Charlotte and Mercy goofing around in our new apartment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

Melkam Addis Amet! [Happy New Year!]

Happy New Year!  That's right, today, Sept 11 marks the new year on the Ethiopian calendar and it is officially 2006!  [read more here about why its 2006].  This is a big deal here in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia and all business is closed for celebrations.  It is traditional for Ethiopian children to sing and dance in the streets and for people to celebrate with close friends and family and share meals together.  So we did the same! :)  What a great day!

We started the day with good friends taking a walk to a nearby hotel which had a nice park, eating ice cream (a rare treat) and playing.  We then came back to our apartment and Charlotte decided to ride one of our three resident giant tortoises (see video).  Then she was off to play with other friends painting ‘pet rocks’ while we stayed home to continue to unpack boxes into our new home.  We finished up the day celebrating over dinner with our 2 neighbor families. In true Ethiopian style we learned a few new Amharic language songs and sang some old favorites with guitar around a roaring fire.  Melkam Addis Amet!

Also finished today was setting up one room of our apartment as a homeschooling room.  Tomorrow after the holiday is Charlotte’s first day of 1^st grade!  She is so excited.  She has been asking to start her school since the last day of Kindergarten in June!  

We’ll post pictures of our new home and Charlotte’s first day of 1^st grade soon so stay tuned!

Sorry if the formatting looks crazy on the photos or video.  It wasn't for lack of trying, but sometimes the internet here is slower than a giant tortoise! 

Pictures from the last few weeks

Here are just a few pictures from our lives recently!  I'll do a better job posting more and explaining them in a day or two while we're at Grandpa Randy's house.  But the arboretum is calling right now, so you'll have to wait a little bit!

Funny face

I couldn't stop laughing while recording this.  Mercy loves to put this medicine cup in her mouth, and she's just started doing this:

What I meant to finish saying was that this could win us $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos.  But I was laughing too hard....

Who knew?!

Mercy is TERRIFIED of the electric mixer.  I made muffins this morning while she sat in her high chair and she acted like it was the end of the world.  I felt so bad for her, but had to quick finish the muffins!  I think we'll have to avoid any baking involving the mixer while she's around from now on.

Also, poor Mercy has had what seem to be hives for the last three days.  We have no idea why, but thankfully they don't seem to bother her and she hasn't been scratching at all.  Today they look much better, so hopefully we're on the mend!

Puppies puppies puppies!

We visited a family who has five baby puppies today.  Guess who was in love?  Yep, two little girls named Charlotte and Mercy!
 

This video is too long for the blog to allow me to post, but click on this to see it.  Mercy wanted to dive in the little kiddie pool SO badly!  And Charlotte was just mothering those puppies the whole time!

Breakthrough!

After about a week straight of evenings spent wearing out the sidewalk in front of our house with me (Matt) breaking my back running alongside Charlotte holding her little frame on top of her bike... tonight we had a breakthrough.  Charlotte can ride a bike.  Every dad's dream to teach his kid to ride and I couldn't be prouder.  Check it out!

Thanks to Grandpa Randy who gave her her first bike for Christmas 2011 (picture below) and to Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy who donated the pink beauty that she's riding now!