Some Random Pics of our First Couple Weeks...

I wanted to post some pictures of family life in Ghana our first couple of weeks...

Here is a picture of the hallway in our house the morning we were unpacking.  Its kind of crazy that we had everything (minus our clothes) for the next 3 months packed in 12 black bins.  It was the fastest "move in" I've ever done!  :)  At the end of the hall is a doorway to the left into the kids bedroom and bathroom.  The 3 big girls are sharing a large king size bed and the 2 little ones share a bed on the floor.  Don also has his "office" in there during the day.  Its quite nice in there at night with the AC.  The doorway to the right is the doorway into our room and bathroom.  We have a ceiling fan in our room which makes the nights quite bearable after cold showers.  (we seriously LOVE our cold showers here) 

Any of you who know Chloe will not be surprised to learn she is great buddies with Ernestina by now.  She follows Ernestina around during the days like a little shadow "helping" with the household tasks.    Here she is helping to do the dishes...

...and "helping" to take the laundry off the line!

We started school up again this week as we all needed to discover our new routine.  Here's the little ones working on some preschool activities...

The big girls all got new Bibles when we got here.  They were Kady and Ally's first "real" Bibles in the NIRV version.  This little girl can't get enough.  She read through the book of Genesis in 4 days.  Her hunger for God's Word challenges her Momma!  I love her heart...

As I suspected would happen, we arrived in Ghana with several things that we didn't need and lots more that we wish we had.  So a big part of our journey has been learning to improvise!  Some of our attempts have been quite successful and some are a work in progress that I'm excited to make some tweaks on...

This was my first attempt at making tortillas from scratch...um...yes...yes I did.  This one needs some work but I was excited to see something resembling tortillas coming out of the pan.  The accompanying salsa from scratch (and I mean scratch as in basket of tomatoes from the roadside) seemed to be a success.  Now if only I could improve my 3 hour prep time!!!  :)

I tried my Vitamix for the first time this week.  It worked about 30 sec and then blew another step down converter.  (We just can't seem to get the hang of the step downs...)  It is yet to be determined whether I actually blew the Vitamix or not... (PLEASE let it not be so!)  While I was trying not to think about that, I had to decide what to do with the partially blended yumminess at the bottom of the blender.  I decided to fish out the large chunks of carrots and cabbage and turn the rest into popsicles!  Watch out blog world...my innovative skills are running a little crazy now!  :)

Next challenge...  For years Friday night has been pizza and movie night at our house.  This is a night of the week our family has always looked forward to.  We eat pizza and our once a week pop (except for Kady who gets  PBJ on that night and LOVES it!).  Then we all pile on the sofa to cuddle and watch a family flick...no working aloud.  (Yes...Don and I had to put that rule in place for ourselves...)  So this was our second attempt at pizza and movie night in Ghana. (our first didn't quite turn out as planned)  I'm still trying to figure out how to accurately convert fahrenheit to celsius on our oven but with some close watching, Ernestina and I managed a homemade pizza...complete with sauce (from a basket of tomatoes, although there is opportunity for tweaking here), sausage (still looking for pepperoni), green olives (Don's favorite) and cheese (which is kind of like gold!)...using candles and head lamps (power outage).  

[Sidenote:  The power goes out several times a week here in the evenings, usually for about 4 hours from 6pm to 10pm.  This means dinner, showers, and kids bed time with candles and head lamps.  We are SO thankful for the battery operated night light we brought with us.  Its usually on by the time Don and I go to bed so we can turn on the kids AC and our fan before trying to fall asleep.  We've only had 2 days where it was out most of the day.]  

We were a little nervous that our computer batteries wouldn't make it through movie night but we were blessed to have the power come back on early just in time for a little "Finding Nemo." 

"Oh Pizza and Movie Night, it was good to see you again!"

Our kids are getting good at improvising too.  When Mommy doesn't pack your ninja costume (each child got to pick 2 costumes), just make your own...with a supergirl belt around your head...and a t-shirt wrapped around your face...and an Indian shawl tied across your chest...and an Ariel mermaid seaweed boa wrapped around your waste...and Voila!  You are a ninja!!!

These pictures cracked me up.  This was coming home from our walk to our neighborhood shop to replenish our water supply.  

[Sidenote:  We try to take a walk with the kids everyday around 4pm when it starts to cool off a little.  We rotate each day going to the roadside to buy 2 days worth of fruit and going to a neighborhood shop to by 2 days worth of water (in our case, that's 12 large bottles)...and sometimes FanIce (vanilla ice cream).  At both places, 2 days worth is about all 2 adults can carry.  Sometimes the kids help but the walks are pretty far and they get tired.  If one of us has hired a taxi driver, we try to make a stop and load up the trunk for a couple days.]

Anyway, I turned around to see Toby carrying the empty box on his head while Chloe had her bottle of water also on her head.  Many women and children here carry things on their heads...sometimes large platters full of food or other things they are selling.  You know you live in Africa when you can carry things on your head!  Love it!