Every June we bring in the summer by attending a parade in Brian's home town. It's always a great day hanging out with family and enjoying the warmer temps and being together. The kids LOVE this parade because they throw out a TON of candy...seriously more than any other parade I've attended in my life! It's so much that by the middle of the parade, the kids realize they can start being picky and they just leave some of their less favorite candies lie on the street! Yeah, it's that much candy! What I love most about parades is watching my kids. I love the anticipation on their faces!
I always take a bunch of pictures of the parade and as I'm looking through them I always think that it was a waste to take them because the pictures I love the most are of the kids watching the parade. So this year I really didn't watch the parade at all. I just watched and photographed my kids.
The parade always opens with several local fire departments...fire truck after fire truck and ambulance after ambulance, all with lights flashing and sirens blarring. Every year I have always had one young enough to not like all the noise...
After getting snuggled on Aunt Amber's lap and realizing that there was candy flying out of the windows of these noisy trucks, he loosened up a bit, but still didn't like the noise...
It is pretty impressive to see all the fire engines, but really, it does get old after a while...there is a lot of ear plugging going on!
And then comes the little league teams, politicians, floats, clowns, motorcycles, cars and oodles and oodles of candy and happy children!
One picture I did take of the parade....thought this was too cute!
We had a special family join us for the parade this year as well! Shujun is a guy that has worked with Brian for nearly 10 years and he and his 3 children drove down for the afternoon! It was great to have them with us!
By the end, Nathan was still very docile, but waving to every person that passed by
This is what a missed nap and sensory overload looks like when you're two
After a yummy cookout and playing with the family we took a few minutes to celebrate Nathan's birthday this past week
This is always a great day~fun~food~and best of all~family..............
I was catching up on a blog that I used to read all the time and haven't for months and it made so many memories of our trip to Africa flood back...There is SO much about this trip that I haven't shared here, and like I said before, it's mostly because I find it impossible to put into words what we experienced...but I cannot wait another moment to share this video with you....so no words, just faces of Zambia.
I always read a book or two to Nathan at bedtime. His favorites are Old Hat, New Hat and There's A Wocket In My Pocket. He laughs at the same parts every night. Tonight, however, he wanted nothing to do with me. He only wanted "WooWoo" to read to him....
t's difficult for me to comprehend that we have been home from Zambia for 5 weeks! It's even more difficult for me to comprehend that we've been home for 5 weeks and I've only done 2 posts about our trip! the main reason, I guess, is because I don't want to just slap pictures up and call it a post. I want to, as best I can, describe what we saw and how it impacted us. This was a life changing trip, to say the least. We know that not everyone is able to take a trip like this and so it is important to us that you would get a glimpse of what we experienced and that perhaps it would impact your life as well!
You know how photography is hugely important to me, and I tell alot of my stories through photographs. So the fact that 2 of the 3 places of most impact we visited I was unable to take pictures (and understandably so) also makes this a more difficult task for me, but I'll do my best.
We arrived early Monday morning in Lusaka after and 11+ hour flight from London. It was longer that normal because the typical flight pattern had us flying straight over Libya so we had to detour 500 miles to the west adding about an hour and a half to the flight. After an 8 hour overnight flight from Chicago to London (we each got about 2 hours of sleep), a 5 hour driving tour in London and a 11+ hour overnight flight from London to Lusaka (each slept about an hour), we were beat! Luke and Elise encouraged us to either take a short nap or to stay awake as we could in order to acclimate to the 7 hour time change as quick as possible. I was so excited to be with Elise that there was no way I was going to sleep! We got settled in our room which sweet Macie and Emma had given up (and added sweet signs to welcome us) and then we just hung out and relaxed!
We had brought lots of goodies from family and friends in the states and of course the kids were anxious to dig in to those boxes and suitcases. We actually managed to stay awake until about 8 pm and then we crashed! Elise woke us up at 9am the next morning!
Tuesday Luke had some errands to run around Lusaka and Brian went along with him. I was happy to have the opportunity to just hang out with Elise and the kids! Luke took Brian to a market, and not the market where muzungus (white people) would shop, but a market for the local residents. It was a quick introduction to an unfamiliar culture to say the least!
Wednesday Elise, the three oldest kids and I all went to visit a local orphanage called House of Moses. There were beautiful painted murals on the entrance gate and on a container on the property. These were the only photos I was permitted to take.
House of Moses is a beautiful property and home that is very well taken care of, exceptionally clean and staffed with extremely friendly and welcoming people. Hose of Moses is for children under 2 years of age and is where ChiChi, Luke and Elise's precious adopted son, spent part of his early life. Downstairs there was a large meeting room, a dining room for the staff, a kitchen, several bathrooms, a receiving room (where the new babies who come in spend their first several days as they are assessed by nurses and are determined to be healthy enough to join the rooms with the other children) and a room approximately 20' x 20' where the older children (ages 6mo to 2 years) ate, played and slept. We visited this room first. There are small cribs around the exterior of the room, one right beside the next. Two large shelves of clothing, a changing table and 3 rocking chairs took up the remaining wall space. There were three house mothers in that room caring for 17 babies (if I counted correctly, as some were napping). There is a large area rug in the center of the room where the babies were playing. The 5 of us sat on the rug and loved on and played with these sweet babies for about an hour. After tear-filled good byes to the older babies we went upstairs to visit with the babies under 6 months. There were 10 babies upstairs. Elise and I were both able to feed bottles to premature babies, each weighing around 4 pounds I'm guessing. As difficult as it was to process these babies all being in an orphanage, it was a blessing to see how well cared for and loved they are by the sweet staff. It was an amazing, very moving and emotional experience and many more things I could share, but perhaps another post! here is a video that I found on youtube of House of Moses' 10th birthday celebration in 2008. It does a great job showing the facility, but more importantly just how well these children are cared for!
Make sure you pause the music player on the right hand side before you start the video.
Brian has been asking me to get Nathan's hair cut for about 6 months. I've refused...up until this week. I finally bit the bullet and made the appointment and then immediately called Alysia, one of my closest girlfriends to see if she would come with me. I needed her there for 3 reasons.
1. To help watch Emily
2. For moral support
3. To take photos
I have been dreading it all week. I LOVE the way his whispy hair curls up around his face and at the nape of his neck. And I knew that when it was cut those would be gone forever! It's like the baby-ness would just be cut right off of him. Seriously it was breaking my heart.
I took the opportunity this morning to take lots of pictures of those curls, even though he wasn't totally cooperative. I also asked Emily to take a few of the two of us (I'm pretty impressed with her skills!) Our originally scheduled plans were cancelled so we headed to a park to hang out and have lunch before the dreaded appointment.
"No, I do not want to leave the park to go get my hair cut!"
I had totally anticipated that he would freak out and need to sit on my lap (thus needing an extra adult to help with photography and Emily), so the first surprise was that he was totally a big boy and sat in the chair all by himself! He did not like the drape however (I can't blame it since it was brown with pink polka dots). He also wasn't really fond of the squirt bottle.
(is it just me or does he look a little like Donald Trump in this photo???)
I took Nate to the sweet lady who does my hair...she's awesome!!! (Tammy at Imagine Salon if you need someone!)
Happy to have a yummy sucker for being a big boy!
Such a big, grown up little boy!
My favorite photo of the day!
No matter what your hair looks like, you'll always be my baby sweet boy!
One of the best parts of this trip was just being able to do life for 10 day with my best friend! Elise and I met when I was her nurse when she delivered her 2nd baby, Emma. And it just happened to be on my birthday! At that time she was attending a different church, but shortly thereafter started coming to the church I where her hubby's family attended, which is my church home. They were invited to come to a small group Bible study we were apart of and we became fast friends. Over the years we became inseparable. You can imagine what emotions I went through when she first told me they were praying about being missionaries in Africa! I kept telling her the Lord was telling me that she wasn't supposed to go! Totally untrue and selfish, but I was desperate! I'll never forget the night before she left. I had taken her kids to my house so they could get some last minute packing done without three kids underfoot. I brought them back at bedtime and Elise walked me out to my car and we hugged and bawled. I drove home and walked in the house and collapsed into a weeping pile on the couch. Brian said, "Kori, she didn't die!" While he was right, she was alive and well, I was really was grieving her leaving, and it was several days before I wasn't having multiple breakdowns a day! Well over the 4 years she has been gone I slowly weaned myself off my Elise dependency which allowed me to open myself up to many other wonderful women that were right in front of me, and I have been SO thankful for the friendships that bless me on a regular basis. When Elise was in the states, we did life together. That has been one of the hardest things in her absence, is not knowing what life looks like for her on a daily basis. That's why getting to live with Luke and Elise and the kids in their home, and do life with them for 10 days was such a huge treat! I'll share more about the day to day soon, but I wanted to post this video of just a snippet of our 10 days with them. Here's just a couple things you'll need to know before you watch the video...
1. Those of you who dont know the Whitfields... They are Luke and Elise, Macie (10), Emma (8), Payton (6), ChiChi (5~adopted since they have been there) and Marley Ann Taziona (3) who goes by Tazi, but we called her Emily because she reminded us SO much of our Emily. By the end of the trip, if you called her Tazi, she would look at you and say "I'm not Tazi, I'm Emily!"
2. Gifts from the USA. Brian and I were allowed 3 checked bags each. We brought 1 suitcase for the two of us and 3 additional suitcases and a 45 pound box full of gifts from family and friends. The first words out of Tazi's mouth were "did you bring candy??" The kids were so patient! They just kept eying the suitcases on the side of the living room. Finally one of them blurted out "Can we please open the presents now????!!!!!" It was so fun to watch their excitement!!
3. Our authentic meal. Vincavulla (caterpillars), Nshima (a cream of wheat type dish, and a staple food), ifisashi (pumpkin leaf with ground nuts), Rape (kinda like swiss chard), and chicken. You take some of the nshima in your hand and squish it around a bit then you use it to scoop up the chicken or greens. Here's my take on the meal. The Nshima had basically no flavor but with the chicken in ifisashi was good. The caterpillars were NASTY and the rape was bitter. We also had another staple food called a chapate (cha-potty) which is essentially a tortilla and was DELICIOUS!
Brian and I went back and forth about what to do with our 8 hour layover in London on the way to Zambia. I was kinda set on staying at the airport not wanting to get lost or return to the airport late and miss our flight. But at the same time, how do you sit in an airport for 8 hours when you are minutes from and AMAZING city that you have never visited before???? We decided we would do a tour and were thrilled when Brian's boss hooked us up with a guy who had given them a tour a few years previous. Eddie, picked us up right at the airport and took us on a 5 hour tour of London and had us back to the airport with even a few minutes to spare. It was a whirlwind of a history lesson (not much of which was absorbed, since we had very little sleep on the overnight flight from Chicago) and we saw WAY more that we would have on any "touristy" type of tour. Eddie was a wonderful guide and we were really thankful for the opportunity to spend a bit of time with and see his beautiful home city! Here is a video of just some of the sights we saw...
Thank you all so much for your input and help with my fabric choices! In the end, I went in a different direction than I was originally thinking because of one of your comments (you were anonymous so let me know who you are so I can thank you!) This was the comment:
Anonymous said...
hmm, what style of furniture do you have in the room? are there any other fabrics in the room? Ie pillow or carpet? be careful scale is important to..( how big the window is ) I agree with Miriam on the fabric selection.
Have fun.
January 21, 2011 7:10 AM
Well what jumped out at me was "be careful scale is important too...". It is a pretty large room, there is nothing on that wall but the window, and I knew I wanted to do floor to ceiling so I wondered if the smaller patterns would start to look really busy and then I kept being drawn to the lower two options of the 6. Their patterns were so much bigger that you couldn't see the full pattern in the small swatch. So once I was confident that I wanted to try something a bit bolder, I ordered a half yard of each of the larger patterns. Then we took a family vote and it was unanimous!
View from the kitchen
View from the living room...yeah, I coulda cleared the table and pushed in the chairs, but this is more how I roll....it's life baby!
I LOVE them!! It totally changes the feel of the room! AND I painted all the baseboard and window trim white as well! It looks so clean and updated (even with uncleared table!)! Come visit me and we'll sit and chat in my new fancified dining room!!
