Mother's Day

Enjoying Spring

I am enjoying spring this year. I was thinking about it the other day why does it seems so relaxing this year and then it hit me. It seemed unusually quiet in the neighborhood. Normally we would be busy with all kinds of sports activities like soccer or baseball. However this year we missed all the deadlines for sign ups for the boys when we were in Ethiopia. We wanted to take it easy anyway but somehow between our travel and not getting an answer from the league we don't have any extra activities on our calendar. Every spring we are busy driving around to practice and eating dinner in the car and meeting Fil on the fields after he gets off work. This spring we are able to sit down at the table and enjoy a nice meal as a family in peace. We have time for a walk around the neighborhood and are enjoying all the bright spring colors.
We also have had time to play with Jordan and are getting to know her more and figuring out her schedule. Please do not get me wrong. I have nothing against sports activities. It just some how worked out for our family and it is what we needed. We have free weekends to do stuff around the house or take family trips (or work on Jordan's paperwork which seems to never end).
So here are some of the spring colors from my garden that I have been trying to capture.

We finally got solar lights for our front walkway. I love it.

Hair Cut

I did it. I cut Emma's hair. She has very fine blond hair and it was time to do something with it. She is a very squirmy little thing so it took a couple of evenings to get her hair cut just right. Anyway here she is. It is not in her face all the time and she looks cute in it. It is much easier to do her hair in the morning now.
Here is our silly little girl playing peek-a-boo with me on the front porch. She is so full of energy and she loves to be the center of attention. She loves to play outside with the kids. That means most of my activities are moving outdoors at this point.

Shopping in Addis ET

I do not consider myself a shopping expert. I do like to shop and who doesn’t like a good bargain. In Ethiopia you can enjoy shopping. There were two types of shops. One where you will have to haggle and one with fixed prices. I did have fun haggling the prices down. I know some people may not feel comfortable doing so. First of all the prices are cheap to begin with. I believe it is polite to haggle a little if you are not comfortable doing so. There were two places where we haggled prices. One were shops on the streets very close to Hilton (by the way in one of these shops we met one of the nannies who works at the TH she gave me great prices on scarves) and the other was Mercado the largest open air market in Africa.

The shops had similar items for sale at both locations. I got better deals in Mercado but that is because I was done shopping for everything I wanted. I was looking only for very good deals and that meant I walked away from some stores. However most of the time I got the price down good. For example I saw these birds (guineafowl) at the Hilton hotel were prices were fixed for 25birr each. That is about $2.50. Not a bad deal. I really like them and I was planning on getting them at the hotel. I saw them at Mercado and she gave me an initial price of 40 birr a piece. I already knew I could get them cheaper somewhere else so I told her I would give her 80 birr for all four. I went down half price and I wasn’t willing to go one birr up. It didn't bother me where I bought them so I stayed firm on my offer. She called me back several times and at finally I did get them for 80 birr. I wasn’t this aggressive all the time.

Then there were stores with fixed prices and there are ton of them. I will try to mention a few of these stores for those of you not comfortable haggling. Let me start by saying that even the fixed priced stores have some good prices. Maybe a little bit more for some things but I did find better prices for some items as well (compared to haggled prices).

First there are the Hilton shops. All of them were great with great stuff in them. I did get few things downstairs (They take visa by the way). However, for some items they can be pricey.
Haileselassie Alemayehu on Churchchill Road, Theodros Square. I loved this store. They had everything. They had a great selection of Mesobs. They started at 450 birr. Just to let you know I paid 300 birr for mine. I know from Penelope how much she paid for hers and I wasn’t willing to pay more. However, this store had a great selection of different sizes of Mesobs. The smaller ones were much cheaper. They also had silver jewelery. We got a drum for the boys and some wooden crosses as gifts. If you don't want to haggle and want one stop shopping then that was the place. Another store was at the Alert Hospital. They had nice tablecloths. Sales benefit the leper hospital.
The other day I came across Our Walk By Faith blog. They were in ET last month and they did their shopping at the international church. I believe she wrote it was last weekend of every month so you might want to check that out.
I almost forgot about coffee. Yes I did buy few bags. They are a very good for filling in dead space in your suitcases. We got our coffee at Caffe TOMOCA . We paid 20birr for a bag. Very good coffee by the way.
By the way I am updating and editing posts with new pictures on our blog entries from Ethiopia. So far I have first few days. You can click on the right side of the blog with the time line where I put links to the entries that I done so far. It has been very emotional for me to go back to editing pictures from our trip. Somehow I end up crying each time I sit down and look at them. I do not remember crying when we saw Jordan for the first time but going back and looking at those pictures is like I am back there again.

Sunday Reflections

And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."

Genesis 1:20

Dolls

I came across Amy's blog last week when she made dolls with her friends. They looked so cute that I had to try them as well. So this was my project for this week.First I made one for Emma and Jordan. When the boys saw them they would not leave me alone until I made a little Sam and Nate as well. Then I just had to add mom and dad.
I had so much fun making them. You can find the pattern right here . Have fun!!!

Awana

Tonight we had our last Awana for this school year. Both boys finished their books and are moving onto their next ones in the fall. We are very proud of them both.They are growing up so quickly. I cannot believe this was Sam's 4th year and Nate's 3rd. They did a great job at the end since we were gone and busy with Jordan. They learned many verses on their own and did great. Don't ask me about Nate's blue mouth. I have no idea where that came from. I didn't notice it until I took the pictures.
Sam getting excited about the awards.
Nate getting his ribbon and diploma.
And Sam. Mr. and Mrs. B are so great with the kids. This has been their 15th year as leaders for this Awana club. They do a great job.

CONGRATULATIONS BOYS!!!