Beans and Beignets

Another wonderful Relief Society Cooking activity! I thought we were going to do homemade noodles and rolls and chicken noodle soup. I was happy to do something a little different, though!

We made Beans and Beignets. Yummy! The beans are pretty straight forward. You soak them, then cook them. Then you drain them. You put a 'sauce' in a pan (the sauce is tomatoes, garlic, leeks, parsley, basil, ginger, and salt all ground to almost a liquid. I've done it in the blender and it works just fine, but the stone grinding by hand is SOOO much better!) with some oil and you 'fry' it until it's super hot and boiling, then add the beans. Voila!

For the beignets, you make a sweet bread dough (warm water, salt, sugar, yeast, flour).




Let it rise, then make it into pretty shapes:



Fry it up, and eat it!



This is another of my favorite Cameroonian dishes! Easy, and can be made anywhere in the world.

Fresh Flowers

Isn't this pretty? Devin and the kids bought me flowers...and it was so big it would only fit in a 10 gallon bucket! ha!!!



I will miss the huge fresh tropical flowers found in abundance every single day of the year!

FORE!!

What a fun outing this was! I wish I would have known about this earlier (I think this would have been great with Louis, too!!!!!), but we sure had fun! Yaounde has the most beautiful golf course in Africa (so I've been told), so we decided to take advantage of it! It was certainly hot, but being on the covered section of the driving range was actually quite pleasant. The kids enjoyed 'hitting' the balls, gathering the balls, and sitting on the giant tractor that was nearby! Here are some pics that just speak for themselves:















(I LOVE these 'action shots' of Reuben!)


Thanks guys, for a fun time!

Faux Ball

Saturday night was the Marine Ball. While we love the marines, and support them, we didn't go to the ball. Instead, we had a stay-at-home ball. After the kids were in bed, we went upstairs and donned our night out clothing (black dress WITH nylons!!!, suit, make up!!!...I would have worn some spiffy high heeled shoes, but with the broken toe, they don't quite work yet), and then descended our stairs, arm-in-arm, to our ball! :) We had the Christmas tree lights on, some jazzy Cyrus Chestnut in the background...we sipped Schwepps Ginger Ale, and ate mint chocolate chip Leader Price Ice cream... We danced in the living room to our favorite songs, and because no one was there except us, we were extremely silly and loved every minute of it! This was a most fantastic date night. I HIGHLY recommend it--any time!

International Day 2009

I have really enjoyed the International Day that the school has put on here. Here are some pics from this years' event:

Claire with her two best friends, Leah and Kayla, waiting for the program to start:




Josh's class also waiting:



Singing the Cameroonian national anthem:



The preschoolers!! They had us absolutely in TEARS!!! They did a fashion show, and it was the most adorable thing I've ever seen! Those little 3 and 4 years olds strutting their stuff across the 'stage'! SO cute!!



Josh's class did an Israeli 'water dance'.




All the other grades did different countries as well. It was well done!



Then they had a Cameroonian dance troupe come and do some traditional dancing again! So cool!

Loved the drummers:



And the 'canoe' dance!



Then there is the most wonderful FEAST after the 'show'. Everyone brings a dish to sample from their country, and it is just fantastic and you get FULL!! :)

After all the fun, Claire and Josh went to spend the night at their best friend, Kayla's house! Good dreams, kiddos!



(I was so sad to see my kiddies leave the house, and it was SO weird to not have them there in the morning when we got up! Andrew was lonely! But, they lasted all night! Weird...)

UAB

Unaccompanied Air Baggage...

It's all packed up!

What a strange feeling. I know our next pack-out isn't for another 4 weeks, but this just sort of makes it real! And the saddest thing? I stuck my clarinet in this shipment! I hope it's ok! I know the head mover-guy was very protective of it--he made sure the movers wrapped it in bubble wrap, then in super this paper stuff, then in bubble wrap again, then put it in a box! :) I hope that keeps it safe...and maybe warmer? Makes me nervous to let the thing out of my sight! When we moved here, I hand carried it as one of my carry-ons!! I must be becoming desensitized if I can put the poor little guy into air freight!!!

Thanks to Patty and Karri for letting the kids hang out at your houses while we had a paper and box fling over here! That made the morning go so much more smoothly! :)



The kids WERE here, however, when the truck came to pick it up, and I'm glad, as they really enjoyed watching the fun...and 'driving' the 'super cool big truck'! :)








I've had people ask...What do you put into a UAB? (Or in the UK, a UAF) Here are the things that we put into ours:

• Pillows (I am uber picky about what type of pillow I use...)
• Winter clothes (we don't need them here, since it's eternally summer...)
• Since Christmas is coming (and the goose is getting fat), we put Christmas gifts for ourselves and family members in this. (Can't really elaborate since many recipients read this...)
  
• Car seats for the kids
• The pack and play (we know we won't need it as we're traveling, and we can borrow one for the week before we head out)
• Air mattress and sheets
• Shoes
• We put all of our checked bags inside! We thought this was a stroke of genius on our part. We knew we weren't filling up our allotted weight, and since it should be waiting for us in Utah when we get there, we thought to ourselves, "Why do we need to bring any extra baggage with us and have the hassle of checked bags, when we can just ship them out?" We are SUPER excited about this! NO CHECKED BAGS!! Woohoo!!)
• Blankets

Once we get to the states, we'll be repacking our UAB for shipment to Finland. That will have different items--like the things we're getting for Christmas (books, toys, clothes, etc.) and other things to help our house be a home (pictures for walls, welcome mat, humidifiers, mini trampoline, exercise bike, sleds, etc.) I will update again on this matter once we repack and resend! :)

Funnies

Here are some funny conversations:

**Claire is learning about how germs are passed. After I broke my toe, I was handing her a glass of water.

C: Thanks mom, but did you drink out of this cup?

M: Nope.

C: Oh, good. I don't want to get a broken toe, too!


**Josh made me some tea this morning. He said, "Mom, I made the tea that was just right for you: Maternity Partner!" (NO, I am NOT pregnant!)