burn notice

While we were making the tinfoil dinners my friend Dan was helping us. 

From this picture you can totally tell what happened. 

My poor little friend got the crap burned out of his arm by the oven door. 

He says it doesn't hurt but we all know it is a HUGE lie. 

He is just trying to take it like a man. 

tin foil dinners

We made tinfoil dinners for Saturday lunch! It was a hit. No one ever has had one in Kenya. 

This is our little line up. We ended up not only feeding the missionaries but about like 100% of the YSA too. 

Here are some of the boys from the ward. Most of them are basically my BFFs. I cannot get enough of them. They make Saturdays and Sundays so great. 

It was basically a party. There is no doubt about that. Gabby and Oscar are quite the little jokesters. I was about ready to pee myself with all their ridiculous mission stories and things they said about their companions.

Saturday lunches are the best.  

Japanese Embassy

The boys sing at the Japanese Embassy once a year. The PE teacher, Tomo is from Japan and works hand in hand with the embassy. Last year the boys got first place. 

We jumped into a matatu with 18 kids and 6 adults. It was such a fun ride. The boys were so excited to travel and everything and anything new was great for them. 

This is Tomo. He is totally taking control of the situation.

Here we all are except for Kaleigh with the trophy from last year. These boys are so excited at this point. 

Here are all the boys lining up for the performance. They are so nervous at this point. 

Here are my cute boys signing their little hearts out. They are so precious. They did so well and snagged third place. There were a lot more people at the embassy this year and these boys were the youngest group there. 

I am so proud of them. 

shoes

The boys thought it would be great fun to hide my shoes in the savanna. 

There was one there for only a few hours and then other got to sleep in the deep heart of Africa. 

In the end we found both of my shoes. 

Kids will be kids. 

centers

Kaleigh and I got asked again and again to go these children centers in another part of Kenya. We tried once and it was an epic fail. Then the second go around worked out great. 

We met up with this boy. His name is Ben and he is basically one of the funniest people I have ever met. He loves to dance and be really loud. He has some major ADD or something because he was constantly crazy. He knew all the kids and took us on tours around the different centers we went to. 

There are about 200 kids at this center but most of them were still at school when we got there and left there. 

After a good visit we headed to a new center. All the kids at this center have some link to HIV and AIDS. I really don't know many details about it other then that. These kids are so cute and so happy to see us. There were only about 25 kids and it was perfect.

This is Kaleigh with her boyfriend, Ben. She regrets ever claiming him as a boyfriend because it just became a sticky situation. He was too into her. You know the story.

man time

There was a bug in our house and it was her turn to be the man. 

Need to say more?

mustaches

Hussien, Opondo and Vincent came in and cleaned our floors again. They wanted to wear the mustaches while they cleaned. 

How can you say no to that?

It was so funny. 

It was like we had 3 evil dictators cleaning our house. 

saturdays

Every Saturday Kaleigh and I wake up early and head into Nairobi. We jump off the matatu at Roysabu and walk to the ward building from there. 

We could take another matatu but we are trying to save our shillings. 

We make lunch for missionaries. This is the part where they normally complain about how we do not know how to cook for Zulus and we eat too many vegetables. 

Excuse me?

Rude. 

Go make your own food. 

After lunch is a baptism. 

At this baptism Elder Cook dropped Dan in the water. It was so funny. 

After the baptism we clean up our cooking mess and then go to institute. Dan taught last Saturday and publicly announced to everyone in the class that I was marrying him. 

Excuse me?

Good thing we are friends or else he would have been put on the creeper list for sure.

After institute we head home after a  little socializing. Once we get home it is dark. 

And that my friends is basically our every Saturday.

black mamba

Our friend Kevin called us up and asked us to go to a Snake Museum with him in Nairobi. Since Kaleigh and I really haven't had the opportunity to look like tourists lately we totally accepted his offer. 

He said it was going to be like 200/= and we were like HECK YES! 

We get there after scaling Mount Kenya and hiking through the concrete jungle and it is 800/= a person. 

Yeah... just a little more then we expected but we went anyways. 

There were tons and tons of snakes. There were some big enough they could eat Kaleigh and I. 

There were a plethora of other reptiles like this mamba (crocodile). 

We even got the unique pleasure to see mating tortoises. 

Thank heavens for Erina and youtube because she taught me how tortoises have babies a few months ago. 

After the museum we headed back into the city to go to the stake center. We hit up this little food joint on the way. It was totally like a place we would go in New Zealand. The chips came in paper and the whole bit. The best part was there were USA lisence plates all over the walls. 

Also check the hair. Thank heavens for these lush locks. I had them up in a nasty bun and then just let them loose. 

After eating we swung by the stake center and picked up a friend and walked to our next transportation that took us to the center were our friend Kevin grew up. His parents died when he was young. 

The kids were so happy to see us and we made so many friends. I swear we walked 4000 miles that day and I have never ever slept so good. 

bingo

Our friends Jacob and Kevin came to visit us. It was great. We played math bingo with class 2 and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I don't remember a lot that happened that day. It is all becoming a blur. 

We taught Kevin and Jacob that you do not have to peel the potatoes to eat them. 

You learn something new everyday. 

unwanted

I guess we are a little too welcoming for the dogs at the center because a bunch of other unwanted house pets have started to pour in. 

We have been blessed with an arrangement of species. 

This is our large spider. We are too scared to kill it because it is so big we will feel his guts under or shoe. He make unwanted appearances way too often. 

This is one of our lizard friends that roam the walls and floors and love to hang out in Kaleigh's shorts. This is one of the smaller ones. There are two larger ones that cruise the tops of our walls. They are harmless.

This little guy has came in our house too many times. Everytime I get the broom and whisk him out but you know as soon as the rain starts... I turn around and he has squished his little body under our door. 

Oh I hate that. 

I miss my hedgehog from last year because these pets need to go.

mere hatch

I am pretty sure my Grandma is totally one of my best friends. 

I just love her to pieces. 

We fight like sisters. 

I just cannot get enough of her. 

When I left for Kenya the first time she wrote me this awesome card about how proud she was for me to embark on this wild adventure all by myself and how she knew I was cut out for this. 

She defiantly knows me better then I know myself because at that point I was 100% doubting it. 

This time around Kaleigh and I were leaving for Kenya and as we were getting in the van to go she came up to us and said, "I am feeling sad."

It was heart breaking. 

Don't worry grams. I promise to get myself and Kaleigh back in one alive piece. 

Just please promise me the same. 

I wouldn't be able to handle not coming back to the classy, spunky, almost too sassy and healthy Grandma I left.

Also... who would be there when I needed someone to hussle the Asians at my garage sales?

squirming.

Kaleigh and I made another trip back to the hospital. 

There was one boy who was in the male surgical unit that we did not have enough supplies for. We promised that we would come back. We were at his bedside the next day. 

He was so wonderful. Everything we pulled out made him smile. He was so happy. I am pretty sure that all his wildest dreams came true. You know that happy when you just cannot control yourself. I am pretty sure he was there because he was just squirming around and saying thank you a million times. 

He was so cute.

I honestly just think this next boy had no idea what went down. He was completely shocked. He wasn't admitted into any room. He was just in a line of people and we pulled him out of a crowd to give him his new backpack. Obviously he had broken his arm or something. He was a sweet boy. I know that he is grateful. I also know that he is super happy after he gets pass the part where a mzungo stopped and talked to him to give him a gift. 

hope learning center

Two of the missionaries in our ward got transferred and their transferring wish was to have us cook for them again. We made spaghetti and garlic bread. It turned out really well using the resources we had. 

After that it was back to the school where Kevin and Jacob live. The kids wanted to see and meet us. We promised we would come. 

We got there and went around from class to class. There were... I think 9 classes.

Some classes were asleep. 

But the majority of them were wide awake a sang us at least 2 songs per class. 

We made our rounds to all the classes and then came back to them to teach in each of them. We were a little unprepared for this. We taught them a few songs. Thank heavens for girls camp.

And we whipped out a few School House Rock videos on youtube. Just look at how much the kids loved that. These kids are now adverb and preposition pros. 

These are the older classes we taught. 

This is part of the younger class we taught. 

We had to move the younger classes outside. Here are all the kids. 

Aren't they all so precious? 

They want us to come back again and teach. 

We would love to. 

Kaleigh and I are just feeling a little separation anxiety from our boys. 

We have been neglecting them with all our trips, church and hanging out with these rafikis. 

rafiki

You know when you go to a YSA dance and all these lush brothers have all the swag in the world and you feel like your life is complete. Then the next day you find yourself at church and you realize that all those lush swagger filled brothers are in your ward? 

Yup. It happened to me. 

Basically, church is great. I love my ward even more then I did before. I did not even know that was possible. 

After church our friend Kevin asked us to go to linner at his place. This has to be the 548222 time he asked and so we finally gave in and said yes. Why the heck did we not go before?!

It was so great. 

Our new rafiki Jacob taught us how to make chapatis. 

It was so wonderful. Jacob is my new BFF. I swear. He is every girl's best friend.

After linner, all the neighborhood kids sensed that there were mzungos in the neighborhood and were waiting for us outside our door. Kaleigh and I greeted them all and took pictures with them.

After that we had to meet up with the missionaries for a discussion. It went really well. He is getting baptized next weekend. Again with the neighborhood kids... they sensed the mzungos and were hoovering outside the door. 

You know as we were walking out of the neighborhood we ran into another girl who is investigating the church. I guess the combination of Kaleigh and I with Elder Utah is kind of hard to miss. 

It was such a wonderful day. I loved it so much. Kevin and Jacob are such fun people. Both of them are totally mission bound. They will be my rafikis for life. 

ysa dance

Getting to the dance was the beginning of the adventure. 

Mom... close your ears. 

We started by jumping into this guy's truck who pulled over on the side of the road and asked us if we wanted a ride. He dropped us off right where we needed to be with no charge. 

He is going to heaven. 

Then we jumped onto a matatu and it took us to Roysambu where we got out and walked to our ward building. We met up with the missionaries and one of their converts who was going to come with us. After that we jumped onto another matatu that took us to Nairobi. We walked around Nairobi until we found the bus we needed and jumped on that and it took us to Upper Hill. From there we walked around and could not find the church. I just found some locals and batted my eye lashes and next thing you knew it we were in one of their vans getting driven to the building. Heck yes. It paid off to be a white girl.

We get to the building and it is about 12:30 and the dance said it started at 12. There was no one there. Well that is a lie. There were people there setting up the sound and stuff. The dance and party didn't really start until about 3. Talk about Kenyan time. 

We ate some delish Kenyan food and then the dancing began. I just have to preface this with... I am so white. I seriously have no idea how to dance like a Kenyan. After a little really embarrassing attempt to dance they gave all the boys flowers to hand out to the girls. (it was a Valentines dance)

It was the typical... boys line up on one side and the girls line up on the other. There was this one little nasty nast child who was just in love with me and defiantly wanted to give me his flower. I kept changing my spot in line so I wasn't paired up with him and then he would do the same so we were paired up. He creeped me out so bad. 

In the end I prevailed and Oscar gave me not one but two flowers and the nasty was avoided. Oscar is seriously one of the most blessed sons of god I have met since being in Kenya. 

Then they started the games. They asked for 5 couples to come up. We all know I wasn't part of a "couple." I plopped myself on the ground and waited to watch the festivities. The second I sat down this brother with some awesome swag came up and took me by the hands and made me stand back up. He escorted me to the middle of the dance floor. I guess I was part of a "couple" and I didn't even know about it. 

Part of being a couple meant that the boy had to present you with a rose in a creative manor. Oscar and his date went first. Oscar was uncontrollably funny. Then it was my date's turn. (I have no idea what his name is...) He did this huge thing and in the end he came running to me so excited and down on one knee with the flower. I accepted of course. 

My date was blindfolded as I lead him through a course with my voice. Can we be honest for a second? I was the only one there screaming in an American accent and I was the loudest one screaming... I have no idea why he had such a hard time. I even switched to Swahili half way through the course but we lost. It was a noble try. Everyone laughed when I switched to Swahili. I don't think anyone saw it coming. 

We made a lot of friends. I mean a lot. It is another benefit of being white in Kenya... everyone wants to be your friend. 

I danced with a lot of people. I felt like I was getting passed around from person to person. Everyone wanted to teach me how to dance. I was totally okay with that. 

I have this rule that we have to be either home, really close to home or on our way home when it gets dark. Kenya is not scary for me at all but it is just a wise rule. This meant that Kaleigh and I had to leave early from the dance. Luckily there were 2 guys leaving at the same time who more than willingly walked us all the way to our matatu and then waited for a matatu to come get us and sent us on our way. They are going straight to heaven.