a whole new home

Yeah! We have internet at home now!!!

Here's a catch up post with pics of our new place- you can go look at the before pics from a few weeks back- quite a difference. Of course, we're not all done yet- we still need to install our generator, get our big appliances running through stabilizers, get grass growing in our yard, etc.

Here's the front gate


front yard with our two dogs (Bruiser the bigger one is ours to keep, Curly is on loan)
Our screened in porch
dining room/ living room
hallway (included here so you can imagine Sam running his heart out from one end to the other)
Sam's room
The office

pantry/laundry drying room

Guest bathroom

Our bedroom (view 1)



and view two (John installed all those shelves and built us the space to hang things too)

our bathroom Sam helping to install the internetEnjoying bathtime
Savoring a soymilksicle
sporting a shirt with a tattoo that has a heart with Mommy in it :-)

Playing at baby club (he goes three times a week- and sometimes it's at the tennis club which has this playground)

We hired a babysitter this week- her name is Elize (ay-leez-ay) and she's super nice. I'm really hoping that this works out to be a good thing for her and for us for the long haul. She lives down the street from us and is from the other Congo. She has an almost 4 year old daughter, Emmanuela, who plays with Sam. She's the wife of our night guard, Emmanuel and they have older kids too.




And one more piece of news... we bought a car in Pointe Noire and it should be arriving in Brazzaville this week. It's a 1998 Toyota Prado. Thank you so much to everyone who donated for the purchase of it. We drove it when we were down there and Sam was in the carseat for the first time in months (hard to use a car seat in taxis). So I'm going to be one content mama. The only drawback will be that we'll have to start paying attention to what we eat- we've been walking a couple of hours every day without a car so we've both been shrinking.
On Sunday, we went to church with two friends of my Dad's from Morocco. They are Congolese (from this Congo and the other) but both spent many years studying in Morocco. Davy (on the left) works for the French version of USAID here and Thierry (holding Sam) is an IT guy. They are both special guys. We really enjoyed the church too- it's an AoG church- had a great sermon about love and giving and a bunch of kids and mamas took turns keeping an eye on Sam so I got to hear the sermon. I sported my Moroccan outfit in honor of our friends.

I'll try to be a more regular poster now that we're online.