Catching up

I was driving home from work one day and saw the most beautiful sunset I think I've ever seen. I tried to capture some pics while driving (I'm sure I wasn't distracted doing that), here is one. I don't think I got the best pictures, but it was really pretty!

Ania likes to do her own thing with head bands

So then Alina tried it

Me: Ania, what did you put on your lips?
Ania: Nothing.

We had a huge snowstorm before Christmas, here is Jay after he snowblowed our driveway.

We went sledding. Jay was better taking the girls than me, because I always ended up putting my feet down to slow us, which would then throw tons of snow in the girls' faces. They didn't like that. I couldn't help it! So I stopped taking them.

Ania threw a 30 minute tantrum one night - it was awesome. I can't remember what it was about, but boy was she mad. I got video of it too, but here's a picture.

Alina didn't know what to do with herself during this tantrum. She tried to calm Ania down, but Ania was out of control. So then she said "Mommy, how do I write "I love Ania, you're still my best friend."? So I wrote it for her. She usually copies it into her own writing, but this time I think she decided it was too urgent and just ran and put this note under Ania's face (while Ania was still face down, screaming). It didn't help, but I thought that was very cute of Alina! :)

We decided to try a root canal instead of extraction. Ania was SO GOOD!! We're keeping our fingers crossed that this will work and we don't have to get it extracted...

You can see the xray with the other root canal in the background :)

Self portraits. She took about 10 of these.

And here is Alina's big tooth adventure! Here it is before it came out:

She was very worried that the tooth fairy wouldn't know what to do with it. So she decided to write a note to her. She has me say each letter out loud, and she writes it. I shortened it a bit... she wanted to write "Tooth Fairy, Take my tooth - you can keep it. Leave me money."

Here it is!!

Such a big girl!

Yesterday I picked the girls up early from day care and took them to a new park. They had a lot of fun. :)

More Mwanza

Rhoda was showing our safari guide's sons some pictures of the Serengeti. They have never been there..... Making rounds at the hospital The hospital cafeteria.... Mafwimbo and I get chai and samosas there.... YUMMY! Our house where we live.... Quite nice actually.... Not ALL of the comforts of home, but there are many... Thought you'd enjoy seeing our shower..... Don't ask why it is 2' off the floor. This shower actually "works".... The shower in our bedroom has no shower head, no hot water, and no shower curtain. The sink in our bedroom is permanently clogged..... The mosquito netting doesn't QUITE meet..... Just a boat sailing on Lake Victoria We took a sunset cruise out on the lake. It was beautiful. The Sizzler Restaurant..... No, no "relation" to the one in the U.S. I took Mafwimbo to lunch. I ordered fried fish..... Guess I'll cross that one off my list, as well! Mafwimbo and me. She'd never been to this hotel restaurant... The orphanage. Two med students from Australia and some of the kids with the bubbles. Have you ever seen a happier baby? They all want a piece of you, so the easiest way is to just sit with them.

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So this is a new food for me so I thought I'd share. They pound black-eyed peas to make flour. Then they make the dough like to. When that's ready they put it in plastic bottles to cool. She said it's green from the onions. I think it tastes kind of like corn bread. Could use some honey butter. :)

Yolkless egg

I had to look that up. Here is what Wikipedia says about yolkless eggs:

Yolkless eggs

Eggs without yolk are called "dwarf" or "wind" eggs.^[8] Such an egg is most often a pullet's first effort, produced before her laying mechanism is fully ready. In a mature hen, a wind egg is unlikely, but can occur if a bit of reproductive tissue breaks away, stimulating the egg producing glands to treat it like a yolk and wrap it in albumen, membranes and a shell as it travels through the egg tube. This will occur if, instead of a yolk, the egg contains a small particle of grayish tissue. An archaic term for a no yolk egg is a "cock" egg.^[9] Since they contained no yolk and therefore can't hatch, it was traditionally believed that these eggs were laid by roosters.^{[citation needed]} This type of egg occurs in many varieties of fowl. They have been found in chickens, both standard and bantams, guineas and coturnix quail. See Cock egg.

More Pfotos

I can't sleep so I decided to post a pfew more pictures. We saw tons of zebras. Tons. Mom said you'd see so many you'd get tired of them. But I have to say every time we passed them I wanted to stop and look and take pictures. And look. They wanted to look at me! And why not, I ask you.

More wildebeest crossing the river. If you look at the left you can see them running.

Wildebeest and zebras lead the great migration. They travel together. The wildebeest smell the water and the zebras smell predators. They make a good team.

This is not a cheetah but a leopard. He was hanging out in a sausage tree.

We saw this leopard a few minutes later. That is not a sausage tree.

The sun set on our first day and I was sad. But I got a nice pfoto.

This giraffe was taking a drink. I thought they spread their legs but this one is kneeling. So that was interesting. That is the only giraffe I saw drinking I think.

Finally, Mom got an egg with no yolk. So that was interesting, too.

The Serengeti

We had a great safari in the Serengeti!

We saw sooooo many animals. My favorite was the giraffe. There are two types of giraffes. This is the kind where the spots go down the legs, the Masai Giraffe.

Our guide got us so close to the animals. This was about the third animal we saw when getting into the park. About 45 minutes in. I got really scared and moved to the back of the vehicle. But then I got used to it and started snapping away. That's a lion. :)

That's an ostrich. See how his legs are red? He isn't sunburnt. They do that when they are trying to attract a mate.

This cute monkey is nursing. I don't know what kind of monkey. I'll have to look it up and get back to you.

We say the first or early part of the great migration. It is thousands of wildebeest crossing the river. Fascinating. If they are pregnant and there is no water they can stay pregnant for an extra two months waiting for the rains!

Cheetah.

I added this one (don't know the name of the bird) because look at the bird at the bottom! It is hard getting a good picture of a bird flying. I thought this one looked pfun.

This was on the last day with our tour guide Marcely. He was great. If you go to the Serengeti, ask for him. Insist on it. Dad did and it was great. We saw so many animals and birds and learned so much!