HOT,HOT,HOT
That's what Tim and I were on Sat, July 23. We were watching Samuel and Erik play ultimate frisbee in Topeka. We were actually very lucky because there was a row of pine trees at the edge of the field. Someone had trimmed them up and so we sat underneath. We drank lots of water, ate cantelope and bing cherries and bannanas and tried not to guess what the temperature was:) The boys had fun ( won 2 and lost 2) and no one got sick.
We were able to skype with Andrew Friday evening. (His Saturday morning) He looks good and it was great to hear his voice. He was in the town of Iringa so the internet was better. He is hoping his computer will hold out til November. It has served him well for two years but sounds a little like an airplane reving up to take off.
We had a family vacation to Minnesota in June. The boys took two friends and they had fun in the water. The weather was really nice while we were there. Hannah was able to go also - we enjoyed having her home for awhile. The boys and Tim will go again this Thurs and stay til Aug 5th. Then Susan will go up and stay till Grandma Shook comes back.
We continue to be reminded we have no mechanical expertise in this house:) We had to buy a new weed eater in April. It vibrated so bad we took it back and exchanged it the first of July. No one could get the new one to start. We took it back to Sears and they couldn't start it either!
(We felt better then!) Exchanged it again and the man had to work pretty hard to start that one at the store but it seemed fine after the first start. Erik had almost finished Duke's edging when he pulled the cord and it stuck (Full length dangling). Today I took it back and said please give me my $ back. "I don't know if it is us or the machine but we are not getting along!!"
Blessings to you all. May the rest of your summer be restful with some cool:)
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7.25.2011
7.17.2011
While I was out...
I don't really have a ton of new exciting adventures to tell of here in TZ. Surprisingly, even when you live in an exotic land your life remains horribly mundane if you're there for longer than it takes to visit everything.
April and May were pretty much exclusively teaching time. It always works out that the first two to three months of class are the most consistent, productive class time that one has in the school year so it was good to dive in and get a chunk out of the way before things really took off. It was a little concerning how quickly I felt like I was exhausted of teaching however. I look at my teaching load and responsibilities here in country and it just baffles me how teachers in the states do what they do for as many hours a day as they do it. Yeah, teaching two classes the same thing is easier to prepare but it's just as tiring! Not to mention the extra work outside of class where you have to grade etc. Anyway, as with everything else, I'm much more grateful for our education system in the states having seen an alternative.
Things really started to pick up the first full week of June. I headed to Morogoro the first to attend what we call the Training of the Trainers, or TOT for short. PC loves their acronyms and you find that everything and everyone has some two to three letter combination used as a reference to speed up conversations. Anyway, TOT was a gathering of every person, volunteer, staff, or contracted help, to plan sessions for the incoming class of trainees (PCTs in case you were wondering). Each volunteer (PCV :P) had applied to facilitate various sessions during the training and so we spent most of the week refining our plans and trying to coordinate between sessions occurring other weeks.
I've always felt like I've done a good job of surrounding myself with people that are one step above me on the intellectual scale. If you look at my resume, I feel like it reads quite impressively but when I look at myself in the context of those around me, I often feel overshadowed. Things like TOT, highlight it the most for me. All these other amazing volunteers have really brilliant ideas for passing on important information and I'm left looking at relatively simplistic ideas presented in a boring way. Nevertheless, we finished the week with a solid product prepared for the new group when they arrived just more than a week after that.
The Saturday after closing TOT, I boarded a bus to head all the way back to Mbeya because the following Monday, I took 3 girls to our annual girls empowerment conference in Mbeya town. Each year, for the last 3 years, the volunteers in the Mbeya region have come together to plan and execute a girls empowerment conference that teaches young women in our communities life skills. We do some of the standard HIV and AIDS presentations, but we go beyond that also, encouraging girls to achieve the most out of their lives. We have successful women come in and give talks about their achievements and the decisions that got them there. We have sessions teaching about family planning and why waiting isn't just about sexual health. There's a session on self-defense where we teach the girls how to quickly get away from someone who may be about to assault them. All-in-all, it's a really fun time while still being a significant educational experience that teaches information that often does not filter down to students in Tanzania.
Every year there is a talent show and for the past 3 years the volunteers have made a production to put on stage alongside the girls' talents. This year we chose Waka Waka, the Shakira song that was created as the theme song to the World Cup in South Africa. I think the video is on youtube if you want to find it but it was one of my favorite moments as a volunteer. We choreographed only the first two verses of the song intentionally, partially because of time constraints and partially because we planned to include the girls, but after we did our portion of the dance we brought up the girls to dance with us on stage. It's clear to me now that that event was not just South Africa's but rather all of sub-Saharan Africa and since Waka Waka represents that event, it's also everyone's song. There was passion in that free-dance beyond what I could have expected and it was a really awesome moment of community. But that's what the arts and athletics can do, bring together two sides of the world and have them cheer in unity.
Following the girls conference was the one week of normalcy in the last 6 or so. I had to pull together my strength to actually teach for a full week. I thought it would be easy since I knew I was going to leave again soon but instead it turned out to be much harder. I just could not focus and it seemed to be a waste of time to put in the effort to make each lesson valuable. I did make it through the week (life is so hard, right?) which was followed by the A-level short break, a one week vacation.
I had already made plans to spend this week on a trip to visit Anna and Adrienne, health volunteers in my region, and so Saturday morning I packed up and rolled out to Mbeya to get the bus that would take me to their villages. Now, if I could have driven straight from my site to theirs it couldn't have been more that 50km, but because the roads are poor and the bus takes people to Mbeya, I had to travel the long way around by first traveling north out of my own valley to Mbeya and then south along the ridge to my west above my valley to get to their sites, probably a good 150-200km.
The week consisted mostly of getting to see the daily life of a health volunteer. There's somewhat of a disconnect sometimes between the lives of health and education volunteers at their respective sites. Education is very structured and we have things laid out for us where as health volunteers really have to develop their work on their own. Additionally, the houses of health volunteers are usually more spartan than those of education volunteers. Both have their benefits but the lifestyles are noticeably different. The differences in Mbeya are highlighted even more by the fact that the health volunteer sites are very village with no water, no electricity, and so forth, where as education volunteers live quite well compared to the majority of Tanzanians. We spent time playing lots of cards, exercising, and cooking in between seeing the various projects they worked on. We made lots of yummy food including two chocolate cakes...in two days.
We returned as a group and hiked Ngozi crater the following day. I think that was my 5th time doing the hike, but since it's such a nice hike, it just happens. Finally, after meeting up with additional friends, some PC, some not, we rented a car to travel to Matema Beach to celebrate the 4th of July. Again, I think this was my 5th time going to Matema Beach, but I could go 5 more times and not be satisfied, as it's the perfect mix of village and tourist all in one.
The group was fantastic and it could be split into smaller groups if that was more appropriate for the activity. There's little more to say than that it was as close to the quintessential beach party as you could get. We played baseball in the lake with my whiffle ball and bat (thanks mom!), relaxed in the sun and read a book every morning, and even roasted a pig on July 4th. So it was actually only half the pig but it was still legit. We dug a pit and lit a fire of coals below and then placed the pig on logs that were laid across the pit. Despite the set-up catching fire a couple times, we enjoyed a nice pile of delicious pig that night.
Finally, upon returning from Matema, I continued on to Morogoro to do the actual training of the new class. 39 volunteers make up the group of incoming trainees, however the big difference between this and years past, aside from the scheduling, is that almost half of the group is English teachers. Recently, Peace Corps did an impact study here in Tanzania and found that our single greatest contribution is English language education. I’m not sure if that’s what motivated the switch to English teachers with the new classes, however, it has become a focus one way or another. This resulted in the size of my math group being significantly smaller which is both nice for the short term and disappointing for longer term goals.
I facilitated three sessions to varying degrees of success. The first day we had a math session dealing with the culture of defeatism that most Tanzanians have when it comes to math. Since the day was running slowly, it was kind of tacked carelessly on and ended up getting significantly shortened, which made anything beyond general conversations a challenge. The second day, our morning session was on logical thinking and problem solving and it went much better. We analyzed our own analysis of a Sudoku puzzle in order to identify methods of problem solving and then took a list of methods and applied them to a form 1 (first year of secondary school) math problem. It was a really good session with lots of discussion on how to teach at the introductory level. Finally, the afternoon session was kind of wiped away unfortunately. The original topic of group work was addressed through various other sessions in the previous weeks so we considered trying a physics lab for those who were interested. However, due to some miscommunication we ended up learning how to read 4-figure math tables which are necessary for the first half of secondary school so not all was lost. After sessions, we all went to dinner together and had an enjoyable evening of drinks and pizza.
The next day I had intended to go to the bus stand and get on a bus for home, however, July 7th (Sabasaba or sevenseven for those translating) is a national holiday much like our labor day. Therefore, people travel everywhere and even with an entire fleet of buses heading southwest, I was not able to find a seat. I was able to buy a ticket for the following day, which I did, then returned to the training site. The afternoon was the time period where the trainees learn about the sports and games that are played in the schools and so it was an opportunity to get exercise, something I am always in need of here.
The next day was a rather uneventful day of traveling, which I have learned to consider a good thing. Eventful usually means bad and so the fact that I woke up at a normal hour and was in Tukuyu before sunset made it a very good travel day.
Now I’m teaching from now until COS conference and then with long break approaching who knows what I’ll do the last month.
April and May were pretty much exclusively teaching time. It always works out that the first two to three months of class are the most consistent, productive class time that one has in the school year so it was good to dive in and get a chunk out of the way before things really took off. It was a little concerning how quickly I felt like I was exhausted of teaching however. I look at my teaching load and responsibilities here in country and it just baffles me how teachers in the states do what they do for as many hours a day as they do it. Yeah, teaching two classes the same thing is easier to prepare but it's just as tiring! Not to mention the extra work outside of class where you have to grade etc. Anyway, as with everything else, I'm much more grateful for our education system in the states having seen an alternative.
Things really started to pick up the first full week of June. I headed to Morogoro the first to attend what we call the Training of the Trainers, or TOT for short. PC loves their acronyms and you find that everything and everyone has some two to three letter combination used as a reference to speed up conversations. Anyway, TOT was a gathering of every person, volunteer, staff, or contracted help, to plan sessions for the incoming class of trainees (PCTs in case you were wondering). Each volunteer (PCV :P) had applied to facilitate various sessions during the training and so we spent most of the week refining our plans and trying to coordinate between sessions occurring other weeks.
I've always felt like I've done a good job of surrounding myself with people that are one step above me on the intellectual scale. If you look at my resume, I feel like it reads quite impressively but when I look at myself in the context of those around me, I often feel overshadowed. Things like TOT, highlight it the most for me. All these other amazing volunteers have really brilliant ideas for passing on important information and I'm left looking at relatively simplistic ideas presented in a boring way. Nevertheless, we finished the week with a solid product prepared for the new group when they arrived just more than a week after that.
The Saturday after closing TOT, I boarded a bus to head all the way back to Mbeya because the following Monday, I took 3 girls to our annual girls empowerment conference in Mbeya town. Each year, for the last 3 years, the volunteers in the Mbeya region have come together to plan and execute a girls empowerment conference that teaches young women in our communities life skills. We do some of the standard HIV and AIDS presentations, but we go beyond that also, encouraging girls to achieve the most out of their lives. We have successful women come in and give talks about their achievements and the decisions that got them there. We have sessions teaching about family planning and why waiting isn't just about sexual health. There's a session on self-defense where we teach the girls how to quickly get away from someone who may be about to assault them. All-in-all, it's a really fun time while still being a significant educational experience that teaches information that often does not filter down to students in Tanzania.
Every year there is a talent show and for the past 3 years the volunteers have made a production to put on stage alongside the girls' talents. This year we chose Waka Waka, the Shakira song that was created as the theme song to the World Cup in South Africa. I think the video is on youtube if you want to find it but it was one of my favorite moments as a volunteer. We choreographed only the first two verses of the song intentionally, partially because of time constraints and partially because we planned to include the girls, but after we did our portion of the dance we brought up the girls to dance with us on stage. It's clear to me now that that event was not just South Africa's but rather all of sub-Saharan Africa and since Waka Waka represents that event, it's also everyone's song. There was passion in that free-dance beyond what I could have expected and it was a really awesome moment of community. But that's what the arts and athletics can do, bring together two sides of the world and have them cheer in unity.
Following the girls conference was the one week of normalcy in the last 6 or so. I had to pull together my strength to actually teach for a full week. I thought it would be easy since I knew I was going to leave again soon but instead it turned out to be much harder. I just could not focus and it seemed to be a waste of time to put in the effort to make each lesson valuable. I did make it through the week (life is so hard, right?) which was followed by the A-level short break, a one week vacation.
I had already made plans to spend this week on a trip to visit Anna and Adrienne, health volunteers in my region, and so Saturday morning I packed up and rolled out to Mbeya to get the bus that would take me to their villages. Now, if I could have driven straight from my site to theirs it couldn't have been more that 50km, but because the roads are poor and the bus takes people to Mbeya, I had to travel the long way around by first traveling north out of my own valley to Mbeya and then south along the ridge to my west above my valley to get to their sites, probably a good 150-200km.
The week consisted mostly of getting to see the daily life of a health volunteer. There's somewhat of a disconnect sometimes between the lives of health and education volunteers at their respective sites. Education is very structured and we have things laid out for us where as health volunteers really have to develop their work on their own. Additionally, the houses of health volunteers are usually more spartan than those of education volunteers. Both have their benefits but the lifestyles are noticeably different. The differences in Mbeya are highlighted even more by the fact that the health volunteer sites are very village with no water, no electricity, and so forth, where as education volunteers live quite well compared to the majority of Tanzanians. We spent time playing lots of cards, exercising, and cooking in between seeing the various projects they worked on. We made lots of yummy food including two chocolate cakes...in two days.
We returned as a group and hiked Ngozi crater the following day. I think that was my 5th time doing the hike, but since it's such a nice hike, it just happens. Finally, after meeting up with additional friends, some PC, some not, we rented a car to travel to Matema Beach to celebrate the 4th of July. Again, I think this was my 5th time going to Matema Beach, but I could go 5 more times and not be satisfied, as it's the perfect mix of village and tourist all in one.
The group was fantastic and it could be split into smaller groups if that was more appropriate for the activity. There's little more to say than that it was as close to the quintessential beach party as you could get. We played baseball in the lake with my whiffle ball and bat (thanks mom!), relaxed in the sun and read a book every morning, and even roasted a pig on July 4th. So it was actually only half the pig but it was still legit. We dug a pit and lit a fire of coals below and then placed the pig on logs that were laid across the pit. Despite the set-up catching fire a couple times, we enjoyed a nice pile of delicious pig that night.
Finally, upon returning from Matema, I continued on to Morogoro to do the actual training of the new class. 39 volunteers make up the group of incoming trainees, however the big difference between this and years past, aside from the scheduling, is that almost half of the group is English teachers. Recently, Peace Corps did an impact study here in Tanzania and found that our single greatest contribution is English language education. I’m not sure if that’s what motivated the switch to English teachers with the new classes, however, it has become a focus one way or another. This resulted in the size of my math group being significantly smaller which is both nice for the short term and disappointing for longer term goals.
I facilitated three sessions to varying degrees of success. The first day we had a math session dealing with the culture of defeatism that most Tanzanians have when it comes to math. Since the day was running slowly, it was kind of tacked carelessly on and ended up getting significantly shortened, which made anything beyond general conversations a challenge. The second day, our morning session was on logical thinking and problem solving and it went much better. We analyzed our own analysis of a Sudoku puzzle in order to identify methods of problem solving and then took a list of methods and applied them to a form 1 (first year of secondary school) math problem. It was a really good session with lots of discussion on how to teach at the introductory level. Finally, the afternoon session was kind of wiped away unfortunately. The original topic of group work was addressed through various other sessions in the previous weeks so we considered trying a physics lab for those who were interested. However, due to some miscommunication we ended up learning how to read 4-figure math tables which are necessary for the first half of secondary school so not all was lost. After sessions, we all went to dinner together and had an enjoyable evening of drinks and pizza.
The next day I had intended to go to the bus stand and get on a bus for home, however, July 7th (Sabasaba or sevenseven for those translating) is a national holiday much like our labor day. Therefore, people travel everywhere and even with an entire fleet of buses heading southwest, I was not able to find a seat. I was able to buy a ticket for the following day, which I did, then returned to the training site. The afternoon was the time period where the trainees learn about the sports and games that are played in the schools and so it was an opportunity to get exercise, something I am always in need of here.
The next day was a rather uneventful day of traveling, which I have learned to consider a good thing. Eventful usually means bad and so the fact that I woke up at a normal hour and was in Tukuyu before sunset made it a very good travel day.
Now I’m teaching from now until COS conference and then with long break approaching who knows what I’ll do the last month.
7.11.2011
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
Well, this summer has turned out quite well. In regards to the quote it is what I thought of after spending a day in Worlds of Fun with my friends. If you think about it many activities that we find fun are yet in fact insane when you look at it from a different perspective. More or less this is leading up to my activities over the summer. I could go on but I shall refrain. This summer started out with me taking my friend to our Cabin in Minnesota. We did alot of things such as build traps and swimming.
Lots of swimming.
Our cousins from Wisconsin came to join us for the last two nights, and with them came the fireworks. We blew up the really big ones that you would put in a tube. My friend accidentally forgot to put it in the tube so thankfully we were shooting them off from inside the sandpit. They as well brought cherry bombs, and this just made my face light up like the fourth of July. Then on the last night we went midnight swimming and then watched The Butterfly Effect. By the time we were ready to sleep all the birds had started chirping and kept us awake. Thankfully we had a thirteen hour car drive ahead of us. Then on the fifth I left for KC with my friend. The first day we spent walking around Legends Mall before heading for Vans Warped Tour. This is a tour of a group of maybe 20-50 bands that play in different states together. We were only going for one in particular since we didn't really care for all of the others at all. The concert was great, it was hot. Well, then again compared to this it was nice. However they did have a extreme long and huge Slip 'n' Slide which was used for a very long time. The next day we spent at World's of Fun, and no I did not ride the Mamba I just don't want to and that's the reason. I rode everything else from opening to closing whilst eating Cinnabon in between. The next day we slept, relaxed and swam until we drove to the Royals game where it ended up being a good game for them even though they lost. We came back the next day and now I have just been recuperating and spending a lot of time indoors in front of a fan.
P.s. Sorry this is short and for those wondering the quote was Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens
Samuel/Sam'l/Sam/Samu Shook
Lots of swimming.
Our cousins from Wisconsin came to join us for the last two nights, and with them came the fireworks. We blew up the really big ones that you would put in a tube. My friend accidentally forgot to put it in the tube so thankfully we were shooting them off from inside the sandpit. They as well brought cherry bombs, and this just made my face light up like the fourth of July. Then on the last night we went midnight swimming and then watched The Butterfly Effect. By the time we were ready to sleep all the birds had started chirping and kept us awake. Thankfully we had a thirteen hour car drive ahead of us. Then on the fifth I left for KC with my friend. The first day we spent walking around Legends Mall before heading for Vans Warped Tour. This is a tour of a group of maybe 20-50 bands that play in different states together. We were only going for one in particular since we didn't really care for all of the others at all. The concert was great, it was hot. Well, then again compared to this it was nice. However they did have a extreme long and huge Slip 'n' Slide which was used for a very long time. The next day we spent at World's of Fun, and no I did not ride the Mamba I just don't want to and that's the reason. I rode everything else from opening to closing whilst eating Cinnabon in between. The next day we slept, relaxed and swam until we drove to the Royals game where it ended up being a good game for them even though they lost. We came back the next day and now I have just been recuperating and spending a lot of time indoors in front of a fan.
P.s. Sorry this is short and for those wondering the quote was Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens
Samuel/Sam'l/Sam/Samu Shook
Changes and Miracles
We had a long break between our posts because we switched with Pam and Randy. When it was originally our turn, we were very busy with our move and it worked well to switch with them as they are on vacation right now.
We have had very easily the busiest few months of our married life. First was Adelynn’s first birthday
Followed by Dave’s graduation
Last was making the move into our new house
As all you homeowners know, buying a house in itself was a process! It took a lot of time to make a criteria list, find the right house, get bank approval, negotiate, do paperwork, clean, pack, paint, move, etc. It is amazing how much happier we are now by being in this house. It is a different world to live in a house of our own instead of renting and having downstairs neighbors who like to have parties that start at midnight several nights a week.
Our lives have been full of recent adjustments but it is so nice to be back in town again!! The house is one of the reasons. Although, Dave having a real job, Dave having a life with no homework, being close to family and friends, are all really nice reasons!
Besides adjusting to our new life in Hutch, we are very involved at church. We will both be helping with VBS in August. It will be in the evenings at Journey. Dave will be doing photography and putting slide shows together each night. I will be helping out with crafts. Adelynn will be playing with the other kids her age. Besides VBS, Dave is going to start helping with the technology at church very soon and I am already back in Praise Team. We will also start helping in the nursery 1-2 Sundays each month. Whew! I think that will keep us busy every Sunday! In addition to that, we have had this vision to start a young marrieds, or just young adult Bible Study. We thoroughly enjoyed the one we were a part of in Manhattan and have looked forward to starting one of our own. In high school I babysat every Sunday and Thursday evening for two different Bible Studies. I loved that in both cases I would just play with the kids in the basement or outside while the parents had their study. Having the backyard we do and the basement space, our house would be a perfect setup for that!
This weekend was our first one with almost no plans in a very long time. It was the first one to not fill up and it was SO nice to have a weekend to ourselves. We were able to go to a movie in Wichita on Friday night and Dave was able to offer computer help to Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday.
(By the way, seeing Transformers in IMAX 3D was totally worth it!! And by that I mean both the expensive tickets and the dorky glasses!)
On Sunday after church we went to my Grandma’s for lunch just for fun and my brother’s house to see it now that the inside is finished. It is a typical bachelor pad, except exceptionally clean. The outside isn’t done, so it still looks like a barn. It is affectionately called “The Barn”. After that it was WAY too hot to do anything so we went home and relaxed in the basement and didn’t bother cooking dinner. After having a Quiznos dinner we went to Aunt Carol’s pool for the evening. It was so great to have the relaxing time together.
Adelynn has become quite the water bug. At the beginning of the Summer, she wanted nothing to do with it.
Now she loves the water! She’s not a fan of the cold water, and her attention span is that of a typical 15 month old, but she is no longer afraid of the water. YAY!
(Sorry that last one is sideways. I tried and tried and it just kept uploading sideways.)
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!
We have had very easily the busiest few months of our married life. First was Adelynn’s first birthday
Followed by Dave’s graduation
Last was making the move into our new house
As all you homeowners know, buying a house in itself was a process! It took a lot of time to make a criteria list, find the right house, get bank approval, negotiate, do paperwork, clean, pack, paint, move, etc. It is amazing how much happier we are now by being in this house. It is a different world to live in a house of our own instead of renting and having downstairs neighbors who like to have parties that start at midnight several nights a week.
Our lives have been full of recent adjustments but it is so nice to be back in town again!! The house is one of the reasons. Although, Dave having a real job, Dave having a life with no homework, being close to family and friends, are all really nice reasons!
Besides adjusting to our new life in Hutch, we are very involved at church. We will both be helping with VBS in August. It will be in the evenings at Journey. Dave will be doing photography and putting slide shows together each night. I will be helping out with crafts. Adelynn will be playing with the other kids her age. Besides VBS, Dave is going to start helping with the technology at church very soon and I am already back in Praise Team. We will also start helping in the nursery 1-2 Sundays each month. Whew! I think that will keep us busy every Sunday! In addition to that, we have had this vision to start a young marrieds, or just young adult Bible Study. We thoroughly enjoyed the one we were a part of in Manhattan and have looked forward to starting one of our own. In high school I babysat every Sunday and Thursday evening for two different Bible Studies. I loved that in both cases I would just play with the kids in the basement or outside while the parents had their study. Having the backyard we do and the basement space, our house would be a perfect setup for that!
This weekend was our first one with almost no plans in a very long time. It was the first one to not fill up and it was SO nice to have a weekend to ourselves. We were able to go to a movie in Wichita on Friday night and Dave was able to offer computer help to Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday.
(By the way, seeing Transformers in IMAX 3D was totally worth it!! And by that I mean both the expensive tickets and the dorky glasses!)
On Sunday after church we went to my Grandma’s for lunch just for fun and my brother’s house to see it now that the inside is finished. It is a typical bachelor pad, except exceptionally clean. The outside isn’t done, so it still looks like a barn. It is affectionately called “The Barn”. After that it was WAY too hot to do anything so we went home and relaxed in the basement and didn’t bother cooking dinner. After having a Quiznos dinner we went to Aunt Carol’s pool for the evening. It was so great to have the relaxing time together.
Adelynn has become quite the water bug. At the beginning of the Summer, she wanted nothing to do with it.
Now she loves the water! She’s not a fan of the cold water, and her attention span is that of a typical 15 month old, but she is no longer afraid of the water. YAY!
(Sorry that last one is sideways. I tried and tried and it just kept uploading sideways.)
Speaking of Adelynn, she had quite the week of falls. First was the face plant on the driveway that ended up in a fat lip and scraped upper lip and nose. Next was the fall down the back porch steps which resulted in knots on her forehead. After that was a fall that ended with her cheek meeting the laptop corner and last was hitting the other side of her forehead on the stove corner. Even after all that, she is still fearless. (Except when it comes to loud fireworks and large birds). She is getting to be more fun all the time :)
A small miracle in our lives is our garage door. We had a garage sale a few weeks ago to get rid of some junk. We decided with the money that we would get a new garage door opener because ours was broken. The garage sale totaled $300 for us. A new garage door opener installed is not much more than that!! That was amazing. However, what is more amazing than that is the fact that after the garage sale, our garage door started to work 100% of the time!! So the new opener is no longer an immediate need for us!
Dave is really enjoying work and getting to know all his coworkers. He still has time for his family and friends and we couldn’t ask for more. I am enjoying the summertime and plan to start online classes again in the Fall. I am just starting a blog, check it out if you’re interested.
A small miracle in our lives is our garage door. We had a garage sale a few weeks ago to get rid of some junk. We decided with the money that we would get a new garage door opener because ours was broken. The garage sale totaled $300 for us. A new garage door opener installed is not much more than that!! That was amazing. However, what is more amazing than that is the fact that after the garage sale, our garage door started to work 100% of the time!! So the new opener is no longer an immediate need for us!
Dave is really enjoying work and getting to know all his coworkers. He still has time for his family and friends and we couldn’t ask for more. I am enjoying the summertime and plan to start online classes again in the Fall. I am just starting a blog, check it out if you’re interested.
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!
7.08.2011
A few July 4th Pictures
 |
| Catching the last of the 4th of July Parade with Hannah |
 |
| Happy 4th! |
 |
| Adelynn and Grandma appreciating Aunt Sarah's favorites: the horses!! (For the record Shona did not.) |
 |
| Olivia playing with Great-Grandpa |
7.05.2011
7.04.2011
4th of July Pictures!!!!
Adelynn telling me something important
Shona looking spiffy in her flag bandanna at the parade
And this would be how my day ended...
Happy 4th of July from the Givan household.
We enjoyed breakfast, the parade and lunch with Grandma and Grandpa and all those in attendance. After returning home, we tried to get a couple of pictures of the "girls" dressed in their 4th of July gear. Chris completed his day by making a bike stand. The bike hangs from a cross bar so he can work on it.
Love you all
Auntie
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