I have been watching most of the FIFA World Cup matches at the AIM AIR hangar.  It has been very interesting to watch the tournament while in Africa with a lot of Africans.  There is something strange that I cannot completely comprehend or communicate.  The Africans really do have a kind of comradery that crosses tribal and national boundaries.  Almost everyone was heartbroken when Ghana, the last African team in the tournament, crashed out in the quarter finals.  One day they are cheering on men from 3000 miles away, the next they are complaining (or worse) about the terrible tribe next door.

The whole family came into the hangar last night to watch the final.  We were all dressed for the occasion.  I choose the blue away Spanish jersey, Cammy was in the Furia Roja and Andrej in my 2002 Spanish jersey.  Petr was happy to wear the Real Madrid jersey he got for his birthday in April.  There was a bit of a crowd there for the match and late in the second half they started a pool as to how many times I would stand up and yell.

It was a very entertaining and hard fought match.  Both teams had chances to take it, but in the end it was Spain lifting the cup for the first time.  Petr and Andrej had both fallen asleep, but awoke for the trophy ceremony.  It might have had something to do with some guy yelling…  Good memories.

(With sincere apologies to my Dutch friends.  “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”  But at least it was not a loss on penalties.)

Saturday we went to a birthday party for Petr’s friend from school.  They had a bounce house, and a clown.  Petr did a trick, I thought it was cool.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

I found Petr boxing at the wall the other day….turns out he was boxing his shadow!

The boys with boxes from all those wonderful packages people send us.  They painted them and set them up as a horse drawn carriage – with no prompting from me!  I love Andrej’s addition of his bike helmet.

I wanted to share more pictures from our trip to the States so here are the ones that capture some of our family traditions

The Living Nativity at Horizon North County:

We have enjoyed attending the Living Nativity with Paul’s family for many years.

During the time of Christmas when our focus may be on other things, it is good to SEE the reason for the season

Prime Rib at my Dad’s house:

Some years back my father got a huge slab of prime rib and called it “Prime-icis Rib-icis”.

It  has become the special occasion meal at the Idler house.  It was so nice to have some tender meat.

Christmas Eve at Paul’s parents:

On Christmas Eve, before opening presents, Paul’s dad has the tradition of reading Luke 2 with the youngest children sitting on his lap.

Petr and Andrej had the honors.

And then came the unwrapping of the presents – always a special time of Grandpa reading his gift tags that are hidden codes.  Only he knows who the gift belongs to.  We have fun trying to guess.

Paul and his Grandmom (This is one of my favorite pictures from Christmas – they look so joyful!)

The “Sisters” on Paul’s side of the family.  I am so blessed to have married into a family where the sister-in-laws are my close friends.  Growing up with two brothers (who I love and adore), I always wanted to know what it was like to have a sister. Some of you know that I do have a sister in Heaven, who I am named after, but I didn’t have the chance to know her.  She would have been forty years old this month.  I thank God that He has provided other means of having sisters.  I am blessed with one on my side of the family and three on Paul’s side of the family.

Christmas morning:

Doughnuts!  My mom always made these doughnuts on Christmas morning.  Yummy!!

“like father, like son” – Paul reads the Christmas story to the boys before opening Christmas presents

Christmas stockings by the fire!

Andrej with his guitar!

Petr displaying the visual for the “No whining” sign.

I think he’s had practice…looks like he’s got the whining thing down.

Decorating the Birthday Cake for Jesus!

Singing to Jesus

New Traditions that will continue when we visit the States (I’m pretty sure):

Buying the Boys a Root Beer at the mall

(we can’t get root beer in Kenya).

The boys were strutting with their “big boy” sodas.  They were shocked when we ordered them a large!

Chuck E. Cheese

We went with my parents and my brother’s family.  I’m sure the boys will try to make it a family tradition!   Grandpop and Uncle Brandon watch as the boys drive a boat on a simulated screen of Lake Powell – our family’s vacation spot!  It was so cool.  Petr hit the “jack pot” with the tickets.  Andrej looks like he is used to crazy driving in Nairobi….

I don’t have a picture for the next tradition so I used this one because it sums up the “end product” of the tradition…..drum roll please….SLEEP OVER AT GRANDMAS WITH ALL THE GRANDCHILDREN – or as many as can make it!!!  Paul’s mom loves to have all of her grandchildren under one roof, sharing together in life’s experiences.  Our little Andrej makes a baker’s dozen – 13 grandchildren in all!  So much fun:)

The Childrens Museum with Nonni

there were many activities to keep my boys interested!

Missing the 70′s, anyone?

Yes, I jumped too!  Nonni, thanks for treating us to the museum.

SEA PORT Village

We used to take the trolley down to seaport village and walk around, mostly on Saturdays.  Sometimes we would go with the grandparents and buy ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s.  My Mom and I took the boys after The Childrens Museum.  We were prepared with a football.  After the boys ran around with the ball we got the traditional ice cream!

McDonald’s!!!

The boys were given gift cards for Christmas from our dear friend Joan Chaffin.  Thanks Joan! They enjoyed their Happy Meals.

Those of you who know my Dad will understand these pictures.  My Dad loves to dress as a cowboy.  He loves horses, but mostly likes wearing his cowboy boots and hat.  And I have seen him wear those boots to church…hello El Cajon!  He takes advantage of any excuse to dress up like a cowboy (since he doesn’t have a horse).   I used to have a horse and did some horse shows.  When I won a fancy silver belt buckle, he would ask to borrow it!  My winning worked out pretty well for him.  He would be dressed in Cowboy attire from head to toe.   Anyways, back to the pictures:  My Dad has a friend named Gary who is the care taker of their property (he lives in a trailer on the property).  Gary wanted to do something special for my boys for Christmas so he hired a lady that brings horses for rides.  She even brought her brother to do some circus juggling! My Dad told me to invite my friends and their kids to join the fun.  We had one BIG playdate.  My Dad took the opportunity to give the kids golf cart rides, cowboy hat and all!

Here are the rest of the pictures:

Thanks, Gary, for a wonderful time!  And a “Hee Ha” to the Cowboy whom I am proud to call my “Daddy”:)

These pictures are symbolic of the growth of my boys.   They used to be scared of the Star Wars mask.  We went to Aunt Julie’s house and they went to the closet (remembering where the mask  was) and surprised us by putting it on!  The first picture is of Petr with his cousin, Mark.  The second picture is Andrej.  We had some good laughs.

Planting Pine Trees with Grandpop in his yard.

When I was growing up we had pine trees (old Christmas trees from our house) that my Dad planted.  It was fun to watch them grow through the years.  Well, my Dad surprised us with having the same idea for Petr and Andrej to plant some with him this year.

Paul and I had a tradition of taking the boys to Denny’s on Sundays after church.  Petr kept mentioning this fact during our visit, but we didn’t make it to Denny’s until the morning of our departure.  We met family for breakfast to say our good byes.  It was rough, but there was comfort in knowing we will see them all again when we come back in August!

It is hard to believe that just 3 months ago we were in the States with our family and friends.  It is always hard to leave…I wish I could’ve packed them all up in the suitcases to be with us here!  Thankfully, memories are strong and stay with us during the times of separation.  There were continuous highlights during our time there.  First was our welcoming party at the airport.  You would have thought we were famous!  My mom had a bunch of balloons and was surrounded by Paul’s family and mine.  It was a moment that will burn in my memory for a while.  I was shocked at how big our nieces and nephews had grown (ok, this made me a little sad that we missed 1 1/2 years of them growing up).  We all headed to Paul’s favorite burger joint, IN ‘N’ OUT, and enjoyed an incredible hamburger and shake.  You should have seen Paul’s face when he was ordering  his hamburger, something he had been waiting 1 1/2 years to do!  But the look on his face was even better when he was eating it!   After IN ‘N’ OUT we went to Paul’s sister’s house for a wonderful dinner and fellowship with family.  It was a great reunion!  We were tired from our flight but elated to be with the ones we love so dearly.

The following weeks were filled with many outings with family and friends.  Here are some highlights in pictures!

Fun at the mall!  Andrej able to drink from the drinking fountain!  (It is hard to find drinking fountains in Kenya.  If you do, you don’t want to drink the water!!! The boys were so excited about this simple method of getting water!

Boys at Peter Piper’s Pizza (one of their favorite places in Rancho San Diego)

Fun “riding toys” at Grandpop’s house

Highlights from our first trip to Disneyland with the boys (a gift from Paul’s parents)

Cousins, Olivia and PJ, joined us.

It was extra special to experience Disneyland with family.

My sister-in-law, Melanie, came too.  We had a great time talking while we wanted for the rides.

Train ride “Its a small world” ride

The sword in the stone

I love how the above pictures show the boys different personalities!

Is it possible that this mail will get to Africa?

Jail Break!

The End

(you can see Andrej doesn’t want to leave. Actually, this picture was taken in the middle of the day .  I love the truth  it expresses – a loving Grandma comforting a child who has had too much excitement)

*More highlights with pictures to come in the next couple of days……

We were way past due to unload the pictures on the camera. I finally got around to it.  There is a whole smattering of pictures, so it might be best to look at the updates dynamic album.  I think Cammy is going to post on some of the different sets of pictures.

During our time here our water has been turned off Tues thru Thurs. It has never been a big problem because we have storage tanks. However, there are times when it gets frustrating. Well, for the first time in a year and a half our water wasn’t turned off! Oh the blessings of flowing water! Especially because our pump to our front tank is broken so we have to bucket water into our back pump which can then pump water up to the tank in the house. It has been nice this week to not have to do it. However, it always gives you perspective. Many people have to walk miles to get their water, I just have to walk to the front of my house (and only once a week).

My brother-in-law is here visiting with us.  We are having a great time and I think since he is spending so much time here he is really getting a feel for what our lives are like.  You really cannot plan a month and a half or more, so he is getting a feel for the daily grind as well as all the sites to see.

More and more time is passing, so there are now some people who are actually “from” Nairobi.  However, at least 90% of the people you ask, “Where are you from?”  They will answer somewhere outside Nairobi.  Nairobi is not their home, they just work here.  Outside Nairobi is almost completely agrarian, so there is a lot of attachment to land, and land inside the territory of one’s tribe.

Last Saturday we had a wonderful trip down to Wamunyu, the “up country” home of a coworker, neighbor, and great friend of mine, Charles Nzioki Mungaithi.  We actually drove through a good portion of Ukambani (inside the Kamba place).  We had a great time roasting some steak under a tree.  Charles purchased it, and Cammy marinated it, and I helped cook it.  Charles loves steak, and he is also alergic to mushrooms, we may be related   We watched his mother make sour milk and remove the butterfat from the milk she milked that morning.  We got a tour of the shamba (farm).  The boys got really dirty playing in the granaries.  We had a wonderful time.

We then drove up to Elizabeth’s parent’s place.  Elizabeth is Charles wife, Cammy’s good friend, and our neighbor.  They have a large egg business and we got a tour of the place there and had some chai and fried eggs.

On the way back to Nairobi we were listening music on our GPS, a Garmin Nuvi 855 (Thank you very much Pastor B!)  The song, “Kingdom of Comfort” by Delirious played.  Here are the lyrics:

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From my unhealthy lust of material things

I built myself a happy home
In my palace on my own
My castle falling in the sand
Pull me out, please grab my hand
I just forgot where I came from

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From my unhealthy lust of material things

I rob myself of innocence
With the poison of indifference
I buy my stuff at any cost
A couple of clicks and I pay the price
Coz what I gain is someone else’s loss

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From my unhealthy lust of material things

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
To this kingdom of heaven where you are king

It reminded me of a previous post.

This is the first time since Petr was born, almost 7 years ago, that I have been alone at home for such a long time.  I have been trying to fill the time getting things fixed around the house and with the car and those types of things.  I have been playing with some of the younger boys I see at Kenyatta Market.  Yesterday to fill the time, I went on a motocycle ride to a place just outside Nairobi.  It is so nice to be outside the haraka haraka (hurry hurry) of Nairobi sometimes.  I mapped it.

I have a little comment about the title of this post for those of you who know the boys.  On the flight from London to Los Angeles, our boys saw the movie Home Alone for the first time.   Petr was so concerned about how the boy got left by his whole family and what a horrible thing it was.  He was frightened by many of the antics of the bad guys.  Andrej, on the other hand, was really enjoying it.  It was the perfect story for him.  Here you have a small boy beating up two adults all by himself.   We had to quiet down all the cheering so the other passengers could sleep.

One of the things I have learned about living in another culture is how much of my own culture I have.  I have noticed with a lot of the North American missionaries that we work with is that they have a hard time at Christmas in Nairobi.  Singing carols in a t-shirt and sandals is not their idea of Christmas.  Growing up in San Diego has meant that I have never really had a “white Christmas.” There was one time when I was really little in North Dakota, a place I do not recommend visiting in December (there may be some other months I would not recommend visiting, but I do not want to upset the ND Chamber of Commerce).   However, there are a lot of other things surrounding Christmas that are a part of my culture, and I really enjoyed being in California for it this year.  I also enjoyed many of the things not associated with Christmas;  In-n-Out burger, good Mexican food, Disneyland (Thank you Dad and Mom), nice roads, law abiding drivers, stores that have more than you could ever need, restaurants that actually serve what is on the menu… but I digress.  I was really cold though.  Yes, even in San Diego, I was cold.  I think my body has adjusted to the climate in Nairobi.

I had a wonderful time.  I am happy that Cammy and the boys are still able to enjoy being with family there.

I have returned to Africa.  I spent a couple of days in Nairobi trying to adjust to the time difference (11 hours from California).  Then I flew over to Entebbe, Uganda and am riding in a car to Jinja today.  I am here for a couple of reasons, but mainly to help out missionaries serving in Central Africa with their computers.  I spent last night with the same family I stayed with last year, serving with AIM AIR here in Entebbe.  It feels like my Uganda home.  They are great.

I will try to post more about my visit to California later when I feel more rested (heh).