The Holidays

This picture is of Daniel Owiti from our Christmas at the Baby Center... no, we didn't do anything mean to make him cry.  I think he was either afraid of Santa or upset because someone else was playing with the toy he wanted.  Either way, he is pretty cute.  See the link a ways down the page for more from our Christmas day. 

Time is just flying by… when we last posted, we were in Nairobi to pick up my sister from the airport.  We took her to the airport to fly home a few days ago after a fun whirlwind of a week.  It was sad to see her go, but so nice that she could be with us over Christmas!

We’re behind with our updates and our links to photo albums, so here is an attempt to get caught up…
As promised, HERE are some pictures from Day 2 of our time with Colleen's father, John, and her Uncle Jim on the Mara.  We got to see lions, hippos, hyenna, cheetah, lots of rain, and some amazing landscapes.
 
  Also, Here are the photos from Day 3 of our time on the Mara... we got to pet a baby rhino!  We had so much fun with Dad Ramsay and Uncle Jim on the Mara… especially when wearing the luxurious robes provided in our tents!
One of my friends from Taylor who coaches high school soccer collected a bunch of cleats for the guys on the football team that I play for.   John Ramsay brought the shoes and the guys love them - we haven’t lost a game since we received them! Thanks Kyle!  Here’s an album of some happy footballers and some kids from the Baby Center.  Check us out showing off our new boots!
Here some some photos from Corinn's first day in Kenya, including this smooch of Daisy the giraffe mere hours after she landed… we took her to the giraffe center since she loves giraffes so much. 
Probably the highlight of our time with Corinn was Christmas at the Baby Center – click for a link to the photo album.  We had so much fun passing out gifts to the kids and celebrating with the caregivers.  Some of the orphans who have been adopted came back to participate in the festivities, and Jim Vanderhoof (our esteemed field director)  dressed up as Santa Claus (or Father Christmas as he is known over here).  Corinn and Colleen played the part of Santa’s Helpers, and I was primarily the photographer of the chaos.  The kids were quite leery of Santa until they realized that he was passing our gifts… then he got swarmed by the mob!   See the picture at left of an exhausted Mr. Claus recovering from the madness… it captures the moment perfectly!


Thanks so much for reading.  Hope your families had wonderful holidays and are excited about all God will do in 2010!  We so appreciate your prayers and support… we’ve had an update letter in process for a while now, so hopefully we’ll get that out this week – we’ll send out an email, and put a link on the blog, so check back. 
Thanks again!