently going through "the 12 days of christmas" about 3 times a day. she likes to sing along. ellen and i sing everything but "and a partridge in a pear tree." that is mommy's line and i think she is getting a little sick of jumping in on her parts. ellen's favorite part is "fiiiiiiiive goooooooold riiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnngs."