Quote of the Day -- Taxes According to Annalee

Annalee: Mom, What are you doing?
Me: I'm working on the taxes.
A: Oh no!
M: What's wrong with that?
A: Well, I was watching Robin Hood and it says that taxes are when someone steals you're money.
M: {giggles} That's pretty true.
A: (somewhat confused) Daddy said it's true, too, but he didn't laugh.
M: (more serious this time) It's ok, sweetie. It's actually good because it helps to pay for roads and things.
A: Hm. Well, that's kind of what Daddy said, but he said something more about a rip-off, but ok . . .
M: {more giggling}

Quote of the Day -- Said by Luke

Right in the middle of Sacrament meeting Luke was getting restless.  He has been getting more interested in potty training, but he hasn't done much with it yet.  However, he was getting desperate for ideas to get out of sitting still, so when he could no longer stand it he shouted, "Momma, I gotta go potty. . . "  (then for dramatic affect he added) . . ."IT'S DANGEROUS!"

Ethiopia (Post 3)

Wow. It has been really hard for me to find the time to sit down and write more blogs. I just am having such a hard time keeping up with everything.

Today I want to write about a couple of the places that we visited.  The first one is a little ice cream shop.  The shop is very close to the MAI building that we spent a lot of time at. They served Italian Ice.  We went there a couple of times. I loved it.  

This is a view of the door and the street from inside of the shop.  It was kept really clean. It was one of the nicest shops we saw.  I really loved it there.

If you notice, on the ceiling there were burlap sacks.

This view is from one of the swings.  Inside of the shop there were tables as well as some porch swings that you could sit on to eat.  The back of the shop was painted like Italy.

Nati, Kate, and Ronelle at the ice cream shop.

Quote of the Day -- Annalee

Annalee: Mom, what color are my eyes? Me: They are blue, sweetie. Annalee: Oh good! I'm still beautiful!

Ethiopia (Post 2)

Here are a few more pictures of our trip to Africa.
We spent some time with a company called Morrell Agro Industries. I absolutely love the people!!! I really miss them too. The company has a guest house behind the office building so we got to see that and meet more people. These pictures are from that. (I wish I had gotten pictures of the other people we talked to!)

This picture is of Nati and Ronelle. Nati was our tour guide/interpreter. He was fantastic! He helped us so much. We really miss him! Ronelle is a friend from my ward that went with us on the trip.


This is Gemina and I. She is such a cute and funny girl! She takes care of the guest house. We got to spend some time with her in Shashamene and Awassa too. She is so sweet.


This is the gardner for the guest house. He was so kind and he made me laugh. In this picture he is cutting the grass with some shears. It was a big job. I asked him about a plant I saw and he told me it saw sugar cane. Then, he ran and got a knife and cut some down so we could try it.


Here is Jim eating the sugar cane. It was really good! You just chew it and get all the juice then spit it out. I really loved it!


All of us forengi got the sugar cane stuck in our teeth or couldn't tear it, but Nati was a pro at eating it.

Ethiopia (Post 1)

I am FINALLY posting on our trip to Ethiopia. It was quite the adventure, and just an incredible experience. After being gone for the past two weeks, though, I have had a lot to catch up on so I haven't gotten to our blog yet. It's going to take me a few days to post all of the pictures and things that we saw, but I'll get to it all . . . eventually.

This is a picture of a wonderful fruit stand. The people were so nice! They gave us some of their homemade bread, too. It had the slightest hint of a spice in it. I could never quite figure out what spice it was, but it was really good.


Another picture of the fruit stand. Most of the fruits and vegetables we saw there were mangos, avocados (twice the size of the ones we see in America), tomatoes, oranges (most of the oranges were green, and they would eat them like that), bananas (a VERY yummy kind we'd never tasted before), papyas, and a green fruit that was kind of spiky on the outside. It was fun to shop at those little fruit stands.


There were a lot of homeless everywhere. This man was begging on the street where we were walking. The interesting thing to us was that he smiled and waved at us and wanted to hold our hands. But, when we pulled out the camera he wouldn't smile. He was very sweet, though.


It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but this is a picture of some men doing construction work. All of the supplies for cement (like the rocks and sand) were just dumped on the sidewalk. Then, they would use handmade stretcher-looking wooden box with handles to move the materials into a little cement maker. All of the buildings are made out of cement. There are buildings being built all over the city. They make them out of cement and then chisel (by hand) holes in the walls for the electrical and plumbing.


These next pictures show the scaffolding they use. Instead of steel supports they use eucalyptus branches. Apparently the eucalyptus wood is very strong, but it's still strange to see the wood holding up the cement or holding men as they work.






This is a picture on the streets of the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. The brown and cream building in the middle of the picture is a typical house. Many other houses are crudely made out of only metal siding. We weren't sure what the wood structure on the left is, but my guess is that it is a nice house. The gray gate you see on the right is very typical. There are many large gates like this, even around poorer houses. Most gates have a guard. Everything you see here is right next to a large three-story beautiful government building. It was very strange walking the streets and seeing such variety of buildings.


So, there is just a taste of our trip to Ethiopia. I will post more as soon as I get a chance.

Preparing for Our Trip

As many of you know, we are preparing for a trip to Ethiopia this coming Sunday. It is for a big project, and I have been unbelieveably busy trying to get everything in order for it, not to mention homeschool and kids and . . . everything else.

So, that is my excuse for not reading (or commenting) on anyone's blogs lately. I do miss all of you and will catch up on what everyone has been doing lately, but for now, I suppose I'm a little focused on my own little world. Very sad, I know.

I do hope that on this trip I will have time to write and post things about what we are doing. It should be an amazing experience, and I look forward to the pictures and stories I can post later. It's always great to hear from you all.