Easter Lunch

Just wanted to share some pictures of the day my family and I shared together on Easter...

Me and my love Ada (she loves the camera!)

Ada and her mommy Sally

My cousin Stephen and his girlfriend Katie who I absolutely love! She is a professional chef!

My aunt Robin and uncle Phil

John and I's dog Buster who decided he liked eating the rose petals (clearly he's got quite refined tastes!) And my favorite brother Lowell is in the background.  I don't think he knows I got this picture of him!! mwwwwwahahahaha

My mom and Ada.  We decided Ada has got her grandma's number dialed in!!! Luckily grandma is grandma and gets to spoil her!!

Happy Easter!!!

A Bachelor's Diet in Africa

One thing I like about being home is the fresh food we have available.  I also don't have to wash the veggies in a dilute bleach concentration.  It gives the food a funny taste, is probably somewhat toxic, and the texture is always a bit slimy even after rinsing thoroughly.

My mom and I do this sort-of food co-op called Bountiful Baskets.  Each week you decide you want a basket, you pay either $15 for conventional produce or $25 for organic.  My mom usually buys organic and you get one big tub of veggies and another big tub of fruit. 

Here are some pictures of Saturday's basket:

We put both baskets together in one box to take them home.  As you can see bananas, oranges, mangos, romaine lettuce, strawberries.

 A closer look at this beautiful head of organic romaine lettuce.

 A bunch of organic broccolini...

 And hidden in the bottom of the box: eggplant, asparagus, a bunch of sweet potatoes, and cucumbers.

I just love having this variety of healthy fruits and veggies at a pretty good cost.  My mom and I also volunteer to distribute the baskets so we each got a pineapple as well.  Not bad for $25 of organic produce.

While I didn't write this post to share about the lovely produce (although if you know me well... I am a bit of a health nut and LOVE talking food, especially healthy), I did start writing this post to share how my husband and I can be two very different people in terms of food.  He is actually very willing to eat healthy if the meal is prepared for him.  He loves salads, growing his own garden and eating the fruits of his labor, and he loves green smoothies. 

However, left to his own devices, especially in a land far far away, without his wife, where there is a lack of variety in produce, John will buy what is easy, convenient, and tasty...

He sent me a picture of the goods purchased from his last shopping trip into Freetown.
We have from left to right:

• Laughing cow cheese
• 2 tins of canned luncheon meat
• "Pasta and Sauce" meal in a bag... "just add water type" (I don't know if you can see but the brand is "Bachelors" brand lol!)
• Strawberry fruit snacks
• Oaties (deceptively low in oatmeal) cookies
• Cheoko Balls (I believe they are like those fluffed cheese balls)
• 2 flavor packets: cheddar cheese and chili con carne (not exactly sure what he is going to do with those)
• Corntos (fried corn chips?)
• Funkees (like cheetohs)

John... feel free to correct me if I was wrong about any of these food items.  John sent me this picture and I couldn't help but laugh.  In most of these things I see little nutritional value.  However, I frankly don't blame him.  There is such a lack of variety and an increased difficulty in preparing your own foods mixed with the lack of refridgeration where I, too, threw my "health nut tendencies" out the window because I just wanted to eat!!! 

I think John got a lot of joy out of seeing my eyes light up for gummi bears and eat white bread sandwiches with a smile on my face.  While I am ashamed to admit it, if those things were put in front of me when I was in America I probably would have turned my nose up at them and held out to eat later in the day.  Africa changed a lot of things about me, and the food I was willing to eat was just one of them.  I can't wait to see what a baby will do to my life! 

Nevertheless, I can't wait for John to get home so I can take care of him again.  I want to spoil him at his favorite restaurants (Carolina's and Polibertos... hole in the wall Mexican food places) as well as feed him very nutritious meals that counteract any damage he's done lol!  I want us to be as healthy as we can be so we can continue living in order to do the Lord's work and see our family grow long into old age.

Thanks for reading... its been kind of a long and personal post... and only 8 more days till my husband returns!!!! I cannot wait! I've missed him so much!

All to Him I Owe

This song makes me cry every time!!

Walking the Dogs

This is how our dog Buster feels about going on a walk...

Notice the blurriness of his tail because it is wagging, I can see some teeth (almost as if he's smiling... but not as much as this dog)  This dog is VERY excited about an evening stroll...

What about this dog???

This is my parent's dog Sadie.  She is a brittany spaniel that does love to walk but you couldn't tell that by the way she behaves when we put on her leash and gentle leader. 

She cowers and stays in the same spot nearly frozen until we pull her outside.  She acts very similarly when we arrive at the vets except maybe add the shakes. We laugh the whole time because it is quite ridiculous!! I've never seen a dog do this before but it keeps us amused! hehe

I chopped it!

Long hair was just too hard to deal with in the heat of Sierra Leone...

Hopefully John likes it when he sees it when he comes back from "the bush" on Wednesday...  He's always wanted me to keep it long.

I'm donating it to Locks of Love.  I figured if I was going to cut my hair I might as well do something good with it.

I went to see my hairdresser that I started going to when I was 7th grade.  Her name is Dina and she did my hair for every prom and also for my wedding.  Because I was donating it she didn't charge me!  Isn't that the sweetest thing?  She says she likes to pay it forward.  Her salon is on 16th street and Bethany Home Rd. in Phoenix and is called Salon Kismet.  Thanks Dina!!

1.5 Gallons of Water a Day!!!!

I spoke with John today about the well drilling... Here is how the progress is going:

• 12 feet dug in Days 1 and 2
• 12 feet dug in Day 3!!!

Apparently there was a lot of rock in the first 12 feet so they had trouble using their equipment, but today it softened up quite a bit.  They are hoping to dig about 50 feet for this well so they are halfway there.

Insight into our private phone conversation:

K: Wow you guys must be working really hard!
J: Yeah we are
K: All this manual labor you must be getting pretty fit! (side note... John was already totally fit when I left Sierra Leone)
J:  Yeah... I drink so much water... probably a gallon and a half a day!
K: Wow! Thats a lot!  Do you pee a lot??
J: (laughs) No! I don't pee at all!!!! But it probably looks like I pee my pants from all the sweat that runs down!
*Note: he did later confirm that he pees in the morning but thats it!

It just blows my mind 1.5 gallons of water A DAY!!!????  Thats 6 of these 32 ounce water bottles!!!

And he just sweats out the rest!!! I can't believe it!!

If everything goes well they will be actively digging for another 2 days, but it could take as many as 4.  Even despite the hard work and blistered hands, John tells me how much fun he is having working with the guys.  He can't wait for me to strap on Baby C and come out there with him ("to log their progress and do the cooking" he says. I said "what, you don't want to just eat bread?" lol!) I told him I want to try my hand at some digging!!! 

Port Loko... the land of bread bread and more bread

John left for a small village outside of the town Port Loko yesterday for 10-14 days.
On the map Port Loko is just above Freetown... but about a 2 hour drive.

He was very excited to go start a well-drilling project there.  Him, John Barry (who is Chad's employee), and two other Sierra Leoneans traveled with him.  John is basically camping out for the 2 weeks.  He brought a tent, a water filter, and a small cooking stove.

Because you all know how I am such a foodie, I asked John what he's been eating so far...

Here was today's menu:

Breakfast:    bread and eggs   (he cooked for himself)
Lunch:         bread with peanut butter and jelly 
Dinner:        bread with laughing cow cheese

What a trooper he is!  Usually the community will be cooking local fare for lunch for John and the men, but today John had to go into town to get one of the drilling parts re-welded after it broke. 

In fact somebody in the community hit a sheep with his motorcycle today so he's hoping that will show up in his lunch tomorrow... 

except John would write "I ate it with hot peppers and rice"

6 months today!

Yay!  2/3 down... 3 months to go!

Here are a few pictures I made my mom take of me before church.  I really need my cousin Stephen to do some good quality pregnancy photos but I need to wait till my man gets back in 4 weeks.  It seems like this time away from him is just dragging on for me.

Planting a Garden

Last Saturday I got the urge to plant a garden in my parents' front yard.  I had my dad go to home depot to pick out flowers and veggies.  I wanted him to pick them out since it's his house and I wanted him to be happy with the choices.

Of course my dad did all the weeding and prepping of the bed lol!  But I organized the flowers and veggies into the areas I wanted them planted.

I planted all the flowers...

 Marigolds

Sweet Alyssiums

 Irises (these were bulbs that just come up year after year)

I also planted this jalapeno pepper plant.  I had to plant it on the other side of the garden from the veggies my dad was planting because my dad was planting red and yellow bell peppers.  Hot and sweet peppers cross pollinate.  John and I learned that lesson the hard way when we lived in Flagstaff and couldn't figure out while the hot peppers we planted were so mild!

Here is my dad planting 3 tomato plants, 2 sweet pepper plants, cilantro, chives, and a few other herbs.

My dad refuses to get a facebook account so I had to get him on the world-wide web in one way or another bwwwwahahahaha!!!!!

I can't wait till these flowers and vegetable really begin to thrive!