And one of Silas crawling.

More, more, more

Oma reading to the boys before breakfast.

The four musketeers at our last bonfire. Can we say troubleÉ

Silas enjoying dinner at the bonfire with Oma. Stephen had fun roasting his marshmellow.

It is happening!

Here are two trucks on the road. I guess there are no weight limits or height limits here!
Here is Stephen with a warthog at Yankari Game Reserve. This was after the baboons ate all the food I packed for them! But, before getting sick and a flat tire on the way home!

Samuel was sick on this trip so here he was sleeping on Daddy in the water. Relaxing and comfy.

And more ... is this really happeningÉ

Jono and Stephen and Samuel and their new bikes!
Janice canning spaghetti sauce, salsa, and pizza sauce. Thanks Mom B for all your help!

Some more pics

Stephen lifting weights
Jono and Andy shopping for a tap for our water tank so it won`t leak anymore.

Big family picture with Opa and Oma and new bikes!

Hello!

Hello everyone! Here is to trying again!
Things are going well. Its really hot and humid but I think we have adjusted to it. We consume large amounts of water all day long and sweat all day long, even while we sleep.
The boys continue to grow and change. Silas likes to walk holding our hands and can crawl anywhere to keep up with his brothers. Stephen loves to ride his new bike and it looks well worn. Samuel prefers to sit on his and tell us that Oma and Opa brought it for him.
Jono is busy with work. He is working on some alphabet books and collecting more data. I am busy with the boys. I have given up trying to keep them clean!

A few photos - would have been nice

Hi there loyal reader, it has been long and again, apologies are offered. However, I think as bloggers we all know that life has phases. Sometimes we blog during those phases and sometimes we don't.
Well, Merry Christmas to you all. We hope you enjoyed tables of food and good times with those closest to you.
Unfortunately pictures are not uploading today, but we do hope you are all enjoying the holiday season.

Some pictures?

Latest family photo for our newsletter.
The boys with their new sunglasses and Christmas presents from Aunt Kendra and Uncle Jon. Thanks for making our return to the city an exciting Christmas experience!

So, it seems that maybe I can access our blog but I am unable to send a simple, small email. What is up with that?

At long last ... maybe a post

Here's to hoping that something computer related worked today.

Wow!! Kwana biyu...

Well, it certainly has been a while since we posted anything on this site. We apologize for this. Of course, we do have reasons, or excuses, depending on how you look at it. The main reasons are
1. Not having internet access at home. Of course, there are some people out there who don't let that stop them.
2. The Power company in this country has problems supplying it's population with reliable electricity which further prohibits the posting of material on our blog.
3. We have been out of Jos in the village during which time we don't even have access to phones, let alone the internet.
We are getting used to the lack of the basic necessities of life, but we still haven't figured out how to blog when we don't have them.
I had planned to post some pictures if I could, but something has changed on this posting page, and I can't figure out how to post pictures. What a pain.
Most of you who look at the blog receive our newsletters anyway, so you'll be getting some news from us very shortly.
Happy Easter, by the way. I think that Easter is even more exciting than Christmas in many ways. Christ somehow even when he was dead was able to return to the land of the living!! Amazing. I hope you enjoy celebrating that feat today.

Family pictures

We haven't been very good at taking pictures but here are a few from a "photo shoot" that we did for our newsletter picture. These are a couple of the ones that didn't make it.



And here is Samuel playing with some of the neighbourhood kids. He loves to play in the dirt and put sticks in his mouth. Hopefully in the long term he'll develop a better immunity to whatever he is putting in his mouth.

Some pictures of our life in Nigeria

Hopefully there are still some people who visit this blog once in a while. We can't promise that we will be any more regular, but we will do our best.
Some of these pictures are recycled from our email update that we send out. But here they are again.
Stephen sitting on one of our 14 suitcases!!
New Duplos!!
Samuel enjoys them, too.
The easiest way to keep the boys out of trouble... Stephen LOVES Mighty Machines. Samuel actually doesn't really like watching movies too much. I suppose that's good.
Here we see a rare sight indeed! First, Janice is ironing. Second, she's ironing diapers. Apparently, when it's mango fly season it becomes necessary to iron clothes in order to kill the mango fly larvae that may have embedded themselves in your laundry. It's not actually mango fly season, so on this particular day we didn't need to be ironing the diapers. Live and learn, I guess.
Janice and Stephen are making cookies in the kitchen. They turned out very well, especially considering it was Janice's first time baking them with this gas oven.
Samuel has learned how to crawl the "real" way. He no longer drags himself commando-style through the house. Isn't he cute? He has not been feeling himself the past couple of days. We think he has a cold, or is sick with something. His naps are very short and he wakes up happy, but only for half an hour, or so and then he realizes he's tired and grumpy.
This is the general state of Stephen's room.
These are a few of the neighbourhood kids. There are a few who are closer to Stephen's age, too. These guys really enjoyed playing with the Duplo.
Here is Stephen with his ball, walking to invite some of the kids to play. This was before he knew any of them, so he was actually being quite brave by just walking over to their house and asking them to play with him. Now he knows most of the kids pretty well. They get along well for the most part, although it's not always easy for him.

Some pictures of our life in Nigeria

Nigeria!

Well, now that you know that.... our apologies for not updating for a long time. We have been realizing the limitations of the internet here. It is even more severe than our dial-up connection in Ontario. We also were unable to log on to our blog for a couple days. Every time we tried, we were rerouted to the wrong page.
Anyway, now that we have most of the bugs fixed, we will make sure we post some new stuff up here.
The battery in the laptop is almost dead, but tomorrow we will try to post some new stuff!

Weird

Everything on this page is in Italian and I don't know why. Hopefully I can navigate my way around well enough.

The Wedding of Jonathan & Kendra Ippel

We spent some time in Michigan to be a part of our friends wedding festivities. Our family went camping for that long weekend. We were able to see friends that we hadn't seen in years and months! Stephen did a great job as "Superkid" and all the brown dresses looked pretty good together. Here are the girls.

Jon & Kendra cutting the yummy cake.

Samuel standing up on the beach.

The Bride & Groom

The Group Reunited from all over this continent!

Uncle Jake & Aunt Donna - it was great to spend some time with you again too!

Despite all the misfortunes and adventures, it was a great weekend!

Friends

Back in July we also got to visit some friends down in the Niagara area. Stephen and Noah played in the pool right next to the new subdivision that's going in around the house.

Stephen and the neighbour kids at the Listowel parade.

Stephen and Zachary looking very hot and tired. The more we talked to Hannah and Ryan about Zachary, the more we became convinced that he and Stephen could have been brothers. It's reassuring to know that Stephen is normal.
Janae, Samuel and Daniel smile for the camera.

Stephen's birthday

Here we are again, after a loooong break from blogging. We do apologize. These are some pictures that we took for Stephen's birthday. We made a pinata of Bob the Tomato. Stephen really enjoyed making the pinata for about 5 minutes.

These are the girls from the party. Stephen doesn't really have any kids his age that are boys, but he doesn't really mind that.
The kids made Fruit Loop necklaces to kill some time.
The kids took turns hitting the pinata with a baseball bat, but it wasn't breaking, so we ended up using a croquet mallet which did a lot more damage.

New York

So, we had a great time in New York City. We visited Jono's Uncle Marten in Manhattan and a friend, Dorollo, who also works in Manhattan.
Stephen and Uncle Marten played "blocks" with checkers pieces. The best part about Uncle Marten's apartment was the automatic vacuum cleaner, according to Stephen. Janice and I liked the view from the balcony.
You can't have pictures of New York City without pictures of Lady Liberty.
Here is Janice trying to teach Stephen to play the piano at F.A.O. Schwartz.
We went to the zoo in Central Park, which Stephen really enjoyed.
Here, Janice, Stephen and Samuel try to stay dry while we wait for the rain to stop.