Geyman Steps

Always so clean and fresh... Just kidding!  They had escaped outside, emptied the dogs water dish and then crawled across the gravel to the yard. Totally filthy and having a blast! When it was time to get cleaned up, I started their bath and went to get clean pjs... came back to guilty girls who hadn't waited for me to get them undressed. As the first picture shows, all that dirt was eventually gone! A chameleon we found by our gate on the way to school the other morning. The fact that they can move their eyes 360 degrees in DIFFERENT directions from one another is a bit freaky to watch! They hiss too when they think you are a little to close.  For those of you have not heard we have both good and bad news.  Good news first. Baby Esta stayed two nights with us after being released from the hospital. She is  eating, gaining weight, and currently being cared for by her aunt.  Bernadetta, however, has been on the decline ...

A Year of Joy On Thursday the girls had their first birthday. The girls have had an exciting, event filled life as they have traveled countless hours by car, train, bajaji (motor tricycle), and plane. Through it all they have been a joy. Their is nothing like sweet, happy little people. They say that the first year with twins it the hardest but we are grateful to have survived mostly unscathed! There were times of tears, overwhelming exhaustion, and feeling like we were failing at the juggling act. However, we have found God's timing of giving us twins as an unexpected blessing. No other time in our lives so far have we been in such a good position to help each other, be at home often, and now kpp;l[98'-[-l;o0have help managing four under five years old. It has taught us a lot of patience and given us a fresh dose of joy each day... the smiles, the cuddles, the sweetness, the love and kisses. Two Personalities on the Move Their personalities are starting to unfold the...

Above is a short video about what the boys and girls have been up to. Life sure is interesting with these guys! Tivoli, caught in the act of escaping. She is very proud of herself because she managed to reach up and undo the latch above her head.  They get dirty so fast out here. Soon they will be walking. That should at least save their knees. Nothing like bananas! The past two weeks have been very full with MAF standardization. This involved ground courses and flights in order to learn to operate with MAF International procedures. My last MAF standardization flight took us to a few airfields which we fly into regularly. After crossing the escarpment, which is a plateau dividing very dry land and mountains covered in rainforest, we had a slight diversion to avoid thousands of flamingos which had taken flight over the rainforest next to Lake Manyara. One of those times I wish I had brought my camera! One of the three airstrips we flew int...

A picture is worth a thousand words. Jason, this is only the beginning. Frozen fruit popsicles for the first time. You see the baby gate on the left? Ya, someone left it open. They are supposed to be on the other side... At least they are cute about it The other night Carmen and I were on a night stroll when we heard something shuffling around in the bushes. Upon discovering the source of the noise to be a kurunguyeye (hedgehog) I attempted to reach my arm into the thorn bush to take a snapshot with my phone. This little guy, however, was not very photogenic or helpful.  Now, I will take a moment to say that hedgehogs are one of Carmen's favourite animals. In fact, at one point while living in Texas she was in the process of obtaining one as a pet until we were informed of the no-pet policy in our apartment. Bummer. Anyway, as you may imagine, we were both filled with tingly feelings of wonder at the beauty of cute and cu...

It is about time we updated pictures of the children. The girls are growing and changing so fast! Every day they learn new things and get faster at crawling. Tivoli says Mama regularly and said Dada for the first time the other day! Esther is seriously addicted to her fingers and Tivoli decided a pacifier is a wonderful thing. They are nine months now. Tivoli (yellow headband)  Esther (purple headband) Many struggles over who gets which toy occur every day... And usually the result is one happy baby and one sad baby. Tivoli is almost always happy, steady, and consistent. However, she loves to explore and escapes every time the door is left open. She really likes the dogs who are probably five times her size and like to lick her face. Unfortunately, her explorations outside usually end with a very happy but filthy baby.  Well, this is 100% Esther when we say smile. She loves to snuffle her nose at you and once she is comfortable with som...

Changes Coming   Last weekend we visited Arusha in order to discuss future plans with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) and locate possible housing. We were pleased to come back home with the next three months planned and having found a furnished house to move to. New Schedule Highlights A lot still needs to happen before the end of August:  May - Dinah leaves and Jacob has to study for and take aviation written exams.  June - Full-time language studies end and we attend the annual SIL conference.  July - Before the SIL conference ends, Jacob will be flying to the UK for a week of MAF training. The day after returning to Tanzania from the UK, we plan to move to Arusha. Once in Arusha, Jacob will begin flying in preparation for a flight test to transfer his USA pilot licenses over to Tanzania.  August - Jacob will go back to Dar Es Salaam in order to take the flight test. Upon returning, he will start two weeks of ground and flight training w...

Esther (white) Tivoli (pink) Not so sure about this. She actually liked it. I guess when sucking on fingers is so important, trying someone else's is not a problem And of course, as soon as I pulled my camera out, the boys started vying for attention...