Kitties

When I was a little girl ever summer held a huge adventure of sneakily finding kittens when good ol' Molly came to the dish skinnier than she had been.  Then, sometime between then and now we had a "dry spell" in the cat area and hardly had any cute fluffy little buddies.  However, the cat population has been on the rise around here again!  The only difference from those sweet memories of finding kittens in the hayloft is that now our cats seem to have missed the part of motherhood class where their told to hide their babies from the little human girls and move them if we play with them too much... This summer we've had 6 mother cats pool their babies in the dog house!  They don't seem to care who plays with them or even which kittens they feed, it's just one big happy family!

Quite A Hair DO!

As you probably saw on my posts when I got home, I got my hair braided again right before I left Cameroon.  I didn't post the pictures then because I was keeping it a surprise for everyone at home here :) so here's the pictures of the process of the braiding, as well as the removal!

It takes around 8 hours to "plat"!

Christian was such a wonderful friend!!

It was fun to have in, but had to come out, so I recruited some help! :)

Even with all four of us working... it still took almost 3 hours to un-braid!! ... official count = 166 braids!

I was a little "PUFFY" when we were done!

Yeah... Scary!

And with hair like this, who can resist doing a "cousin it" !!!  Brings back great memories of my cousin Michelle :) 

Jody

A picture I stole from Mindy, of Jody... it's just so typical, sweet, and beautiful, I had to share.  She's one of the hardest workers I know with a heart so big it makes mine melt quite often.  She's a girl like no other and I couldn't possibly be more proud to call her my sister.  I Love her SO MUCH! <3

Funny Friut

Just had to share these pictures of a quite abnormal Banana we ran across in Buea :) 

Dina

This picture is especially for Vickie :)  This is Dina, the sweet little girl in Buea who received the dress that you  (Vickie) made and sent over.  She was a very worthy recipient of the very much appreciated gift.  She came by quite often, while selling her puff puff after school.  Her clothes were always tattered and torn, and you can see the smile this new dress put on her face :) Thank you so much Vickie, from Dina and I.

Eglise Adventiste

Just a picture...

...of a precious place on earth.  This little church in Buea has a very special place in my heart.

Quilt In The Making!

This is what it looks like now....

Waiting in bundles by row for me to have time to put them together!

...Stay tuned!

Rain

Just had to share a recent awesome answer to prayer.  Thursday night after family worship mom said to partner up with someone and pray for rain before going to bed, we did...

 ...went to bed and woke up at 3:50am that night/Friday morning to wind rocking the upstairs and this outside!

Nothing else in the whole country, but God answers prayers!

Running and Climbing in Eureka!

I'm truly sorry that it has been so long since you've heard from me!  People ask me if it's "good to be home" and I have to smile and say, "well, I'm not really sure yet!"  It feels like I've been gone far more than I've been home, which, really is true!  

I PROMISE at least a post ever-other-day from here on out!  It's been busy and I have a lot to catch you up on, along with more odds and ends from Africa!

Soo, here it is, starting with today...

This morning I got to participate in the Eureka Patriots annual 5K run!

There were over 100 participants up for the morning run, it was REAL windy and last night's (much needed) rain made the gravel route around the lake nice and muddy!

Mom and the twins met me on the home stretch with lots of encouragement and an awesome sign!

The finish line!

I finished 5th in my age category, just ahead of our neighbor, Susan, who was 3rd in hers! :)

At the beginning you think to yourself, "this is REDICULUS! I will NEVER, never EVER do this again!"  But as soon as you cross the finish line you think, "Well, that wasn't so bad... I wanna try again!"

And now, the real HIGHLIGHT of the day...

Eureka is celebrating their "Quazi" 125th anniversary, that's the reason for all the action down there today, so the whole family went back down this afternoon.  Right when we were leaving we noticed the sign on the rock wall that said if you reach the top of the "HARD" side you win $100! Sounds too good to be true, typical of carnival attractions, and we saw a kid try and fail... but I took a close look at where he fell and felt that I could probably manage... Dad wasn't convinced and I was reluctant to spend the $10 to give it a try, but I finally decided I had to try!  I started out and realized there's a reason the prize is $100, I had a sick feeling that my $10 would be gone but I pulled in as close to the wall as I could and kept slowly feeling out the rock... eventually I found it and made it up! I banged on the orange circle until the guy smiled and told me to come down, I stayed there, not cumming down until he confirmed that I'd made it!!  He yelled at his boss to bring him $100! ... the boss was not happy, and another worker came over in dis-belief and said he'd never seen it done before!

I had a good day in Eureka, SD. :)

OVERDUE UPDATE

I would like to apologize for the fact that I have appeared to vanish from existence since I returned home in the beginning of May.  I only have one sad excuse, it's been SO BUSY!  let me tell you...

We went to the 3ABN Campmeeting in IL, an amazing trip full of inspiring and challenging sermons dealing with Bible prophecy.

Got to see the 3ABN broadcasting sets between a few meetings

It was a super fun family time too!

Mom and I in the 3ABN Kitchen Set!

The Gang!

I've also been enjoying my juicer VERY MUCH, this ladies and gentlemen is banana ice cream, there is nothing at all in this cup but pure, delicious, healthy fruit!!

As soon as we got back from IL, it was unpack and re-pack for Dakota Campmeeting!!  My precious church family had a little celebration for me this weekend!

Celebrating my birthday with pastor Bob :)

This is a group of my friends and I after an early morning run... Mary surprised me with an entry to a 5K race on Sunday for my birthday!  It was so much fun, my first one ever!!  It was a great first experience... I followed Mary who finished 1st and took 2nd myself in the female division, now I'm inspired for more!

....

RIGHT NOW I should be finishing up the tail ends of Prairie Bible Camp preparations... and getting some sleep eventually, tomorrow morning we're headed to Lehr for another action-packed week! Pictures to come :) stay tuned!

Soya

I ordered a juicer and grain mill attachment and was very excited to try it out!  Paul was too so we dug in! 

We made whole wheat flour which became pancakes the next morning ( Mmmmm :) )

And ground soy beans which became milk, tofu, and other goodies.

Milking the soya cow!

Belgian Sweets! ~ And On To The States~

One of the highlights in Brussels was was the waffles, candy, and chocolate shops!!

They make your mouth drop open, then water... my favorite parts were the free samples in a couple shops!

Mmmmmm.....

More candy and sugary goodness than you can imagine!

We had to get a Belgian Waffle since we were in Belgium and all... only problem was... the cost a WHOLE lot more than we really wanted to spend... a base price for the waffle and another euro for each topping.... so, needless to say... the super delicious looking ones, covered in chocolate, with whipped cream, strawberries, peanuts, and caramel on top.... well, those were a little out of our budget.....

.... so we got a one that was still simply delicious with caramel and chocolate, and shared it! :)  Yay for legit Belgium Waffles!

Here's a sad example of the $$ of some of the beautifully delicious Belgian chocolates!  Notice the tray on the scale, .34Kg, for 22 euros, that'd be $30 :S

Yum!

Just when you thought there couldn't be anymore amazing sweets...

There's MORE!

We got rained on a little durring our exploring and really couldn't find anywhere to warm up, plus, our blood had been thoroughly thinned by the past 7 months in Africa, and we were FREEZING!  So when we done exploring and frozen to the bone we started to find our way back to the airport.

We were to cheap for any of the real eating places we found, so back in the airport we found a "supermarket" and got carrots and feasted on a loaf of bread we had gotten and a few precious Belgian Chocolates!  And spent the rest of the night in the airport trying to warm up and thaw our toes!

Mmmmm Chocolate!

Airplane meal!

Customs in Philadelphia went beautifully and when we walked through the officers said "welcome home" it felt SO GOOD!!

Once we found a place to eat in Chicago Mary sat down and fell asleep all in one motion!

We met our first delay of our ENTIRE trip (going in September and returning in May) in Chicago, it rained and hailed and all the flights were delayed.

It was a crowded airport but we got to Omaha where our friends were waiting! :)  

God is SO GOOD!