Dad and Uncle Jim come to Kenya!

Last Monday we left Dad and Uncle Jim in Nairobi to fly back home.  it seems like yesterday we were picking them up!  Click HERE for some pictures of Dad’s first day in Kenya when we took him to the giraffe center!

Dad spent over a week in Nakuru with us and we loved being able to show off the kids and our lives over here.  It was wonderful to be able to take him to the baby center and introduce him to the kids but also just to relax and let him experience everyday life in Nakuru.  We got fresh squeezed juice and mandazi, met the ladies I buy vegetables from and were invited into their home, got pedicures (after lots of convincing), led youth group, relaxed on our porch, and much more. 

One of the highlights was getting together with one of Dad’s old friends from college.  They haven’t seen each other in 30 yrs but Dad had sent us a name about 3 months before asking if there was a way to find him.  Cason asked one of the women he works with and her response was “well I know him, he lives just down the road, let me give you his number.”  It’s a small world.  So we had him and his wife over for an American meal along with another couple from our church.  We had a great time fellowshipping together and the best part of the evening was creating an “elf yourself” video with them in it and playing it for them.  It was so much fun and I don’t think we’ve laughed that hard in a long time. 

Dad also spent a lot of time at the baby center.  The children loved him and keep asking where Babu John is when I come.  Momo’s response is always wisely telling the other children “he’s in Nakuru with Cason”  or sometimes “he’s playing football with Cason.”  Momo and Mesh consider themselves the wiser of the kids and like to keep the other smaller children updated on where all their visitors are :)  Click HERE to see some picture of my dad at the Baby Center... the kids loved him so much and we had so much fun!

While Dad was here we also got to have a traditional Kenyan meal with a family from our church.  It was so much fun and they surprised us with ice cream for desert!  They sang us a fun parting song to send us off at the end of the night.

At the end of the week Uncle Jim joined us and we headed on to the Masai Mara for a “safari camping” experience!  The tented camps are nothing like traditional camping - They are complete with tile floors, four poster beds, showers, bathrooms, and robes!  We felt quite pampered and had some great game drives.  Dad brought rain everywhere he went and it definitely followed us to the Mara.  Our second day there we have a torrential downpour and hunkered under blankets in our canvas topped safari jeep while the plains we were attempting to cross quickly filled with water and began to look more like a lake than African plains.  We eventually found higher ground and where able to watch the water rise from a safe spot.  It was pretty incredible to see.  Click here for some of our safari pictures, including some of an elephant family and lions – we’ll post more when we have some time.

On Monday after a tearful goodbye we left  Dad and Uncle Jim in Nairobi while Cas and I headed to our Christmas field meetings.  It was very hard to leave Dad but fortunately we are back in Nairobi today to pick up Corinn (Cason’s sister) who will be flying in tomorrow morning to be with us over Christmas!

We’ll post more soon, including more pictures from our safari!  We hope you all are having wonderful holidays with your families!

Love, Colleen

Links… with more to come!

We’ve been having a great time with Colleen’s father John and her Uncle Jim the last few weeks.  We were just at the Masai Mara in southern Kenya for a few days going on safari and staying at the nicest “hotel” in Africa… it was awesome.  We saw lion, giraffe, cheetah, rhino, elephant, hippo, and so many more… all except leopard :  ( .  We’ll put up pictures as we have time… we are getting really behind with albums and blogging! 

Lots has been happening that we haven’t posted about… Thanksgiving weekend I went with the Ngata Youth group we’ve been leading to hike Mount Longonot.  It was an amazingly beautiful hike, and such a great time… until a torrential downpour swept in and soaked everyone to the bone.  I still had a great time, but a few of the youth swore they wouldn’t do it again :  ) Click here is a link to pictures of my hike with the Ngata Youth group – pre downpour.  I thought my camera was ruined from the rain, but thankfully it survived. 

While in Nairobi to pick up Colleen’s dad and Uncle, we celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary… actually it was our 1 year 11.5 month anniversary.  The real day is Tuesday (the 15th), but we knew we’d be too busy to get away.  Click HERE for a few pictures from our celebration... and by sure to tell Colleen congrats (and thanks) for putting up with me!

The weekend of Thankgiving, three of our friends who are student teaching in Nairobi came to visit.  We went to Lake Nakuru Park (the one we can see from our house) for the first time.  HERE is a link to an album of our day at Lake Nakuru National Park with Heidi, Mark, and Ashley.  Check it out if you like giraffes, zebras, rhinos, lions....  In addition toe park, they also joined us for Thanksgiving, spent time at the Baby Center, etc.  Here is an album of Mark, Ashley, and Heidi in Nakuru and at the Baby Center.

Thanks for checking in with us… we’ll post more pictures of our time with John and Jim, and at the Mara. 

PS-We’re trying to get out a Christmas letter, but we’ve got more meeting next week and then Corinn (Cason’s sister) comes to visit… so it might be more like a New Years or Valentine’s Day letter. 

Some kids and Lake Baringo

In the past week and a half, we’ve camped with hippos and boated with crocodiles at Lake Baringo, seen giraffes, lions, and rhinos at Lake Nakuru, housed our friends from Taylor for some nights, eaten a wonderful Thankgiving dinner at the Vanderhoofs, kissed a giraffe, and been to/from Nairobi to pick up Colleen’s dad and uncle.  It has been so busy, but so much fun! 

We’ll get up pictures of all those events as we have time, but now I’m focusing on catching up on the dozens of emails in my work inbox… can’t be all fun and games I guess (except for Colleen, who is playing at the Baby Center with her dad… ;  ). 

A few weekends ago we had some of the kids from the Baby Center out to play at our house for some hours.  It was Momo’s first time to come, though he had heard all about it from the other kids.  He is the oldest at the Baby Center and I had so much fun with him on our backyard ropeswing.  Click HERE for some more photos of Manu, Precious, and Momo playing at our house - they were so fun and cute! 

Like I said in the first paragraph, we also went to Lake Baringo with our Danish friends Mikkel and Margit.  There we got to see crocodiles and hippos right along our campsite, and we went on an amazing early morning boat ride on which we saw so many kids of birds and beautiful scenery.  Click HERE to see the entire album of our Lake Baringo photos… we got some really great ones of the birds and landscape. 

Thanks, as always for reading our blog… we’ll put up some more photo albums soon.  We really appreciate your prayers and support!