Kenan is growing up

Two weeks ago Kenan lost his first tooth. A couple days later he lost his second. I pulled them both out which I must admit I kind of liked since Dawson has never let me even try to pull one of his.

I thought I'd encourage good dental hygiene after he lost his tooth so I gave him a sucker. :)

Since we came to the US for our home assignment, Kenan finished at L'ecole Samuel. Here is a picture of his last day. This is both the lower and older class of the preschool. Kenan did really well there and enjoyed his friends. He integrated well and went with the flow even when he didn't understand all that was going on.

One day I met a kid who went to the same school but was in the upper grades. I asked him if he knew my son. He said, "the white kid who gets da juice everyday?" I said, "yes, that's him." If his white skin didn't single him out, I guess his daily juice buying did. There are ladies that sell little juice bags each day during snack time and as incentive for them to go to school (and enjoy it) I gave them money to buy juice.

Kenan with his friend, Jean-Marc, on the right.They will miss not being in school together next year. I am thankful for the friend he made and hope that they can still get together next year.

My sweet Kenan is getting so big. I cannot believe that he will be in kindergarten next year! Amazing! He is ready, though, as knows his ABCs, can count 1-100, can count to 100 by 10s, and knows most of the books of the Bible. I am amazed at how he learns because he has picked all theis up on his own. I, unfortunately, have to admit I've never sat down and taught him this. He can learn anything put to song.

I love my Kenan!

Baby bunnies

Our rabbits had babies one Sunday morning. There were five little rabbits.

The boys really enjoyed them. Maybe a little too much because I don't think we were supposed to touch them as much as we did.


They actually all died. I think this was more due to the fact that the mother didn't prepare a nest for them and didn't seem to take any care for them. Next time, however, we will try not to touch them as much and hopefully some will survive. Need to learn more about how to raise bunnies. :)

Tennyson, new puppy

Apparently, I got the animal bug and it isn't Brett bringing home the animals but me. I enjoyed the reaction when they got rabbits, so since then I brought the birds and brought home a puppy from a village I visited. The boys had been asking for another dog so I decided Caroline could use a friend while we were in the US for our home assignment.

So meet Tennyson. Named by Kenan for Ben Tennyson from Ben10. Also works nicely as he is our tenth currently living animal.

You can see his ribs. He didn't get to eat much in the village obviously.

Funny way of sleeping his first night with us. We said he looks like the flying nun.
He is getting to eat at our house and I think enjoying it. His belly always swelled after his first few meals with us.
Caroline has enjoyed her new friend, mostly. Doesn't like when he tries to snuggle with her at night but other than that they really love playing together.

This is the life

We basically have two places in Koutiala that the boys can play. At the pool or at daddy's work. When it's too cold for the pool, we have one option. Then it gets to hot to play in the sand so the pool is the only option. So since we've just been through our cold season, the pool wasn't an option so we moved to our other play site. The sand piles of daddy's work.

They always try to build a tunnel and every time it has not worked. Until this time...

This looks just like Brett as a kid.

Pulling "Dawson" out of the tunnel. :)

After playing for awhile, Kenan laid down on the sand like this and said, "This is the life." I'm glad I could offer them a sand pile to make their life so happy.

Here's to many more sand tunnels!

Elephants and Giraffes

After the safari we headed over to the elephant orphanage. They rescue elephants that have been orphaned often because of poachers.

I liked it even though we missed some of Silas' face. :)

Sweet love

Then we were off to feed giraffes. The boys really enjoyed that this year.

I know it is blurry but this was Silas' fave every time he gave the giraffe food. He just laughed with delight.

Now that's what I call picking your nose. Impressive.

Afterwards Brett's mom bought them sword balloons. They really enjoyed that. I kind of had to laugh- they had been on a safari and seen animals in the wild. They had seen orphaned elephants and just fed giraffes but they really got a kick out of the balloons. :) A kid is a kid anywhere.

Safari

Our power has been terrible. Out every weekend both Saturday and Sunday as well as several days during the week. This means I haven't been able to be on the internet long enough to post any pictures. So finally, here they are!

About to enter the park bright and early. We left our place at 5 am and were at the park by 6 am.

Thus we got to watch the beautiful sunrise as we entered the park.

On the lookout for animals. It was quite cold I must say. Anna was in charge of one side and I the other.

Silas took a turn as well to see what he could find.

Our first animal spotting was Anna's favorite. Giraffes. She said her day was good enough now that she had seen giraffes. Thankfully we got to see much more though.

This just strikes me as funny. A giraffe walking down the road. The city is so close to the park. I would never want to live in one of the apartments/houses overlooking the park.

Enjoying breakfast as we continued to look for other animals.

Though the boys enjoyed the day, they did get bored of driving around looking for animals especially since they were tired to begin with. So we made them a little tent where they could watch the ipod or play a ds in between looking at the animals. Yes, I realize this seems crazy but it allowed the adults, who were giddy like school kids, enjoy their day.

I love zebras. Fell in love on our safari two years ago. They are simply mesmerizing. Incredibly fascinating. So beautiful. I could stare at them all day.

Me and my zebra loving boy.

Like I said, I like zebras.

We also enjoyed being tauregs (a people group in the north of Mali) as we looked for animals.


At one point we were able to get out and walk a path to look for crocodile and hippos. We saw no hippos as there hadn't been enough rain but we did see a crocodile laying out in the river bed. This was Silas' response.

I love Kenan. There is no one like him but the boy moves at his own pace which is slow or slower. This is how it usually looks whenever we go anywhere. I said that if we were a family of zebras, he'd be the one who lagged behind and got eaten by lions. Thankfully we aren't zebras.

Our guide with our guide from last time whom we saw as we were doing the walking part (the military guy led us with his gun through the walking area). We joked with our old guide that he was lucky since we had seen lions with him last time but hadn't this time. He said now we would have good luck which we needed since Anna had told us she wanted to see a lion eating a zebra. This was after her initial being satisfied with just a giraffe wore off. Then she dreamed big. I assured her that her request was one in a million and that she just needed to drop that dream. We'd be lucky just to see a lion.

Once we were done with the walking part, we heard that there were actually lions out so we headed to where they were.
We first saw a lion in a bush which actually scared us all as you think there is nothing there and then realize a lion is only a few feet from you.

We kept driving and saw more lions around. This one was clearing the area of birds. She just casually walked in that direction and all the birds knew to leave. Quite interesting to watch.

Silas in his lion shirt looking at the lions under the tree.

Amazingly Anna got her wish. A group of lions were eating a zebra! Now we didn't see the catch, but getting to watch nature up close was fascinating. At least for the adults. The kids were not too happy to hear a zebra had lost its life. And you could totally see it was a zebra. No denying those black and white stripes.

Vultures up above waiting for whatever would be left though it didn't seem like much would be.

Their eyes are simply piercing as if they see right into you. It was kind of scary to look them in the eye not knowing if they would for some crazy reason decide to pounce.

The Lord truly blessed our day. I had no idea that we could have a better time than our trip before but we did. It was so great. Can't wait to do it again. Next time, I want to take a zebra home with me. :)