Funky Orbits

Here's a picture of Tay, Colin and Britton at Funky Orbits, the Dar es Salaam kid's party hot spot. (I do mean hot, the weather is boiling here, so kids always return home drenched in sweat.) There is a playground, rock climbing wall, miniature golf, party room etc... It opened about a year ago, and now around 50% of the birthday parties around here are celebrated there.

Taylor went to a party there recently where they ran out of time to eat, so they carefully packaged up the food in take home bags. This consisted of half a hamburger, a slice of pizza, french fries (they call them chips here), and a piece of chocolate cake with icing thrown in a brown lunch bag. Personally, I think the icing complimented the half a hamburger patty nicely. My only question was, "why did they forget to squirt some ketchup in there too?"

Dirt is Good

With our move back to America being so close, we're running out of most of the consumables we brought with us. It was a sad day when we saw the last of our laundry detergent. (We haven't smelled the same since.) I've starting trying a variety of different local detergents. After pulling yet another dingy load of laundry out of the washing machine, I decided to read the box of the latest laundry detergent more carefully. It was then that I noticed their slogan, "dirt is good." I guess they really do deliver. I also love the directions of "put a handful in with the clothes." Gotta love it here.

Late Night?

Tay explained to us last night that she should get to stay up extra late. We questioned why, and she responded with "I slept at least an hour during Sacrament Meeting today."

Summer Plans

We're starting to wrap up here. The kids have 9 days of school left, not that I'm counting or anything. (They're bus comes at 6:35 in the morning, and we're all quite ready to make that a distant memory.)

The kids and I leave Tanzania on June 24th. We'll head to my parent's house in Utah. I'll try to set up houses to see with a real estate agent, so that when Tim joins us three weeks later, he and I can leave the kids in Utah, and hopefully buy a house in Washington. Then we'll go back to Utah until late August, then back to Washington in time for school. (You can read later on, I'm sure, how all this worked exactly as we planned it, with no complications this summer.)

We're all getting very excited to be returning to America. (Tim included.) We can't wait to be on the same time zone (or at least a closer time zone) to most of you.

Baby Girl Coming Our Way

Taylor was particularly excited when the latest ultrasound revealed that she would be getting a sister. Her due date is October 10th. We're thrilled.