Lion Park

When we announced to the boys that we were moving to Africa, we of course wanted to add to their excitement, and promised that they would see lions, zebras, elephants, and all kinds of animals in the wild.  The boys, of course, expected that we would go on safari as soon as we landed, and anticipated it, playing with their plastic animals and pretending to see them in the wild.  Sunday afternoon we  took the opportunity to go to a nearby Lion Park.  It is only about a 20-minute drive outside the city from where we live, and not too big to explore in an afternoon.  Aunt Gail, a volunteer who works in the Regional Office with Daddy, went with us.  We were each able to pet lion cubs, and the boys loved exploring the area, watching the lions of all ages, zebras, ostriches, giraffes, and antelope in a natural environment.  Mommy, Daddy, and Noah all fed a giraffe, though Noah didn't seem too thrilled afterward with his messy hands.  Then we drove through different areas of the park where we were able to see more lions, including a mother lion and her cubs and a pride of lions resting in the grass.  We also saw cheetahs and hyenas and lots of fascinating birds.  Noah's new word for the day was "foul" (guinea foul) and he loved identifying the animals as "wion" (lion), "yena" (hyena), or "bebra" (zebra, or any of the other animals).  It will certainly not be our last chance to see these animals in Africa, but it was a great first experience for the boys.

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Popcorn

Before we left Papua New Guinea, our missionary family wrote us little notes and put them in popcorn bags.  We pulled them out and read through them from time to time as we traveled around the US, to remind us of "home" and help the boys remember how much they are loved by those we had left.  We again packed the popcorn notes in our suitcases and brought them to our new home in South Africa.  With limited decor on hand after less than a week in our new home, they seemed to be the perfect fit, at least temporarily, for the shelf above the kitchen sink. 

When the boys saw the popcorn bags they immediately wanted to know whose was whose and pull them down to read through them again.  It was a bittersweet time for Mommy as she read they boys' notes aloud and looked at the pictures drawn by MK cousins.  We are so thankful for our family, all over the world, for the love they give us, and we miss our old home.  Soon enough, this place will become our new home as we make new memories and new friends here in South Africa.  And so begins the next chapter for the Band of Brothers . . .

Flashback to November - The Conclusion

We are finally posting the long-awaited final Flashback of the series.  When it became apparent that every blog post we do now is a flashback, we realized it was time to finish off the series and just try to keep up. This will mean missing a few stories, but we at least wanted to finish off our deputation travel stories. So, without further ado...

If you remember back to our Flashback to October, the boys were in Illinois at Olivet's Homecoming. While this was a special stop for Mommy, being a reunion year for her, it was just another stop for the boys.  However, one of the highlights of this time was their first trip up to Chicago, which meant riding a train. We bundled up, because this is November and it's Chicago, The Windy City. Needless to say, we were the only ones wearing our winter coats, gloves, hats and scarves this time of the year. Yes, we did seem to become 'Tropical Wimps' over the years. On the way to Chicago, we called Mommy's cousins who live there and they all met us at Millenium Park. The boys enjoyed playing in the park with their cousins. The big thrill for all of them was sitting in the store front seats at a Qdoba restaurant in downtown, waving at everyone who passed by. I think they even generated some business for the restaurant, as people would stop, stare, smile and even take pictures.Unfortunately, we were not one of those people and do not have any pictures from that day to show you.
From Olivet, we headed over to Fort Wayne, Indiana. We had a great time staying (and playing) with Uncle Chuck and Aunt Carla for almost two weeks while Mommy and Daddy did more speaking in churches. After Indiana, we drove up to Michigan to spend time with Great Grandpa and Grandma, before flying out to Kansas City for more services. We stayed with Uncle Mike and Aunt Karen in Kansas.

The boys loved helping Uncle Mike with raking the leaves. Aden was able to go with Uncle Mike to help a guy in the church who was moving, and of course wanted to know how many highways the trip would take them on. Wiley got to help him with washing car. It was then back to Michigan for Thanksgiving with family. The boys are always so excited to learn who their cousins are and that they have cousins. Here they are with their only first cousin on Mommy's side, Nolan.

This is obviously a summarized version of a month's worth of activities. However, we did want to share one particular story from November that happened while Mommy and Daddy were speaking at a church. It was a Sunday morning. It was a small congregation that met in an old church building. When we walked in the front doors, we were standing in the sanctuary and everyone turned to look at us since we were both new faces with small children as well as interrupting the Sunday School class that met there. We found the nursery right at the back of the sanctuary. Since the sanctuary was not real big (six or seven rows of pews), the nursery window was only about 20 feet from the platform. The boys all went in to see what toys this week's church would have for them to play with. Noah had not been feeling well (ear infection), so he was not too interested in staying. Since the platform was so close to the nursery, we knew we would have to hear his crying while we tried to share and we knew he would only cry louder when he heard his Mommy's voice. Noah would have to come into the service. Aden and Wiley decided they didn't want to stay either and opted to come into the service as well. So, there we were --all five of us sitting on the front pew. With Mommy and Daddy speaking in a tag-team style format, it became obvious that this was going to be interesting. Mommy did the introductions while Daddy stayed on the front pew holding Noah. Aden and Wiley each had a little car that they had hid in their pockets and brought into church despite being told not to. They were keeping them quiet though, so nothing was said. When Mommy was done and it was Daddy't turn to speak, there was a Noah hand-off on the steps of the platform. While Daddy was telling a story, Mommy had to take Noah to the back of the church because of how restless he was getting. At the end of this story, another smooth hand-off took place in the middle of the aisle. Daddy took Noah out of the service and downstairs so he would not be distracted by seeing, hearing and wanting Mommy who was telling a story. It was during this time that things became more interesting. With Daddy and Noah out of sight, Aden and Wiley were left by themselves on the front pew. There have been times when this was not a problem. The boys sit there staring at us and listening to the stories being told, even though they had heard them so many times they had begun to memorize parts of them. However, on this particular day the stories were failing to hold their attention. While Mommy was speaking, she looked down to see that they were no longer on the pew but on the floor. And not only were they not listening, but were now wrestling over the forbidden cars. It was quite a distraction for Mommy as she tried to finish her story, but somehow made it through. In the meantime, hearing that she was almost finished, Daddy came back into the sanctuary with Noah. Another hand-off was flawlessly executed near the front of the church, and this time Mommy somehow grabbed one of the boys by the arm at the same time to take them to the back of the church with her. Daddy knew something was up. As he introduced the video clip that was being shown, he made eye contact with Mommy in the back. As she stood there with two boys in tow, he really knew something was up and that the tag-team was finished. He managed to stumble through the closing remarks that Mommy was accustomed to making to end the service. With a potluck dinner following the service, not much was said immediately. However, that must have been the longest drive home for the boys as Mommy and Daddy talked to them about their behavior that morning, the proper way to act in church, and about how there would be mandatory pocket-checkings from now on when we went to church. Many cars are still confiscated from pockets on Sunday morning since that day.  Amazingly, many people at the potluck commented how well behaved the boys were during church. Since not too many people sit in the front pews, most people missed the brawl that took place that morning in front of the communion table. Mommy and Daddy were at least thankful for that.

Since we are now going to be jumping ahead to present day, I did want to summarize a few more events that took place after November. The week after Thanksgiving, our crates arrived in Ohio from Papua New Guinea. It was fun to see our things again, but sadly one of the crates was badly damaged and there were things broken. There was no time to mourn though. We threw it all into a storage unit and took off on our next adventure. For the next three months, we lived in North Carolina. I don't know that we have mentioned that before in previous blogs, although some of the stories that we have shared took place there. It was a special time there and we were so thankful and grateful for it. We made lots of new friends there and hope to get back someday. That time led us up to our next big adventure, but I will save that for a current day blog. And so this concludes the Flashback series. Thanks for being patient with us. We will try to not get so far behind again, but there are no guarantees with The Band of Brothers.