My African "Toto"

The word for baby in Swahili is "mtoto", aka "toto".  Micah sure makes a cute African one dressed in full gear :) Whenever I go to the Markets around here, it never fails that I come home with something I didn't intend on buying. This lovely African outfit is a perfect example. A lady kept on begging me to buy it from her, so I eventually gave in-mostly just so she would leave me alone. It only cost me 50 shillings (which is less than a dollar), so I was not too upset with the purchase. I bought it several months ago and had forgotten about it until I recently ran across it in Micah's closet. I could tell it was getting way too small for him, so I thought I had better get some pictures while I could. I especially love his little diaper hanging out.

Water, Water, Everywhere

Water, Water, Everywhere is the name of a well-known swimsuit store in the States.  Although, I do not recall ever buying anything from the store, I did always think the store name was pretty catchy. Unfortunately, in Africa, "water, water, everywhere" has come to mean something totally different-a more literal term. 

A few days ago I was awakened by Paul at 4:30am. My first thought in my unconscious state was, "Oh no, Paul's sick," as that is normally why he would wake me up at that time. However, that was not the case this time. Paul had gotten up to use the bathroom and had stepped down into about an inch of water. I quickly turned on the lamp beside my bed and noticed that there was water covering our entire floor--I was not a happy camper! I ran to our bathroom to look for the problem, but everything was dry. We didn't have any water though-guess that's what happens when all of it is on your floors! There were several items on the floors that got drenched-clothes, suitcases, a pillow, some books...but the only item that was completely ruined was Paul's i-pod. No fun!

We scoped out our house to try to see where all the water had flooded in from...only to find that our hallway and Micah's room was also completely drenched. We quickly snuck into Micah's room and turned his fan off since the cord was lying in water. He woke up for a few minutes, but thankfully went back to sleep.

 It took us awhile to figure out where the water was coming from, but we finally figured out it was from our guest bathroom. We have had water issues off and on for awhile now, and they seemed to have gotten worse in the past week. There has been several mornings where we have not had any water at all and we have had a constant leak in our guest bathroom. Lets just say the plumber has been a frequent visitor lately. 

Paul and I spent the next hour and a half attempting to clean up the flood in our room. I mopped and mopped and mopped...while Paul took a wet a towel and squeezed it into our shower over and over. Even though the floor was still pretty wet, at about 6am we decided to go to sleep and finish in the "morning" as I knew once Micah was up I would be too. :)

We woke up at around 7:30 and finished the job in our room. Thankfully, our house helper, Josephine, arrived in time to help attack Micah's room-we needed the help! Some other friends arrived to help too, and the rest of the day was spent trying to fix the problem. We thought the problem was fixed, but then it all happened again at 6:30pm. I was getting ready to put Micah down for the night and whooooooshhhhhhhh-here came another flood. We tried to stop it, but couldn't and we once again had to clean up about an inch deep of water. Some other friends came over and fixed us dinner and held Micah while Paul and I conquered the disaster. We were exhausted by the end of the evening. 

Since then there has been a few days where we have once again had no water at all. My patience is about gone after last week...I am hoping the problems are truly "fixed" once and for all :) 

It is hard to see, but this is our bedroom floor covered in H2O 
This is the evil place where the "leak" started...
Attempting to mop up our bedroom at 5am
I filled up about 6 of these just from the water on our bedroom floor-not to mention the millions of towels that Paul squeezed out!

This is round 2 where we attempted to stop the water with the towels...but it didn't work!

Paul cleaning up Micah's room so he could get to bed!

Valentine's Date

Yay for Date Night-finally!! :) It is much more difficult finding time to do this now that we have Micah PLUS are living in Africa. The easiness of finding babysitters here in Africa just isn't the same as in the States. However, on Valentine's Day, we were blessed by some friends to come and stay with Micah while we went out. The little man slept the whole time, and I think our friends enjoyed hanging out eating and watching movies. 

There are several local restaurants we wanted to try, but we ended up going to a place called "Rudy's" which a friend had recommended. It is a Swiss/French cuisine, and Paul was really craving some sort of fondue and a steak. We arrived around 7:20pm and were seated outside. We immediately noticed the romantic atmosphere for the "Love Day" as there was a jazz band playing and the place was decorated beautifully with dimmed lighting. We had been seated for a few minutes when the waitress came and brought us our starting "cocktail" for the evening. Although it was a very pretty red-looking drink, we told her we don't drink and asked for water and a coke. We also asked her for a menu, but she pointed to the center of the table where our "pre-set menu" for the evening was placed. It was a six course Valentine's special meal. I quickly skimmed the menu to see if there was anything Paul would like. Since he is extremely picky, I was a little worried what he would eat for the evening--plus he really was craving some fondue. However, to my surprise, he ate almost everything they served...and enjoyed it too!

The Menu for the night:

Bread with some sort of spread

Lemon Grass Chicken Broth

Watermelon and Feta Balsamic Salad

Lime Sorbet

Steak with a mushroom glaze, potatoes, and fresh veggies

"A Valentine's Surprise" for dessert (see a pic below-it was yummy!)

Tea (Kenyan Chai) or coffee

It ended up being about a 3 hour meal. It was delicious and we have decided that we just have to go back on a "normal" day to get Paul's fondue :)

Not only was it absolutely delicious, but I loved the presentation-especially the cinnamon sprayed fork!

"NAPpy" Hair :)

I just love when Micah wakes up happy from his naps. I could just sit and listen to him talk to himself all day...it is so precious! The other day I went in to get him after nap-time and was greeted with a big "gummy" grin and him jumping up and down...but what I really noticed was his crazy hair! It was standing straight up with little curls-and is long! It definitely was some nap-py hair :) Lately I have noticed how much it has grown-especially the top, but I still am not quite ready to cut it. Anyway, I just had to get the camera because he was too cute. 

"Hi Mommy!"
"I'm so excited to see you!"

"Okay, enough pictures...just pick me up!"