Our House

David and I began looking at houses right before Christmas. We probably went into about 10 houses, and the one we ended up with stuck with me the rest of the day after we saw it.  We decided to put an offer on the house, and David met the realtor there again to make sure we really liked it.  :)

The offer was accepted and the process began.  We set a closing day for February 27th, and we crossed our fingers that we wouldn't have a blizzard that weekend.  The closing day came, and the weather was actually pretty wonderful. Thanks to our wonderful friends at church, we were moved out of apartment in just a few hours.  Like we hoped, there was no snow; however, it was 12 degrees, but the sun was shining!!!  

Our friends helped us set up some of the furniture and place it, so we were able to sleep there the first night.  I'm so thankful for my friends Lindsey, Corinne, and Crystal who helped set up my kitchen on Saturday and Sunday night when I started feeling puny.  They were amazing!!! I ended up being sick for a few days with some awful virus, but I'm just so thankful that David did not get it because the weekend after we moved was his opening night performance of The Manchurian Candidate.  I was so afraid he would miss rehearsals or the show, but thanks to my girlfriends setting up the guest room, he was able to sleep in there and not get sick!!

I've taken just a couple of pictures of some of the rooms that are finished (for now).

                                                          Our house was built in 1950

One of our favorites...the laundry chute. 

A huge shout out to my Mother-in-law, Lynn, who cleaned our old apartment until it looked like new again.  This was a huge help, and I owe her so much for that!!! Thank you! Thank you!

Also, a shout out to my parents for flying up here (despite having canceled flights) to be here for 40 hours for my birthday, David's opera, and to hang my pictures!!!

Winter Time=Knitting Time

As you've probably seen, I finished putting together and knitting all of David's sweater.  I still haven't put the zipper...and I'm dragging my feet on that. It seems to be a daunting task, but I'll take a whack at it. 

                                                    Yes, i wear a headlamp while knitting.

                  Rachel mailed me some yarn from Purl Soho. She wanted a "droopy" striped hat.
                         

                                  Pattern is from Purl Soho's blog and can be found on ravelry.

I was dying to make this hat from the moment I saw it on one of my patients.  The parent gave me the pattern and it was so much fun to knit and super cute!!!

Rachel also asked for this hat which has a "butterfly stitch". I've never done that, but it was surprisingly easy to do and make such a fun embellishment to the hat.

                                                             Isn't that just so cool???
                                   *Pattern available online: butterfly beret knitting pattern


        One of my goals this year is to make a pair of socks. I'll let you know if/when that happens.

Catching Up

David transitioned out of Cantus at the end of July and began rehearsing with Minnesota Opera for his first production with them in September and October.  I took one of my friends to see the show. (We sat on the very back row...now I know why they invented opera glasses) It was a fun show about Italian-singing Cowboys in California during the gold rush.  Our friend Alex Ritchie (from HA/HU days) was also in the performance.

David has enjoyed touring with an opera company (Opera for the Young) during the Fall and some of the Winter/Spring. They go to schools in Wisconsin and MN and perform a show for the children. He plays the beast in the show and wears shoulder pads and platform shoes.  (Hilarious)

David and I were able to go to Arkansas for Thanksgiving and spend time with some of my family. David took over the deviled egg task that Nick has done for the past 5 years since R&N weren't coming home for Thanksgiving.

                                                             
                                                                Me and my momma!

For Christmas this year we were in Nashville with David's family.  David's mom, Lynn, retired from teaching in December and we had a fun party for to celebrate.

We've really enjoyed the last few weeks of warm weather here and have been able to be outside to enjoy it. Last weekend we took the Light Rail to downtown with some friends to watch Red Bull Crashed Ice.  David's gone the past few years, but I haven't gone because it's been too cold.  It was 30 degrees last week, so it was pretty perfect. I didn't even need my parka!

Looks like some cold weather is coming back, but we've hardly had any snow this year, so we'll take it.

Tanzanian Trip: There and Back Again, Chapter 5

I woke up at 6:30 and kept hearing noises like someone was tearing branches off a tree.  Once we got ready for breakfast we walked out our hut and saw monkeys in the trees above our hut.  

The Game Reserve is 50,000 km  in area, so it wasn't guaranteed that we would everything that we wanted to see. 

We ate breakfast and met our guide, Silas, at the jeep for our Game Drive.  We drove for about ten minutes to the entrance of the Game Reserve, but before we made it to the actual entrance we had to stop to let about 50 baboons (and some warthogs-just like Pumba) cross the road. 

We saw giraffes everywhere.  The giraffes were pretty scared of the jeep, or in Silas' words "Shy". 

They stayed still if we were still, but walked away if we started to move again. 

Some zebras hanging out behind the giraffe. 

We were driving through some pretty thick green jungle-like trees and plants and all of a sudden this popped out:

We stopped the jeep and then the elephant put his trunk up in the air to smell us!  He walked back in the trees and went around us the long way.  

We had just seen a lot of hippos, giraffes, and birds in a watering hole and then this little troop of elephants popped out of the trees.  I can't get enough of the little bitty one!!!

This one was scared of us, and walked over to the tree and started trying to intimidate us by brushing back and forth in the trees. I started to get a little nervous that it was gonna get brave and come too close, but he ran behind us pretty fast. 

We stopped for lunch under a tree, and our task for after lunch was to try to find the lions. 

We passed a few other jeeps and they told Silas that they had seen lions down by a watering hole.  Silas drove us over to that area, and we came upon this:

That is a dead water buffalo on the left side of the picture.  The ground is extremely muddy as you can tell by her legs.  She is panting so hard, and looks exhausted. (cue yawn)

 Hello Jungle Book.  Under the tree are 4 lions and a dead wildebeest, and the vultures are waiting at the top of the for the lions to move away from the food. 

 I'm trying to smile, even though this is a little too close for comfort!!!  The lion was getting up to move to the other side of the water buffalo because a vulture was on the ground trying to get closer to the buffalo. 

These animals are tuckered out!!!

I was very thankful that we were able to get out of the mud.  I was about to panic. 

On our way back to the camp we saw some other jeeps looking at something under some trees, so we followed them over there.  We had been looking for the Wild Dogs because it's the only place they are, and we found them!

 Just a few more zebras before we made it back to our camp.

It was an awesome day! It's so surreal. It's hard to believe that the animals just happen to live there, and it's not a setup. 

Tanzanian Trip: There and Back Again, Chapter 4

Friday morning, we woke up at said goodbye to our friends in Mtwara. :(

Travis came to pick me up at Sarah's and he took me and my dad to the Mtwara airport.  Our flight from Mtwara to Dar was supposed to leave at 8:15, but it left at 7:45.  This boarding pass was one of my favorite things about this trip

We made it to Dar and had 2 hours until our flight to the Selous Game Reserve for a safari. We got to the "old terminal" at Dar to take our "Coastal Aviation" flight to Selous. There were no signs about our flight. The only schedule they had up was incorrect, and no one seemed worried about it, so dad and I just hung out at the gate area hoping we would hear "Selous" from someone. 

Miraculously, at 11:15 (just 30 minutes late) a pilot and an airport worker said the Selous flight was ready.  There were only 6 people that were on our flight, and there was only room for 8 people anyway. EEEK!

 We landed on a dirt runway and dropped off two passengers, and then took off again and landed 10 minutes later at our stop. 

(The sign on the tree says, "Coastal Aviation", in the middle of the Selous Game Reserve. 

 Looking at some hippos from the airplane. 

A jeep took us to the "Selous River Camp" that we were staying at for the next two nights.  We had a couple of hours to rest, and then took a "Boat Safari" that afternoon.  

 Our hut.  There is no electricity in the camp, so they have solar-powered lights and a fan that you can use at night.  There was a charging station available from 6-10 pm at the bar area.  

Creepy Crocodiles

Hanging out on a sandbar

Hippos popping up for air.

We had dinner at the camp that night.  There are 6 huts at the camp.  There were 5 others groups/couples at dinner and only one other group was speaking English. 

Our Maasai guard walked us to our hut and we went to bed.  We were thankful and amazed that we actually made it to Selous.