Hellos and Goodbyes

This past week, we said goodbye to our good friend, Louis. It's not for forever, but it is for a very long time!!!! He went back to his mum in Ireland while they are waiting for their new little baby to come. Sadly, we won't get to see him, his mum, or his new little sister until the end of February or beginning of March when we get back here with our new little bundle o' joy! Such a long time! But, once we're back, we'll have plenty of time to play together again!!! :) (Leonora, I'm sending you some photos!!!)



We also said hello to some new friends here! Not only do we have new neighbors (who are very nice people!), but we have a new missionary and new missionary couple here in Yaounde! Wow!! So, our new neighbors got here last Sunday and we'd been busily getting things ready for them. The new missionaries got here around the same time, but arrived in Yaounde on Tuesday. (Well, the single missionary got here a few weeks ago, but the couple got here this week...) So, Monday we had dinner with the new family next door and another couple who are fairly new to the area (one of them being Devin's new boss--who is a wonderful and funny person!!), and on Tuesday, I pulled out all the stops!! We had all 6 missionaries over, plus the new senior couple, plus the senior couple who are serving in Douala, PLUS our friends who used to be our neighbors but now live down the street until they leave the country! Part of the family didn't make it, so it only ended up being 19 people instead of 21... But I made food for everyone! Woohoo!!! We had two different kinds of soups: Beef stew (in a giant crockpot) and taco soup (in a 12 qt saucepan!!!!); I made 5 loaves of whole wheat bread (and the recipe is absolutely FANTASTIC!!! I should post it!!!!); and two giant green salads using regular green leaf lettuce, spinach, parsley and tomato--along with croutons! My goodness it was good! :) And my friend Stacey made the desserts (she 'pulled out all the stops', too--a coconut cake, brownies, peach cobbler, and 4 different kinds of homemade ice cream)!!!!!!!!!!! It was absolutely fabulous and completely fun! :)



The rest of the week (well, at least Wednesday) I didn't hardly cook at all! :) Thursday, the kids and I went to a fun get together for the kids and moms. Josh and I made oatmeal, coconut, butterscotch cookies. Yum! That was fun! Our front gate door fell off that day, too. That was exciting! We even went to watch Devin and a bunch of guys play basketball after Devin finished work and we all had an al fresco picnic lunch there before coming home, putting the kids to bed, then Devin leaving for the airport and not getting back until midnight. Blah.

Yesterday was a holiday here in Cameroon. So, there was no work! Yea!! We went shopping with our neighbors, got pizza at Euro marche (made while we watched and cooked fresh in the big brick oven!), ate it while watching a movie, played games, had a movie night with lots of friends over (I made coconut bread and served it with freshly cut pineapple--voila--pina colada bread!!)...it was a great day!

Today, Devin went hiking with the kids while I prepared a last minute sharing time lesson for Primary tomorrow. It appears that the president of the Primary won't be there, Stacey (my friend) who was supposed to teach, is out of town for the weekend, Pascaline (who was asked to substitute by Stacey) is sick, and that takes care of everyone else in primary except for me! Woohoo! So, that means I'll be teaching sharing time, playing the piano for it, and be all by myself! I think I'll enlist Devin's help. At least I am now all prepared for it.

Speaking of prepared, lunch is on the stove, so it's time to feed the masses before they revolt and mutiny!!!!