New Pool

Summer and Other Things

After two weeks at home, I think we are finally settled in. My laundry is into regular mode now (never ending...but at least it's caught up for the most part), the house is staying somewhat tidy since we're outside so much, and we're all over jet lag.

I love summer!!! It has been unbearably hot this week, and may I just say "THANK YOU GOD" for central air. It is a luxury that I know I could live without, and I don't even know if I could justify installing one in my house. But this house came with one and am I ever thankful. Daryl says he noticed that my pregnancy thermostat just got cranked up in the last couple of weeks. We were trying to sleep with fans and open windows, but it just didn't cut it. Anyway, I'm very grateful for cool air blowing over my feet while I sleep.

Our days have been full of friends this week! Every day we have done something with different people. The girls' bathing suits are always hanging in the bathroom wet when they're not in use, and I have to remember to throw them in the laundry (along with the towels!) once in awhile. Thanks to a friend, we discovered some great wading pools here in the city with slides, etc. And we bought a bigger pool for the back yard so they can actually go for a dip. I was thinking of getting in yesterday, but since we cut down our huge lilac bush that served as a privacy fence, I'm a little hesitant...

Speaking of being pregnant, it's going well. I'm feeling the difference in how the baby is moving now and can tell we're getting closer to the end (rolls and punches instead of tiny kicks). I'm getting SO anxious to find out what gender it is. Still can't settle on names...Serious offers are welcome :-)

The biggest news in our house (for the kids) is that we have tickets to see the Sound Of Music Live! Our girls are completely obsessed with the movie. They had watched it about twice this spring, and then introduced their Madagascar cousins to it. They all played the roles, sang the songs, and quoted the lines. It's hilarious. On the flight home, Olivia said to me, "Mom, say to me, 'But you're such a baby' ". I said, "Why?!"
Olivia: Just SAY IT!
Me: Okay. But you're such a baby.
Olivia (in my face): I'm sixteen going on seventeen. What's such a baby about that?
Crack me up. Anyway, they are more than excited to see the "real thing". And even more exciting, Grandma S gets to come with us, and also 2 aunties and 2 cousins (Daryl's 2 sisters and their daughters). When I told Olivia, she turned bright red and said, "I'm going to go in the bathroom and sing HALLELUJAH!"

So that's what's new around here!

Sit back and enjoy... (this may take awhile!)

Okay, here are pictures! After I resized everything, they got all mixed up. So I missed grouping some of them together. I will eventually learn Quick and Smart Ways to Do Things.
But you can see some of what we were up to for 5 weeks...if you want to see more, I have about another...oh maybe 1,000 pictures you can look at. Feel free to stop by. Or maybe this is enough...

Not the greatest pic of either of us, but that evening, she said it was her happiest time of day!!!
Fresh pineapple!

Somehow this got missed with the other bday pics, but here is the beautiful cake Rhonda made for them.

The annual head shaving ceremony. Notice the great mohawk!

This is the bus that Daryl rode in for 24 hrs from Mandritsara to 'Tana. There were about 16 people on board.


Some people fishing across the river. This is from the side of R & M's house/yard.
Happy kids at Anna-Christina and Olivia's early birthday party we had. (Oh, and one boy!)

Many, many hours were spent colouring, cutting, gluing, etc.

Rhonda and her neighbor, J - quite a typical scene at about 4:00 every afternoon. :-) This is R and M's house (where we stayed, of course).
(Notice the sign)

Beauty in the rainforest.
We stopped at a roadside market and as soon as Daryl nodded "yes", they were throwing gigantic grapefruit-type things into the truck!
The Gang

Steaks for supper, anyone?

In Which We Finally Arrive Home

...for 26 euros/plate.

Sorry about that. I don't know what happened to my post. This really stinks cause now I have to try and remember what I said.
Okay, so where were we???

Oh yes, by the time our meal was over, Adrienne was screaming for everything and trying to run around the place. I really wanted to stay and savour the dessert buffet (I only got to try about 3 small pastries and there were 2 more I wanted...), but duty calls. So we got out of there as the people next to us were starting to glare, and when we got to our room I saw it was about 10pm. Oh, no wonder our kids are getting restless.


Needless to say, it didn't take us long to fall asleep, and it felt so good to be sleeping in a bed instead of on a plane!


After our wake up call at 6:30 am, we got ready and went to enjoy the (free!) breakfast buffet. Wow. I am noticing a food theme in Italy. Good thing I don't live here or I would be severely overweight. More wonderful pastries and rich yogurt and cheeses, not to mention the eggs, sausages, etc. And yes, amazing coffee.


Once again, everything went smoothly at the airport. For a bit I was scared that they wanted a Dr's notice for me to travel being pregnant. But I wasn't 100% sure of how far along I was, so I kind of fudged through that one. (Sometimes not knowing pays off!)


After we checked in, we went to find some more gelati. Who cares if it's 9:00 in the morning??? How many times in my life can I have gelati in Milan? Of course we needed to accompany the gelati with some more espresso.


The flight on Air Alitalia was uneventful. Very long. That's about it. Oh, almost all the flight attendants were male (not sure if this is relevant or not...) and it cracked me up to watch them. They sure take their job seriously. They would practically run up and down the aisles getting the meals out. Excellent service though, I must say. Just funny.


It was cute to watch the girls form a little friendship with one of the other little passengers on board. She didn't speak a whole lot of English, but nevertheless, they were all giggling like crazy by the time we landed in Toronto.

Toronto was a bit of a let down. Yes, it was wonderful to hear so many people speaking English (especially customs officers, etc!), but how boring to come back to plain old Canada where everything is the same, nothing unexpected...you know? Definitely mixed feelings about that one.

We hung out and had a bite to eat and before we knew it, it was time to board the plane for home! Too bad this was the only flight on the entire trip where we each had our own tv screen with our choice of what to watch. Yeah, I could have really used that on the 9 hour flights instead of the 2 hour one...

It was wonderful to see Dad and Mom waiting for us at the airport! They had bought milk, bread, eggs, etc. for us so we didn't have to stop on the way home. We chatted for a bit and headed for bed.

The girls slept pretty well considering that it felt like the middle of the day to them. Olivia and Adrienne were up at 5am. Daryl was nice enough to take them outside and soon I heard them on the swings, screaming and having a grand old time. Around 7:30, when we had all finished breakfast, I looked at the clock and was surprised to see that it wasn't somewhere around 10:00! Crazy.

We are slowly adjusting to being back home. It is so good to be back. It's wonderful to come back to summer here! Now if we can dig ourselves out from under the suitcases and laundry piles, we'll be doing well. Jet lag is way worse this time around for me! I just can't seem to catch up. The girls are managing alright though - they slept in until 6:30 this morning, so we're on the way! I'm so glad Mom and Dad were here for a couple days to help us get back into things. It was also fun to have them here for Anna-Christina's 6th birthday.

I will really try to get some pictures on here. It's time consuming to go through them and pick out what I think would be interesting to you. And right now I must admit, it's not a priority. But I will TRY!

Thanks for all the comments and sorry to leave you hanging last post! :-)
I'm starting to use the backspace more than I'm typing so I think I better stop.

*Sigh. *

It's good to be home. I was in Italy the other day. And the day before that I was in Madagascar.



Sorry, I just had to say that out loud. It's so hard for me to comprehend, even though I was the one that was there. I guess eventually you would just get used to travelling overseas and being in different countries, but it is so new for me.



We had a good trip home. It was LOoooooooooooooNG. We left 'Tana at 6:45 am (went to the airport around 4:00), and arrived in Milan, Italy somewhere around supper time. Talk about smooth. The cart guys were apparently back to work, so there were carts readily available for us to haul our luggage around on (even though Daryl had to run around trying to find someplace to get euros). We called the hotel that we had booked and they said the shuttle was already waiting out front. So we piled in and headed to Best Western! I have to say, I was relieved to hear the nice family on the shuttle speaking English! What a welcome sound. They were from California and we chatted with them for awhile.



When we arrived in our room, we saw that the outdoor pool was closing in half an hour, so we rushed to get down there since that's the part the kids were looking forward to, of course. I decided not to worry about the time, and just enjoy the evening. We had had a bit to eat on the plane (tepid ham and cheese sandwiches!), so we weren't in a hurry for supper. When we got back from swimming, we thought we'd just go to the restaurant in the hotel instead of taking a taxi, etc. We walked in and didn't really notice how fancy it was until we sat down. The tables were already set with fine china. Bad idea. We had given the girls the pre-dinner prep talk about behaving and talking quietly, etc. They did remarkably well... except for Adrienne. Oh my. Daryl and I ordered the buffet (which, by the way, was excellent. And it better would have been for

Going Home and Other things...

Boo Hoo. It's our last day in Madagascar. We are all really excited to go home again, but leaving here and saying good-bye to family is sad. I think we will not only miss our family here, but also the country. I will especially miss the fresh pineapple and bananas...I have a feeling the ones at home will taste quite bland.

We've had a busy, busy week. It's been fun to be out and about and see more of the country.
Yes, our trip into city centre proved to be interesting. Daryl had his passport stolen out of his pocket, which was quite upsetting. The guys spent a whole day running around from place to place figuring out what to do. Thank God they had a Malagasy friend with them who knew the language, shortcuts, etc. and made it much easier for them. They will issue him some kind of temporary papers to get home again.
Anyway, it was fun to be downtown and see the view from the very top of the city. Amazing. We had lunch at a delicious restaurant (I love this place - I think we ate out 4 times in one week) and enjoyed seeing more of the city.

Yesterday we drove to a little town called Ambatolampy to go to a ranch. It was a gorgeous drive and I'm anxious to see how many pictures will be on my memory cards when we get home. I can't stop! Anyway, we went to this ranch called Rodeo Grille and everyone got to ride horse except large Robyn and scared Olivia. :-) We had fries and ice cold Coke and then headed home. Along the way we stopped and bought pineapples from roadside vendors and Rhonda picked up a few plants and things she had been looking for.

Today are just finishing our packing a hanging out around the house. Mme Pauline is cooking a Malagasy meal for us one last time. It smells delicious already. It's a type of stew with beef, zucchini, carrots, green beans, lots of garlic, etc. Yummy!

I probably won't post for while now, so don't worry that I've fallen off the edge of the earth or anything. We're leaving the house at 4am tomorrow and getting home at 9:30pm local time. "See" you then! :-)
P.S. You can pray for our trip home, please! It'll be a doozy.

We're back! (Just in case you missed me) We travelled over crazy roads, both bumpy and mountainous, with amazing scenery. At times I thought my insides would be tossed to pieces, but we made it. We went to a camp by Lake Mantasoa (mont-a-SOO) that was absolutely beautiful. We did a day trip into the rain forest and we finally got to see lemurs! I will be posting lots of pictures, but probably not for a bit. (I need my own laptop!) It was awesome to have wild lemurs jumping on my head (Adrienne didn't think it was so awesome when one clung to her head with it's paws on her face!) and to feed them bananas out of our hands.

Today we are heading into downtown 'Tana. We haven't been to the true downtown yet so it will be interesting.

Gotta fly, more later