Jacob and Laura's Family

What's in a Name?

2010-03-07T14:18:00.001-08:00

Amina Liana

When we named Amina something happened that I did not anticipate. Even though I love her names and the meaning and story behind the names I kept feeling unworthy of naming her and so aware of the awesome responsibility of naming another person. How could I possibly assign a name to something so complex, so precious as a soul? A name follows someone for life and we couldn't even ask her if she liked the names we picked for her. It was a weighty responsibility and I felt it strongly in a way that I had not anticipated. But a name must be picked, and I stand by our choice. She will make of her name whatever she wishes. And we gave her two names that contain many possible nicknames within them, so she has options. :)

Amina, we tried to pick a name as special as you are:

Amina is a name from the Arabic world, the name of the mother of the prophet Muhammad. It is derived from the Arabic word aamina which means, in essence, to feel safe, peaceful, and secure, to always be protected. The name is also recognized as meaning honest, truthful, trustworthy, and faithful.

You were named after a little eight-year-old girl named Amina who lived in a village called Makunduchi on the island of Zanzibar. Zanzibar Amina is all grown up now, probably married with children of her own. She has a very beautiful smile and there is a very special story about her.

One evening, in the summer of 2001, your daddy was visiting and interviewing a family near Makunduchi a good distance away from his home. It got dark before he realized that his flashlight did not work. He has always had a very hard time seeing in the dark and knew that he could not find his way home without help. Not to worry, a group of children your daddy had befriended gathered around him, all of them willing to help. Little Amina stepped up, took him by the hand and guided him through the dark for about half a mile to the main road until he was able to find his way home.

Liana is a name derived from the Hebrew Eliana, which means God has answered. It is also a French name that means to twine around or to bind together. In English, Liana is the name of the type of climbing, intertwining vines that connect the trees of the rainforest and provide a network for animals to walk and swing safely from tree to tree without ever having to touch the ground.

So, in short, these names in combination mean very special things to us that we hope to remember when we say them. And we hope you like them, Amina!

Here is a picture of the Amina who helped guide your daddy through the dark that night. Who knew that one day we would have our very own little Amina who can see so well in the dark. Now it is your turn to take your daddy by the hand and guide him when he can not see.

The eye revelation and the squeaky binky

2010-02-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

As we were getting ready to take Amina home from the hospital the day after she was born, the physician's assistant came by to give her one last assessment in order to give us the green light to take her home. Our little baby was eating, spitting up, burping, pooping, peeing, sleeping, and being generally adorable just as every good baby should. Jacob had gone to the hotel to pack everything up when the PA looked in Amina's eyes. Her eyes had been pretty swollen (newborns eyes usually are, if you can imagine) so she had not been able to get a good look the day before. Today when she looked she said, "Hmmm. She's got coloboma."

Coloboma? I had never heard that word before. The PA showed me Amina's "keyhole" shaped pupils, and went to call an expert at the Casey Eye Institute. The expert said that sometimes coloboma is associated with a syndrome that includes, among many other things, heart and kidney problems and esophageal atresia. To rule out the syndrome, they passed an orogastric tube down into Amina's tummy to check for atresia and they took an x-ray to check for extra kidneys etc. They found that everything was very normal. Happily, her coloboma is not the kind that is associated with a syndrome.

So what is coloboma? It is basically a gap in both her eyes where they did not form completely during development. Since this blog belongs to a nurse and, what's more, a nerdy nurse, I will get technical here. For those who snore when things get technical, feel free to skip to the cute videos at the end.

For you other nerds out there: I have learned a thing or two about coloboma over the past 6 months from the Coloboma Moms yahoo support group, two pediatric ophthalmologists, and a lot of internet searches. Colobomas happen about 1 in 10,000 births and each case affects the vision of the individual differently depending on how much of the eye is affected. During the fifth week of pregnancy, the eyes start to form in an arch-shaped tunnel. Nutrients flow through the tunnel to help form the eye. Later on, the bottom of the arch zips up to complete the round eye. Amina's eyes never zipped up completely. The name "coloboma" is a Greek word that means "unfinished".

Colobomas are often associated with having one or both eyes smaller than usual. Amina's right eye is smaller than her left eye. Depending on what part of the eye does not zip, there can be visual impairment ranging from mild light sensitivity to blind spots to total blindness. We were told this last bit when Amina's colobomas were first discovered, and we had to wait six weeks until her first visit to the ophthalmologist before we found out that her colobomas do in fact go all the way through, affecting the iris and the retina including the fovea, macula, and optic nerve in both eyes.

The fovea and macula are the parts of the retina responsible for sharp vision - the ability to see detail. A good fovea is essential for high visual acuity. Because Amina's colobomas go through this area, the ophthalmologist believes that the best visual acuity she will ever be able to have is somewhere between 20/80 and 20/400. She will fall somewhere in that range, her left eye likely seeing better than her smaller right eye. In fact, her right eye has recently started to turn inward which can be a sign that the vision in that eye is bad enough that the brain has decided to ignore the signals from that eye rather than try to reconcile the images from that eye with the other eye. To strengthen the eye-brain connection in the right eye, we have started patching the left eye for two hours a day. Amina can still obviously see lights and colors and movement with her right eye when the other eye is patched, but we won't know the details of what she can see until she is old enough to tell us.

There is nothing that can be done to "fix" the colobomas, no more than one could grow a missing finger. No amount of fabulous glasses will improve her visual acuity, either, because there is nothing wrong with her lenses. In a camera, you can have the best lens in the world, but if you have bad film, you're not going to get a good picture. Similarly, even with glasses, Amina will not be able to see sharp details because her retinas simply can't capture them. There are things that we can do, however, to maximize the vision that she does have and we will do all that we can to make that happen.

Unless you know about Amina's eyes, you would never guess that there is anything different about her vision. She behaves like a perfectly happy, perfectly normal baby and has met all of her milestones with ease. We have had vision teachers from Early Intervention programs come to our home nearly monthly since she was born and they are all amazed at how well she is doing and how well she seems to be able to see. Everyone assures us that brains are amazing things and that Amina's brain will do great things with the visual input that it receives. She will likely get around just fine.

Amina vs. The Orogastric Tube and the Squeaky Binky

A note about coloboma and light sensitivity.

Normal irises dilate and constrict to admit appropriate amounts of light onto our retinas. Amina's irises have gaps in them which let in a great deal more light than her retinas would like. This makes her very sensitive to sunlight and also gives her super night vision. We have gotten super cute baby sunglasses for her to wear outside. She usually uses them as a teething toy, but she occasionally leaves them be and I think she will soon learn that they make her eyes more comfortable in the light and will leave them on. The following is a video that I took when Amina was four weeks old which I watched many times to prove to myself that my little girl wasn't going to be completely blind. Anyone who reacts that much to sunlight couldn't be blind, I told myself. I was right.

Amina's Burp Saga

2010-02-07T02:49:00.000-08:00

I have been trying for at least five months to figure out how to explain in words how excited and happy we were to become parents, how enthralled and in love we are with our new little baby girl. These videos, taken just minutes before we took her home from the hospital, say it better than I ever could. It is love that makes those little everyday things so shiny and fantastic.

Amina's Burp Saga: Part I

Amina's Burp Saga: Part IIA

Amina's Burp Saga: Part IIB

Amina's Burp Saga: Part III

Amina's Amazing Birth Story

2009-09-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

And then there were three!

How did Amina join our family? Well, I'll tell you the story...

First week of March 2009 - Jacob and Laura are finally approved as an adoptive couple and our profile is published online. Happy day!

March 11 - We are contacted by a birth mom living in Utah who is interested in placing with us if adoption is what she decides. We wait and hope for the best.

May 28 - Things work out for the Utah birth mom and she decides to keep her baby. We are happy things worked out for her but we are, of course, disappointed that we don't get to be parents yet.

Sunday June 7, 2009 - We get our first email from Amina's birth mom from the Oregon Coast. After our last experience, we try very hard not to get excited.

July and August - We wait and hope, getting encouraging emails here and there. Our sanity is just about to go out the window when

August 31, 2009, 4 pm - We get confirmation from the doctor that our birth mom is pregnant and that she is due "any day"! We get a car seat from our friend that night - "just in case."

September 1, 2009 (the next day) - I (Laura) am scheduled to work at the hospital and my coworkers give me the easiest assignment - an easy delivery - because they can see I have "baby on the brain" and am pretty much good for nothing difficult. At 10:45 pm my patient is minutes away from having her baby when Kathy, my coworker, comes into my patient's room, taps me on the shoulder and says, "Can you step outside for a minute?" Once outside, she says, "It looks like you are going to Newport tonight: your husband is on the phone." I run down the hallway to where my coworkers are grinning and giggling at the nursing station and Katherine is holding the phone out to me. I say, "You guys are pranking me, right?" But then lightning goes through my body as I hear Jacob's voice on the other end saying, "She's in hard labor and she's driving herself to the hospital."

What happened next is a blur. I paced around for a little bit unable to think straight, called the caseworker and confirmed, finished my charting, waved goodbye to my fabulous coworkers who were saying, "go on, get out of here, we'll take care of everything," and got out to the car by 11 pm. I tried very hard not to speed home where Jacob was furiously packing. Soon we were all packed and on the road toward Newport via Tillamook. I remember the drive was gorgeous. The moon was shining brightly, casting brilliant light on the trees and the ocean, creating a moon path to the horizon. I thought to myself: A herald of our baby's birth. As we got near to Tillamook, we decided we had better think of names. The girl name was easy. Jacob has always liked Amina. It is a special name to him. I have always loved the name Liana. I woke up one morning and saw it written in my head and loved it. When I found out what it meant, I loved it even more. Amina Liana works so well and so lyrically, we didn’t have to discuss it any more. That was it. We felt very warm and happy about that name.

Trying to decide on a boy’s name was much harder. We had thought about Joseph Jacob in the past, but those names are so common. We wanted our baby (if it were a boy) to have a name that he could call his own. We thought and thought and talked and talked, and we even resorted to reading all the store signs and street names as they went by: "Hmm, maybe Fred, how about Meyer?" trying to think of something good.

We were about 20 minutes away from the hospital when I called Julie, the caseworker, who was also on her way to the hospital. She said, “I was just about to call you. I just got word from the hospital, and she has just been born. You are the proud parents of a baby girl! Congratulations Mom and Dad!” I looked over at Jacob and said with astonishment, “We have a GIRL!” Jacob had thought she would be a boy, so this news was a little shock, but it took about a split second for him to get over it and we were both so happy. We were so so happy. One of the first thoughts I had was, well, no wonder we had such a hard time thinking of the right boy’s name; Our little girl had already been born! She was born at 0106 in the morning on September 2, 2009. Eight pounds, one ounce, 20 1/4 inches long, with brown hair that stuck up on top. We didn’t know this yet, though. All we knew is that she had been born, and we tried really hard not to speed all the rest of the way to the hospital. Julie the adoption caseworker beat us there by a few minutes and we met her outside the hospital room door where Amina's birth mom was waiting inside. We went in and met her and gave her hugs and thank you’s. There is nothing we could do or say to express the depth of our gratitude for such an incredible gift.

The nurses said they would bring our baby girl to us but that we ought to wash our hands first, so we went into the bathroom to wash our hands.

Daddy got to see her first. He saw her as they wheeled her into the room. He whispered to me excitedly, “I saw her! She’s really cute.” So with our hands clean, we went in to meet our little girl. When I touched her I felt so happy that my throat choked up and my voice wouldn’t work. Could it be that here was my little daughter? It was, and she is.

The Reason Why Exploratory Walks are Important

2009-05-08T02:37:00.000-07:00

We had been living in our apartment for over a month and a half before I got around to exploring. One day at the end of April I finally ventured up the road beyond the driveway. We can only see a grove of thick trees from our apartment windows, so I was not expecting to find what I found. Not 200 yards up the road I saw this:

Here's the panoramic shot - three photos spliced together. You can click on it to see it in full scale:

Our apartment is located just to the right of this picture, inside the thick grove of trees:

Who knew this vista was just beyond that clump of trees:

And that, my friends, is why going for walks up the road is a good idea. You never know what you might find!

Living in the Country

2009-05-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

Living further away from Portland makes for a slightly longer commute. The payback, however, is well worth every extra mile. Every evening I drive through beauty to work. When work is done I relax and refocus as I drive through beauty on my way home. Every day the wheat grows a little bit taller. I can see the earth come alive before my eyes. The drive is a perfect way to transition from the hustle and bustle of the world to the peace of home.

Scenes along our daily drive:

Now, doesn't that make you feel better after a long stressful night at work?

If You Don't Brave the Rain, You Miss Out on the Rainbows

2009-05-07T01:32:00.000-07:00

The tale of today's glorious walk in the gorge:

It had just finished raining so the sun made everything sparkle as the cloud shadows chased themselves across the vivid green grass. How could I refuse a walk on such an afternoon? I sprinted beside the field adjacent to the house where Jacob grew up pausing a moment to admire:

Upon climbing a long hill I saw this:

And this:

Springtime walks are not complete without stopping to say hello to the flowers:

I also paused to admire someone's very imaginative lawn ornament:

The gorge has many steep hills to climb. The breeze was picking up. By the time I got to the top of this hill I felt a little bit winded and windblown:

When I rounded the peak of the hill I realized why the wind was picking up. Great angry clouds were making their way up the gorge:

I quickened my pace, but soon the great storm fingers captured the sun and blocked it out:

I was soaked to the skin in minutes and then it was over as quickly as it had begun. The sun came out dazzling. I swung around searching for the rainbow and found it - a brilliant arc that lasted less than twenty seconds before the clouds lifted away. By the time I reached for my camera it was already fading:

After pausing to take it all in, I happily sloshed and dripped my way back home, stopping only for a minute to admire Hannah's garden before going inside to dry:

Life is beautiful. So is Spring.

Just a Little Bit Off the Top

2009-04-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

Jacob has been in desperate need of a hair chop. Each time I cut it I comment on how he has less on top to chop :). We finally got around to chopping the other night and the camera happened to be sitting nearby. We took an initial picture to document the event, which, of course, degenerated into us trying to be as goofy as possible. Which picture is your favorite?

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

That last one is truly scary looking. Especially with the red eye. Jacob looks like he's about to get a lobotomy! Don't worry, the haircut turned out just fine, scalp intact, and we dissolved into giggles after seeing that last one :)

Here's something else in our kitchen that needs a haircut.

This must be what happens when you leave onions out in the warmth and sunlight. I must say, we have enjoyed watching them sprout over the last few days.

The trip to Zanzibar

2009-04-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

(From the Summer of 2003)

Jacob lived in Makunduchi the summer before we met. It is a small rural village on Zanzibar Island, off the coast of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He was doing a field study through BYU at the time. While there, in addition to learning Swahili, he collected data regarding dietary intake and nutrition practices of Muslim children. There was a small piece of data that he failed to get at the time that he wanted to get now to make his data complete. He was hoping to develop a measurement tool for food consumption in the absence of precise measuring equipment. So we traveled from Nairobi all the way back to Makunduchi for that single piece of data, and I was thrilled to be able to see where Jacob had lived before we met.

To get to Zanzibar we took the overnight bus from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and then we took a ferry across to the island. It is a shame we had to take the overnight bus because I would have loved to see the scenery better. But we were poor students at the time and we couldn't afford the nicer bus. As it was, I still saw some awesome sights. I awoke to the sun rising over the Serengeti - a moment I will never forget and cannot describe - and saw as the scenery changed from plains to very green and very beautiful diverse forests as we passed a very old mountain range. I saw people of all kinds walking along the road, Maasai villages, and a large variety of dwellings. We were now near the Maasai Steppe and for the duration of our stay in Tanzania we ran into one or a few Maasai in full traditional clothing everywhere and anywhere we went.

The Maasai are known for continuing to wear their traditional tribal clothing regardless of how integrated they become into society as a whole. While on the ferry to Zanzibar I found myself needing to use the bathroom. I searched around and finally found one just off the outer deck. It was occupied so I waited just outside for my turn. I must say I had a bit of a start when it was a tall Maasai man in full traditional atire who popped out of the loo. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I just wasn't expecting to see him in such a modern setting.

These children in Makunduchi were some of Jacob's neighbors and study subjects back in the summer of 2001. They were very instrumental in helping him to learn Swahili. You can just hear them gleefully shouting, "Mzungu! Kupiga picha!" which literally means, "White person! Take a picture!"

The villagers were glad to see Jacob again and to see that he had a wife. He confided to me that he had been offered a few wives while he was there last. All of which he had refused. We had brought a few yards of fine green and gold patterned cloth with us as a gift for Jacob's old housekeeper and cook, Fatuma. We had purchased it on the streets of Dar es Salaam the day before. To our disappointment Fatuma had gone to a neighboring town the day of our visit. Her family said she would cry when she found out she had missed our visit. There was no way we could have sent word ahead of time to announce our visit. There is no electricity where they are and the mail system would have been too slow.

But Jacob saw many other old friends. Upon seeing him again, the first thing everyone said was "Yakubu! Umenepa!" which means, "Jacob! You have gotten fat!" It was true. Jacob had been very skinny (6'3" and 180 lbs) when we got married and was now about 40 pounds heavier. Still not fat, but definitely less skinny. They were giving him a compliment and everyone attributed it to being married. But we know better. He gained most of his weight while living with a Luo man named Ashiembi in Western Kenya in the previous months. (Barak Obama's father was also a Luo man, and all the Luos we know are extremely proud of that fact.) Ashiembi was a veterinarian and was wealthy enough to support his mother and two wives. Jacob reports that for dinner, he and Ashiembi would visit the second wife's house and be fed a great dinner of rice, vegetables, salt fish from lake Victoria, and hot whole milk, fresh from the cow, boiled with cinnamon and sweetened with sugar. Afterward, they came home to the first wife's house and were fed another huge dinner of the same. Then they would be invited over to Ashiembi's mother's house for yet another feast. It is rude to turn down food. What was Jacob to do? He had to keep eating even if he was so full it hurt.

After collecting the data we needed from Makunduchi, we spent a little time with some of Jacob's friends in Stonetown. Jacob was very pleased with the effect my presence had on the trip as a whole because I increased our access to the world of the women. I can access different parts of life that Jacob cannot because I am a woman and he is not.

Jacob took this picture of me with the women of the household in Stonetown. We had just finished eating a meal together from a huge communal plate of coconut-cooked rice with fruit while sitting on a mat on the floor as is the tradition there. It was delicious.

While in Zanzibar we stayed in Stonetown at a very comfortable bed and breakfast. It was near Forodani - the best eating spot in town. Every night at sunset the seaside would come alive at Forodani where the fishermen and their families sell their freshly prepared catch from the Indian Ocean along with glasses of freshly pressed sugar cane juice flavored with lime. Heaven in a glass. At Forodani you find all kinds of amazingly fresh and delicious seafood at impossibly low prices, roasted on a grill. You go past the rows of food, point at which piece of octopus, squid, lobster, or fish you want, and they put it on a plate for you with a savory sauce.

Here I am in the bedroom at the bed and breakfast, displaying the bites I got on my leg from an overzealous insect who traveled with us on the overnight bus from Nairobi. He must have gotten stuck inside my sock and been mad about it.

This is the view from Stonetown on the Zanzibar coast looking west over the ocean toward the African continent. Dar es Salaam is too far away to see.

Our stay in Zanzibar was far too short. It is a fascinating and historical place - the birthplace of Swahili and a place of trade among different cultures and continents for centuries. I'm so glad we went, even if it was for a little while.

Home Sweet Home

2009-04-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures during May and June of 2008 during our visits and travels in the weeks following our return from Africa. I share them now to help explain how lovely our homecoming was. It was like the spring and summer were shouting, "Hello! Welcome home!"

The view just down the road from Jacob's parents' house where Jacob grew up

Just a little bit further down the road

The Columbia River Gorge as seen from the top of the hill in Jacob's parents' back yard

Mt. Hood peeking through the trees also as seen from the backyard

Here you can see the setting of Jacob's childhood home and the place of our residence in 2007. I miss it. We had a lovely time living there.

Flying over the Cascades is always a treat. This is Mount Hood as seen from the air above Hood River Valley. You can just see Mount Jefferson in the distance.

And here is Mount Hood and Mount Adams as seen from the South, with the Columbia River flowing between them.

Flying is wonderful, but driving also has its own delights. The next four pictures were taken while traveling westbound on I-84 through Idaho and the Blue Mountains in Eastern Oregon.

Last fall, our dear friend Kristen came to Portland for orientation for a new job she was taking in Uganda. Jacob and Kristen went to grad school together and we've stayed in touch. We really enjoyed her visit and we took her to see the sights and do some short hikes along the old highway.

Kristen at Crown Point

Waterfall Pics

It's good to be home.

Coming Home to Ava's Birth

2009-04-21T05:31:00.000-07:00

As springtime comes I am reminded that we have been back in the United States for almost a year now. We returned from Africa in May last year. Upon our return I realized afresh that the United States is a remarkably amazing place, and that there's no place like home. In the first few weeks after our return, and while looking for a job, we visited family in Utah, Idaho, and Oregon to help ease our transition.

When returning from a place like the DR Congo, one must expect a bit of culture shock. This was the worst I had experienced yet - I was so overwhelmed by the new city, the different culture (even though it was familiar), the fast pace of life and all the technology, and reverting to speaking English and Spanish again. I do believe my new coworkers believed me to be a very shy person at first, because it was all I could do to learn and absorb the new tasks of my job in the fast-paced high-risk labor and delivery department. Interacting with my environment beyond that was too much for me to handle at first. I got over it, though.

The timing of our homecoming could not have been better, because a day or two after our return my brother James and his wife Katie called with the news that Katie's water had broken and they were off to the hospital. We quickly drove from Salt Lake to Idaho Falls so that I could be present to help Katie (and my brother James, too) through the labor and delivery process. It was such a special experience to be present at Ava's birth and to be able to meet her and greet her as she came into the world. Ava eventually came via cesarean section, and since I'm a labor and delivery nurse I was allowed to enter the operating room with Katie and James and stay with them, explaining to them everything that was going on. Usually hospitals allow only one family member into the operating room so it was a great privilege to be there. I was also deeply honored by James and Katie for inviting me to be a part of this amazing experience.

Proud Aunt Laura holding beautiful Ava - just minutes old.

Jacob's Surgery

2009-04-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've known him (and for as long as he can remember), Jacob has had trouble breathing through his nose. He gets dust in his throat when hiking on a dusty trail, and he feels like he's suffocating when he eats because he always has to breath through his mouth. Poor guy. Every once in a while he can breathe through one nostril but the rest of the time his nose is plugged. Until now!!! He visited an ENT (ear nose and throat) specialist (and his name was not Treebeard) a couple weeks ago who said, with a scope in hand, "Yup, I can see why you have a problem. Things are pretty crooked inside there. I can fix your nose, no problem." Our jaws dropped and we said, "Could it really be so easy?" The "septoplasty with turbinate reduction" was scheduled for a week later and done last Wednesday afternoon. The surgery lasted about an hour and Jacob was home a few hours later. He should finish healing within a week or so and be able to breath easy at last! Yay! When he woke up from the anesthesia he said he felt like thanking the whole world.

The surgery was done in the same hospital where I work so I got a tremendously big kick out of seeing my husband wearing the exact same pattern of hospital gown that I see all my pregnant and laboring patients wear. I of course, had to take a picture while he struck a very "manly" pose to counteract the fact that this gown had probably been worn at some point by a woman in labor.

Here is a much more thoughtful and serious Jacob just minutes before going back to the operating room.
The man you see in the background helped with the operation. After taking Jacob's health history, he told us a hilarious joke to break the tension:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting cow.
Inter--
MOO!!

We laughed all the way until it was time for surgery. The doctor came out to the waiting room and chatted with me after the surgery. He said that the inside of Jacob's nose had been smooshed over to the left side but that things were looking really good by the end of the surgery. I asked him how his nose had gotten that way and he said it could be one of two things. Possibly a childhood injury, or we could blame his mother - something about the way babies' faces get smooshed as they come through the birth canal. We may never know. But the cause is not as important as the fact that Jacob will now be able to easily smell things, chew with his mouth shut, and keep dust out of his throat! Hooray!

SIMS Trip

2009-04-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Now that we've moved, I've been able to organize pictures. You'll be seeing more posts about past years as I try to record some of our history.

While in nursing school, I was able to travel to Honduras during winter vacation with a group called Students for International Mission Service. Jacob had been to Honduras in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch destroyed so much of the country (See this link to fin d out about it). He had so many stories to tell about his work there that I was more than a little bit jealous. So when the opportunity arose for me to take this trip and taste a bit of Honduras for myself, I couldn't refuse it. This trip was so great for me in many ways. It was my first time acting as a nurse in a true clinical setting outside of school, and it greatly improved my confidence as a Spanish speaker. Before this trip I had been too shy to speak my Spanish, but as I was forced to translate for people for the first time, I discovered I was pretty okay at it. That confidence booster was so helpful for me when I started work in East Los Angeles as a labor and delivery nurse where nearly all of my patients spoke Spanish.

Our little group of nursing, pre-med and public health students was headed by a doctor and his wife. Our destination was a little nutritional rehabilitation hospital and orphanage in Peña Blanca, Honduras, a small town a little way out from San Pedro Sula. It is primarily a rehabilitation hospital for sick and malnourished children whose parents or family can not take care of them.

We held a clinic and did checkups on all the children and the staff. We also invited the community to come to a clinic for one day. When we weren't in clinic we spent time holding and playing with the children, saw the archeological sites around Lake Yojoa which was directly adjacent to the orphanage, jumped off a cliff into the river below Pulhapanzak Falls, and we took a day trip to the ruins at Copán.

Here's some pictures of the kids at the clinic. They loved the attention we gave them and we loved giving it. Just look at them! How can you not fall in love?

In this picture you can see the grounds of the orphanage. Every time I walked past, this same horse was always hanging out munching on the lawn.

These gals helped care for the younger children at the center. They themselves had grown up in the orphanage and were now old enough to be employed helpers. They're all dressed up for a wedding celebration that took place while we were there.

One of the children was sent to a hospital in Tegucigalpa with acute kidney failure. They sent me with a small group to the hospital to check on her and bring news. I was able to report that she was receiving good care, but I never did find out what happened to her after I left.

Overlooking Tegucigalpa

Visiting Lake Yojoa

The ruins at Copán

Seeing huge old trees growing out of the structures really made it hit home how long this place had been there. It was eerie and thrilling to be standing there.

I left Honduras having had a wonderful time but wanting to go back. I'm still a little bit jealous of Jacob's experience there. I mean, the guy hitchhiked across the whole country from Tegucigalpa to San Pedro Sula and met amazing people. He was fluent in Spanish at the time, too, so he could really truly understand what was going on. That settles it. We have to go back.

Spring has Sprung

2009-04-16T13:57:00.001-07:00

Flowers are blooming, I'm feeling warm, and I get to drive to and from work in the daylight! Happy days are ahead.

There's a whole bed of these daffodils just outside next to where we park the cars. They were just begging me to take a picture of them in the beautiful sunshine.

Our New Place

2009-04-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Many of you may know that we recently moved to a new place in March. We're living only about a 10 minute drive further away from Portland now, but it is like a different world. We're now in a very peaceful woodsy and agricultural area where the calm and quiet is palpable. Instead of hearing the MAX train and traffic go by, we hear a bubbling creek, frogs at night and hummingbirds whizzing by during the day.

In the main house on the property lives a lovely family with eight children ranging in age from 2-17. They are all delightful and we enjoy seeing them here and there as we go about our activities. They are so welcoming and fun. Just yesterday they got eight cute little chicks - one for each child - and are going to start raising chickens in the backyard. We can't believe how blessed we are to have found such an ideal spot to live. I could describe forever how much we like it, but instead I think I'll just put up some pictures so you can understand right away :)

Here you can see the main house through the trees. We're living off to the left of the main house in an apartment over the garage.

This is a corner our place as seen from the driveway. The views make it feel like a fun hideaway vacation cabin and there's a really awesome climbing wall in the garage right below our place.

Following are some of the views taken out the window. You can just barely see the creek through the trees.

The backyard complete with trampoline and fire pit.

Whirlwind February Trip

2009-04-01T02:30:00.000-07:00

We found out in January that Jacob's friend and colleague from Kenya was going to be visiting Montana State University in Bozeman for his work with Engineers Without Borders. It is a rare and choice opportunity to visit with old friends that we meet during our trips in Africa, so we decided to make the effort to drive out to see Ronald. I have the great fortune of having cousins all over the northwest and midwest, and I knew that my cousin Kay and her husband Marvin and their family have been living in Bozeman for years. They very graciously hosted us while we stayed in Bozeman and we had a lovely time with them. We used Jacob's sister's' van for the trip so that we could help her brother-in-law move all his things down to Murray, Utah (just a slight detour). After we dropped him off there, we spent the night and a few hours the next morning visiting with my parents in Sandy, then we were off to Montana. I slept most of the time while Jacob drove, so the driving seemed to fly by.

My Cousin Kay, her husband Marvin and one of their two daughters.

We really enjoyed catching up on the news from Ronald.

We went to the Museum of the Rockies and we did a short hike around Bozeman. It's a lovely place. Jacob and I decided we wouldn't mind living there someday. Of course, we weren't there when it was 20 below!

Bozeman from above.

We, of course, had to leave sooner than we wanted to due to responsibilities back in Portland. It worked out that we were able to swing by Rexburg and spend some precious time with my brother James, his wife Katie, and their cutie pie Ava. I am such a super proud Auntie :) It is so fun to see my brother be such a great daddy. Katie totally rocks as a Mom, too (not to mention being a super sister-in-law). Great job guys!

Montana Landscapes

2009-04-01T02:07:00.000-07:00

It was wonderful to see so many loved ones on our trip. It was also very refreshing to the soul to be under such a big beautiful sky. I had never been to Montana before, and I had no idea how beautiful it is. I took these shots through the window of the van as we traveled.

Speaking of Graduation...

2009-03-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

I came across this picture a couple months ago and it made me smile. This was a happy day in June of 2005. I had just completed nursing school in Los Angeles and Jacob had just completed his MPH in Loma Linda. Our respective programs had their graduation ceremonies on the exact same day (thankfully at different times)! We took my parents along with us on this busy day. We had a nice brunch and the nursing pinning ceremony at some fancy place in Los Angeles, and then we rushed to make the hour long drive to Jacob's graduation ceremony. Master's graduation robes are so cool with all the colors going down the back. I was totally blessed to find a great job shortly after this that launched me nicely into the nursing world, and Jacob was already working on his next degree before he graduated from this one. Life never stops.

A Blast from the Past

2009-03-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken in June of 2005 at the end of my Senior BSN preceptorship at the Labor and Delivery Unit of Kaiser Bellflower in Southern California. The lady at my left is Irene. She was originally from China, educated as a nurse in England, later marrying a guy from Memphis, eventually settling in Southern California. She is such an interesting person and we enjoyed the time we spent together. We still keep in touch. I was recently reminded of this time in my life when the news came out that octuplets were delivered in this very unit where I had done my preceptorship. Irene said she wasn't involved because she hadn't volunteered to be on the delivery team for fear that she would be called to work in the middle of the night. I wish the best for the babies and their mother.

A Job for Jacob?

2009-03-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

This is even more exciting than the car and as you can tell from all the exclamation marks in the previous post, that's pretty exciting. We're trying not to get our hopes up, however, because it is not yet a done deal and so I will try to limit the exclamation marks.

Jacob has applied for tons of jobs online, sending his resume all sorts of places. Well a few days ago, a company contacted him and said that if he was still interested, they want him for the position of "Evaluation IQC--Nutrition Analyst; Heath and HIV/AIDS Analyst; Evaluation Training Specialist--Junior Level" (say that in one breath) and would he please reformat his CV so they could include him in their proposal to the US Agency for International Development. So, finally, after years of training and internships and independently funded travel and study, a company has finally offered Jacob a paid position for his expertise, doing what he loves, pending the acceptance of the 3-year, multimillion dollar contract proposed to USAID which they say they have a pretty good shot at getting.

It's been really hard for me to forbear putting in a bunch of exclamation marks. If this job works out, Jacob will be given assignments overseas to help monitor and evaluate USAID projects. He could be sent anywhere! (Oops, couldn't contain that one.) And he could be sent for days, weeks, months, or years at a time. Depending on the duration and location of the assignment(s), I can choose to go with him or stay in the States and continue working. If we are so blessed as to be able to adopt a child by then, that will, of course, factor into our travel decisions as well. He also has the good fortune to be able to refuse assignments and wait for other ones if he feels the assignment is too risky or comes at a bad time, etc.

Hey, even if USAID doesn't accept the proposal, it's still a huge confidence booster for Jacob to know that he was wanted by such a company for such a position, and that he will likely be included on more of their proposals in the future. Yay!!! (okay, I'm a total failure when it comes to containing excitement) But seriously! Yay!!!

Laura's new car!

2009-03-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

Well, we realized right away that if we were to be moving away from the MAX line and further away from Portland, we simply had to have a second car.

We looked at many cars in our search. Jacob's dad who is an auto mechanic helped us. At first we talked about it in terms of "we will drive" and "our new car", but then we ended up buying a cute little 1998 Honda Civic DX like the one pictured here (courtesy of kelly blue book) and I fell in love with it. The "we" and "our" business ended right there. From the first time I drove it, it became "my car". Of course I let Jacob put his name on the title... but it's still my car. :) Even if Jacob ends up driving it more than I do, it will always be my car. Jacob gets a big kick out of how much I love this car because he was the one who found it and picked it out. Great job Jacob! It has a manual transmission which I really enjoy because I get to go vroom vroom, and the car gets super great gas mileage, somewhere between 34-40 mpg depending how it is driven. This has been a new experience for me to get so attached to a non-human thing. Mostly I think I'm just excited by having found such a reliable, affordable, earth-friendly car, and I relish the new feeling of freedom that comes from having a car at my disposal at all times. I feel like I've graduated!

So much has happened...Where to begin?

2009-03-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

As you can tell from the large space in time between the last post and this one, we've been... I'm wondering if I should use "busy" or "extremely industrious in other matters besides blogging". Hmm... Since Jacob tends to poke fun at me when I use seven words when one will do just fine, I guess we'll just use "busy" and bold it a little for emphasis. :)

The summary:

Laura worked a lot and Jacob applied for a lot of jobs.

We were nearly snowed in at Christmas.

We traveled to Utah, Montana, and Idaho.

We visited family often.

Laura discovered facebook.com and caught up with many loved friends and family - another culprit behind the large time gap seen here :). It's been great catching up with everyone!

Two more nieces were born and yet another is on the way. Yay!

We were officially approved as an adoptive couple. Quadruple Yay!

We moved to a lovely new place.

We got our tax refund and sold some furniture we didn't need on craigslist and used that to help with the following event.

We bought a "new" car!

Jacob got a great job lead (finally!)

And there's more, but if I keep going I'll get overwhelmed and won't do another post. So you'll have to read the details in the following posts. :)

Happy Six-and-a-halfth Wedding Anniversary!

2008-12-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

Since today is exactly six and one half years since we were married, I feel entitled to celebrate by posting some wedding pictures. I just retrieved them from storage in Utah along with many other pictures from our lives over the past six years. I'll be putting them on this blog over the next few weeks (months?) to preserve our history.

Labor and Delivery Rocks!

2008-12-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, another picture I took at work requiring an explanation. On the very snowy night spoken of in the previous post, an enterprising nurse from the Mother Baby Unit upstairs took it upon herself to inscribe "MBU ROCKS" along with some snow angels on the roof of a parking garage for all to see. Not to be outdone, our charge nurse ran out real quick (leaving somebody else in charge, of course) and added her two cents of "L&D ROX MORE!" You know you have a good charge nurse when she braves the elements to boost morale! I helped deliver two babies that night. One was by emergency cesarean. That baby might not have survived if we had not been there to intervene. As it was, everything turned out just fine. I love being able to help like that.

It be snowing in Portland!

2008-12-22T06:43:00.000-08:00

When I got back from Utah, a vastly different sight greeted me. Winter had come. And then it kept coming. And coming some more. And more again. In fact, it's still coming.

These are the conditions in which I had to commute to work
the night of December 20th.

This is what I experienced on my way home
the morning of December 21st.

Well prepared people got to enjoy the snow thoroughly, like these lucky cross country skiers that I walked by in downtown portland while on my way home. Portland itself is not prepared for snow like this because it happens so rarely. It does not make economic sense here to stock up on enough snow plows to clear the streets like they do in cities where it snows often, so instead, we enjoy walking down the middle of the street when it snows. On a normal winter day, this street is full of cars and wet with rain.

I heard on the news later that this storm was the worst storm Portland had seen since 1980. Jacob remembers that storm. He had just turned 5 years old and he remembers how tall the snow was.

Visiting Dad and Elaine in Utah

2008-12-22T05:36:00.000-08:00

Last week I took advantage of six days off from work and no other scheduled obligations to visit my dad and my lovely stepmom. They've been married over a year and a half now and they're so much fun to be around. The visit with family cheered me up a lot. I hadn't even realized I was homesick until I went to see them.

It was fun to see all of Elaine's decorations. She always puts a manger out in front of the Christmas tree and then on Christmas morning, everyone wakes up to find Baby Jesus lying there.

When I left for Utah, it had not snowed yet in Portland. I enjoyed a beautiful winter wonderland at their house. They live in a beautiful community with gorgeous views of the mountains.

The Wasach Mountains as seen from the driveway.

There is a really nice racquetball court, jungle gym, and slide in their backyard. Notice all the deer tracks in the snow. Being nocturnal, I woke up at one o'clock in the morning and saw several deer strolling and lounging all over the lawn in the moonlight the night before I took this picture.

Deer tracks in the driveway

My dad is really good at playing the piano. He is the one who inspired me to learn how to play. He and his brother both play very well and they used to play in shows together when they were young. My mom used to say, "When those brothers came to Redmond High School my senior year they knocked our socks off! We had never seen anything like them." It has been a dream of my dad's for many years to get a grand piano. But not just any grand piano, a Chickering grand piano. Well, he was looking online a while back and saw that the Chicago Philharmonic was selling one of their old pianos and he bought it. With a piano like that in your house, you can't help but want to play it all the time. It's beautiful. This video of him playing for his grandchildren brings back fond memories of singing around the piano as a kid.

Batayaki

2008-12-22T04:40:00.001-08:00

While I was in Utah, Dad and Elaine hosted a birthday party for one of my step sisters and her husband. I had never experienced a batayaki party before and I didn't know what I was missing. This is what I love about learning different traditions. You find wonderful things to add to your life that enrich it so much. For those of you who are like I was two weeks ago - ignorant about batayaki - here's what you do: Everyone who comes brings different items of bite sized meat or vegetables. These are then cooked in butter on electric griddles right on the table. Everyone cooks their own choice of food to perfection and eats it hot and sizzling straight from the griddle with rice and a sauce made from soy sauce, rice vinegar, and horseradish. Yummy! I shot a video from my place at the table so you could see what I mean.

Also at the batayaki birthday party, this darling little girl tried out a bouncing baby thingy for the first time ever. There were lots of cousins at the party having fun together. Kids are so much fun! We hope we adopt soon because if we do, our child(ren) will have six cousins all the same age. By next April, there will be two cousins from Laura's side of the family and four cousins from Jacob's side of the family all born within 16 months of each other. Even more amazing is they're all girls.

The Emmy

2008-12-22T04:07:00.001-08:00

When I was in junior high school, my mom said to me one day, "Oh, did I tell you? You dad won an emmy award." I was quite surprised and said, "Really?" She said, "He won it a while ago, but they haven't given him the statue yet." After more questions, I found out that he had been part of the broadcast team that had covered a particularly bad Malibu fire that won a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award. Well, I had almost forgotten about it until a few weeks ago when someone called up my dad and said, "We have your emmy down here collecting dust. You want it?" He said, "Sure!" and it was delivered the next day. So it was true! We do have an emmy award winner in the family. Not just an emmy award nominee... a winner! What a nice tribute to my dad after so many years of good work in television. My dad was very well liked at the TV station where he worked. They even did a spot on him on the 10 o'clock news when he retired. We're all very proud of him.

Flying through Clouds

2008-12-22T02:18:00.000-08:00

On the flight home from SLC to PDX I was treated to some breathtaking clouds. Here are my favorite photos and video from that flight. These were taken somewhere over Idaho or eastern Oregon:

Silly Nurses

2008-12-09T08:02:00.001-08:00

This picture of me and some of my coworkers deserves an explanation. We nurses are usually very busy and involved in our patient's care. However, on a labor and delivery unit, the nurse:patient ratio can change on a dime. Occasionally, (very occasionally) our patients deliver their babies at the same time and we take them upstairs to the post partum unit and there we are in the wee hours of the morning with hardly any patients and a bunch of nurses. Some nurses go home, but a core group must remain at work in case there is a flood of new admissions. Silliness usually erupts at times like these. Somebody brings out the stick-on tattoos and the knitting needles, and we pose for silly pictures. I assure you, these are all very professional, competent women. :)

Laura's First Attempt at Making Sushi

2008-12-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, here it is. The long awaited, long anticipated,
drum roll..... sushi plate! Made by yours truly. I have been a fan of sushi ever since I was introduced to it during my senior practicum in nursing school, back in 2005. I don't eat it as much as I would like because it is so expensive. Well, I have now discovered from experience that one of the reasons it is so expensive is because you pay for the labor. The ingredients themselves are pretty reasonable. Yay!

I have to admit, this wasn't the most tasty sushi I've ever had, but I plan to experiment and have fun. Bring on the wasabi!

A Fun December Day

2008-12-09T03:04:00.000-08:00

<----This way to fun day!----->

I work night shift and therefore refer to myself as nocturnal. Portland is known for its cloudy, rainy days. It's been a mild winter so far, but I still see the sun far less than I would like. Jacob woke me up the other afternoon and said, "I know sleeping is good, but it is such a gorgeous day outside, you really should come with me." We proceeded to have a fantastic afternoon, enjoying some of the sights around Portland. Having just discovered the delights of blogging two weeks ago, I brought the camera along so we could record and share the joy:

Just look at that clear blue sky!

At the Rose Garden. The sun was so bright that the sky looks white in the photograph even though it was a beautiful blue.

We were really bummed that we couldn't climb on the decorative, artsy cow :(

It was possibly even more of a bummer that we couldn't climb on the train carrying a load of humongous logs.

BUT THAT DID NOT STOP US FROM HAVING FUN!
Hee hee hee!

Evil giggle

"I'm not sure these logs are entirely stable"

My hero!

Now for something really funny: Laura's attempt at being feminine in the Shakespeare Garden

The magic of HP Photosmart. This is actually two different pictures and two completely different rocks! We each took a picture of the other and I spliced them on the computer. Isn't technology cool? And don't we look sneaky and conniving?

This picture, however is completely untouched and legit. Jacob really is just too tall and too fat to fit through that door.

Of all the rose bushes, this one's name was our favorite.

When we started getting chilly we went down into the Robertson Tunnel to watch some real trains go by. This is the MAX blue line heading to Hillsboro.

On the way home I snapped pictures of the sunset from inside the moving car. Here are my favorite shots, pre and post tinkering on Photosmart. I love playing with colors!

On the Road to Lolifa

2008-12-04T05:04:00.000-08:00

On our way back from a visit to the village of Lolifa, east of Mbandaka, our companions decided to stop at "la source" to fill up the water containers. There is so much surface water, and yet so little is being done to improve convenience of access and water purity. You always have to walk a ways to get to "les sources" and then you have to carry a heavy, sloshy water container back with you. In this video, you'll see our most common mode of transportation - sitting around the bed of a white pickup truck. The men in the video all worked with Jacob. That hat Jacob is wearing is not a fashion statement - it is to prevent the severe sunburn that comes all to easily under the equatorial sun. This video shows a pretty typical scene, and I must say, Jacob is also behaving typically. Too bad I stopped the video so soon, or you would have seen me swat him. It's pretty funny if you play the last second of this video on a repeat cycle, or, for even more enjoyment, play it backwards.

The Pangolin

2008-12-04T04:21:00.001-08:00

Who is this cute little guy?

That's what we asked ourselves when a man offered to sell us this animal to eat. It was expensive and we were told that the flavor is amazing and that it is a delicacy usually reserved for village chiefs. Women are not supposed to eat it. Women are not supposed to eat crocodile, either, but I did anyway. We couldn't bring ourselves to eat this little guy, and he was too expensive anyway, so we sent the pangolin merchant off on his bicycle with his little pangolin in tow. We found out later that a pangolin is a type of scaly anteater. Check it out by clicking here.

Here is a video of the event. Of interest: The short man standing on the right side of the man holding the pangolin is a Pygmy. There were pygmies living several kilometers from Lolifa. I visited Lolifa occasionally, but there were no roads to take one to the pygmies. They stayed to themselves and I don't blame them. They seem to be looked down upon as inferior by many of the residents of Mbandaka of "normal" height and they are not always treated well. However, even a pygmy man would probably be treated better than a woman of any stature. But I'll touch that subject in other posts. For now, enjoy the cute little guy.

"Likolo Kitoko" means "Beautiful Sky"

2008-12-04T01:36:00.000-08:00

While on the equator in Bodjia, the sun set at exactly the same time every evening. I have never seen a sky of such colors and splendor. The beautiful skies above Bodjia are probably its best quality. The string of photos above were taken over a span of about half an hour one evening. Since pictures never really capture the true beauty or depth of color of a scene, you can imagine how breathtaking this sunset was. Please enjoy some of my favorite sky scenes that I snapped during our month-long stay:

The sun shining on the supply depot

A strong storm builds in the east

The view from the latrine

The view from our unfinished bathroom window

The fiery west

Yes, it really was that color - only more so.

Walking along the road to the guesthouse

Wedding Reflections

2008-12-03T22:11:00.000-08:00

Saturday, June 22, 2002
Portland, Oregon

The happy couple.

Still happy!

Laura's latest achievement

2008-12-03T21:29:00.000-08:00

I have loved Asian cuisine my whole life. In fact, I would be eating it all the time except that one has to go out to eat Asian food and that gets expensive. "But wait!" said my brain the other day: "Just because your mother never made thai food and sushi doesn't mean that YOU can't!" What a life changing and encouraging thought! I said to myself, "YOU, TOO, can make pad thai!" So... I went to the closest public library and found a thai food cook book. Tommy Tang's Modern Thai Cuisine to be precise. Thank you Tommy Tang! Thanks to Tommy and a fabulous asian food market a few blocks away, I am in business. Don't you just want to sink your teeth into this dish I put together (enlarged to show texture)? I mean, who knew that leeks curled up like ribbons when they are shredded! So, I've made pad thai every night for the last three nights at significantly less cost than buying it at the nearby thai restaurant. I feel like running down the street shouting "Eureka!" but apparently that can sometimes get you thrown in jail so I will restrain myself.

Next up: Sushi! Stay tuned for more adventures as Laura liberates herself from self doubt and dapples in international cooking!

More Lightning

2008-12-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here are some more lightning strikes that I caught on videotape from my front porch during a huge storm that came up suddenly one day. The day had been staggeringly hot and humid. The strikes will tickle your scientific funny bone and give you chills if you watch them frame by frame. (At least that's what it did to me!) Especially interesting in the following one, you can see a lightning finger coming up from the ground on my side of the bushes. There is a similar finger coming up from the ground in the first lightning strike I posted which can be found in the frame immediately before the strike.

"Likolo Mabe" means "Bad Sky"

2008-12-03T14:33:00.000-08:00

Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about this photo is that it was taken during the dark of night. Because of the thick storm clouds, there was not even any moonlight or starlight. Even the lightning bugs were taking cover. All illumination in this picture is from the lightning bolt itself. This village has no electricity to see by - only lamps and firelight. Every time I see this picture I feel loved. I'll tell you why. It is a frame of a video I shot on the night that Jacob and I moved into our little house in Bodjia. We were eating a delicious dinner by lamplight of fish freshly caught that day out of the Congo River (a short walk away) when a large thunderstorm arose. This was common and happened frequently in the evening when the sun went down. Well, as I was eating, the thought popped into my head that I might be able to record some of the flashes from the clouds and some thunder if I stepped outside onto the porch with my camera. Thirty seven seconds after starting the video, "bam!" The village was illuminated as if it were noonday followed by a huge thunder crash. Timing like that can not be a coincidence.

Here's the video showing just the lightning and thunder. I don't want to bore you by playing the whole video. Okay, okay. So the real reason why I don't want to play the whole video is because I sound like a total idiot on it. As soon as the thunder is over, I start shouting, "I caught that on video! Woo hoo!" I always chuckle a bit on those reality shows where people talk about how amazing the thing was that they just videotaped - like we all don't realize it was amazing. They invariably sound a little silly. But then I found myself doing the exact same thing! You just can't help sounding like an excited kid when something incredible like this happens to you.

Okay, fine. Now that you're curious about how idiotic I sounded, I'll swallow my pride and let you hear all of it. Actually, it's kind of fun to hear all the sounds of the village in the background. In the beginning you can hear Jacob and Bruno speaking french, still sitting around the dinner table inside.

It was actually fairly common for us to see trees destroyed in this fashion following severe storms. This tree was just a bit further down the red dirt road seen in the first lightning shot. It was a different bolt that destroyed this tree, however. We felt safe from the lightning - maybe more safe than we actually were - because there were so many tall trees around and we always took cover in short buildings away from the tall trees. If anything were to be struck by lightning, we figured it would be a tree such as this one.

Dancing the "Linda"

2008-12-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

This was a gathering of children in an unfinished house just a couple houses down from where Jacob and I stayed in Masina, near the airport. It was a theatre group that got together to sing and dance. When we heard them and showed up with a camera, the crowds began to gather. There are another hundred or so children crowding behind Jacob (who did this shot) that you can't see in this video. You'll hear them shout linda (pronounced leenda) repeatedly. I don't know if I'm spelling it correctly. I don't even know what it means, but I do know that when you chant it you're supposed to lean down and shake your rear end. Well, you can see for yourself! When Jacob danced the linda the kids cheered so loudly it was deafening.

Welcome!

2008-11-19T20:21:00.000-08:00

Karibu! That means "welcome" in Swahili. Swahili is what we were learning when this picture was taken back in 2003 in Western Kenya. In case you're wondering what that animal is, it's a sheep. The Omolo family kept a few of them tethered about the grounds, keeping the grass clipped to a perfect length. They did give you a bit of a surprise if you accidentally bumped into one at night while on your way to the latrine. This picture was taken by our host, Nelson Omolo whose family's hospitality is never to be forgotten. We slept in that hut called a "simba" and we fondly call it our honeymoon cottage. Its walls were made of sticks, mud, and cow dung, and the roof was thatched. Actually, it was the best place we had lived in since our marriage a year prior. It was cool during the day, warm at night and kept the rain off beautifully. I can remember lying on the bed inside at night listening to the amazing musical and rhythmic sounds of the nocturnal birds, bats and insects. Before this, we had been living in Laura's parents' garage and before that the tent in the backyard. My, we were all about saving money in those days!