Another Week Bites the Dust!

Wow! This past week flew by! It was a busy week preparing for our Super Sale, getting ready for the Prosthetics team, and working in my house! Here's a look at what went down!

We had our April monthly birthday party last Wednesday - there are a LOT of April birthdays! Axer turned 10 on April 18th!

Blessing turned 4 on April 10th!

She absolutely loved the water pouring!

Josh will turn 19 on the 25th!

Luyando and Cambree enjoying the party!

Maggie turned 1 on April 17th!

Prince will turn 7 on the 24th!

Stanley turned 5 on the 11th!

Nothing like water pouring by Uncle Blu...

Blessing (Bule) loving her lollipop!

We had a visit last week from Stella, an old lady who lives near us. She brought us sugarcane and boiled peanuts and expressed great sadness at our leaving. It was a sweet visit! She said they should vote on us leaving and she votes no!

Cambree & Baby Liz

We've had a few sleepover this past week...Cason & Phillip stayed up until 5am!

Chileleko & Joy

"Chile" is walking!

Dad mowing...or trying to. Zambian mowers don't hold up very long..

On Saturday morning, we had a meeting and came home to the kids making pancakes! With black food coloring...

Laston digging deep :)

Luyando is the silliest girl ever!

The New Day Orchard crated by Dad & Blu!

Our house is slowing emptying out as we are selling/getting rid of most of what we own. We decided to have a joint sale last Friday for all of the New Day employees. Laurie, Mom & Dad, and I all put things in the dining room, and then my kids also had an outdoor sale. We also had a clothes give-away which was a huge hit with the staff!

I sold EVERY LAST THING that I put in the sale! (most of it for 10 cents, but it's GONE!)

There are no pictures of the actual sale - it was MASS. CHAOS.

Blu did get a picture of Godfrey, who bought Caedmon's poop emoji hat!

It was a little heartbreaking watching our kids sale almost every single toy they own! However, they didn't seem to care one bit! They kept running up to me and saying, "Can I just give this one away??" It was sweet... and they did make about $40 each!

Prosthetics team is here! We are ready for a busy 2 weeks of ministry!

Wes & Laurie leave for furlough tomorrow, so we'll hold down the fort here for about 3 more months before we head back to the USA. I have several projects I want to get done in these next 2 weeks before school starts again, while Blu will be busy helping prosthetics and working on construction projects. Please pray for a precious little 5 year old girl that New Day has temporary custody of right now. We will know after 2 weeks if we will be granted full custody and she will be added to the New Day family permanently! She has had a rough few weeks and needs special prayer for adjusting!

Botswana - Saturday: Last Family Day!

Today was our last day in Gaborone (we leave at 5am tomorrow!), and we spent the morning lazing around! Dad got a massage, Blu and the kids did some shopping, and me and Mom got things organized and did some packing. This afternoon, we headed to the Kimbroughs for a nail polish party, a family photo shoot, and then a lovely supper out at Cappuccino's. We said goodbye in the mall parking lot, but we'll all be together in the USA this Fall as my sister and her family head back on furlough in July! I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I'm not expecting anything blog-worthy to happen on the drive home, so this may be my last post for awhile!

Blu ready to shoot!

Grandpa & his granddaughters!

Sisters!

Mama Dee and her granddaughters!

The Original Winsmans

Grandpa and his grandsons

The Kimbroughs!

Mama & Daddy

All the grandkids!

Mama Dee & her grandsons!

That 5 seconds they loved each other...

Grumpy because it's cold..

Not caring that it's cold...

Our Sunday goal is to make it to the Zambia border before it closes at 5:30pm...we'll see how that goes! We expect to be back at New Day on Monday before dark! It will be a busy week of team grocery shopping, preparing for the garage sale at New Day on Friday, and the Prosthetics Team arriving next Sunday = back to work/real life!

Botswana - Friday Game Drive!

On Friday, we spent our morning at the Gaborone Game Reserve. This was a great drive-thru park where we got to see a TON of "small" (meaning not elephants or rhinos or lions!) animals in their natural setting. I'm not a huge animal lover, so I did you a favor by only posting one picture of each animal! ;) At the end of the day, we referred to this "the most unusual game drive ever!"

Here we go! (At this point, I'm wondering if there are bathrooms along the way or if we'll be stopping to go in nature while watching our backs for animal attacks!)

Checking out the eland!

Eland are HUGE animals!

Provoking the baboons...before our lunch attack!

Working on the fire! It was a cool, cloudy day.

Love time with my guy!

And this guy too!

Save me, Isaac!

Male impala are so beautiful!

A huge kudu!

Mama Dee was in her element, especially with all the birds!

A giant ostrich! At one point, Blu provoked the ostriches with our vehicle, so one went a little crazy and almost ran into the side of Blake's vehicle right where Dawni's open window was! It was HILARIOUS to watch from behind them!!!

The girls :)

All ready for the hot dogs!! We started making them, and Cason wandered a little bit away from us, and the next thing you know, he's screaming and 2 baboons are surrounding him swatting at his plate to get his food! We all turn to look and scream, and a baboon sneaks up and grabs Dad's hot dog and bun off the grill where he was toasting it! Dad turned back around and yelled, "What?!! NO!!!!" And we all. died. laughing. Still.

<
Don't worry - we made sure to "distinguish" our fires. We had a big one and a little one. They were both very distinguished. ;)

That sign wasn't lying. Dad said he'll be sure to take the Kimbroughs to the Brownwood Water Treatment Plant when they come visit us!!

This view during our game drive - gorgeous!

A massive warthog!

And some beautiful zebra!

Then we headed back to the Kimbroughs for pizza night! And rest.

And more games!

Seven homemade pizzas!! Delicious!!