Chameleon

I found a chameleon hiding in my flowers on the back porch the other day. Actually, I'm not exactly sure it was a chameleon, but that was my best guess.

He was a little shy of the camera and kept trying to hide. (Just ignore the three cocaroaches that snuck into the picture on the left hand side--they're always trying to steal the show.)

No, seriously, we don't have THAT many cocaroaches ALWAYS hanging around our back porch...we had just sprayed bug killer the day before so they all came out for one last hurah.

It is an amazing thing to watch your kids wonder at creation.

I hope my children are always this curious, this enthralled, at the beauty of our world.

Sleep

When you're on the road for three weeks, you learn to fall asleep and wake up in all sorts of strange places. Sleeping and napping was particularly a challenge with two little boys who nap at different times...especially since we all shared the same room for most of those three weeks. After one particularly challenging "nap" time, I heard Christian wake up and walked into the room and found Cohen out of bed and leaning on ours. I told him to get back into bed and to stop waking up his little brother...but upon closer examination, this is what I found:

Blyde River Canyon

We went for a short drive to see Blyde River Canyon while in South Africa. They had some really neat lookout points along one of the roads so we hopped out and did a little hiking. Our friend Melissa from Beira was with us.

Cool dude.

Christian and his girl.

Obligatory "family picture."

Farm in South Africa

At the beginning of December we took a trip down to South Africa for medical checkups and some supply buying. Despite a very difficult and trying journey, we finally arrived at a farm just outside Nelspruit, where we spent several days resting up.

The farm is actually the residence of a South African couple who opened up their home to us to stay as a sort of "bed and breakfast"...but we got MUCH more!

The farm was an ideal place for us to relax and unwind after some very stressful weeks, culminating with the disasterous trip down, (not to mention the past year of living in a dirty and run-down city). The family had a pool, some children for ours to play with, and just beautiful grounds with trees and rolling hills.

They let us borrow their four-wheeler for some "fun." Clearly Cohen felt slighted when Stefan chose me to go on a ride with him.

Oh well, who needs "alone time" anyway? We just couldn't leave him behind after the face he worked up.

The family we stayed with were so hospitable and friendly. They provided wonderful meals and fellowship and many "extras" such as frequent cups of hot coffee and a fire by the pool! It actually was beautiful weather while we were there--despite it being "summer," South Africa, and particularly this valley were much cooler than Mozambique this time of year.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to get to know Banie and Louise and their children and for their gracious hospitality while we stayed with them!

Licking out the Bowl

Like most children, Cohen loves to "lick out the bowl" after I'm done baking something sweet. But now Christian has begun to show an interest in everything his older brother does...so when Christian crawled up, I was bracing myself for some screeching and shouting (and yes, shoving and hitting)...before I would inevitably have to stop baking, intervene and supervise for the next ten minutes...

But this is what I found.

Aww...Such loving and well behaved children I have! (I quickly snapped a couple of pictures before we all returned to the real world of siblings.)