petit compaore: March 2012

Saturday, March 31, 2012

jardin

We worked in our community garden plot today. Thank you Papa and Isaac for all your hard work and help! (Especially Papa)

Isaac actually was a good helper too. He helped put a lot of grass and weeds in the wheelbarrow, and he helped dig with various tools and his little spades.

Look how much we got done! Papa did everything on the left - and see that little cleared patch on the right? That part was Mama and Isaac. We really appreciate Papa's strength and help in getting gardents started.

There is a little strawberry patch already from the previous owners, and a raspberry area too. We planted some peas and I transplanted my garlic and onions. Apparently alliums get "rust" in this community garden though - so that's a bummer. The guy who told me this said they are still edible but just smaller... Hm...The previous owners also left two nice lawn chairs - I guess so we can lounge around and look at our nice garden.

Anyway, I am glad we got to enjoy the unexpectedly beautiful day together outside getting our garden ready for some good food!

Friday, March 30, 2012

dance rehearsal

You might have thought the Burkina pictures were over. Oh no. There are many, many more.

I completely forgot to bring pictures up to Seattle, so if anyone wants to see pictures of Papa's family, email me and I will make a slideshow to send to you. (One hint though: there are two pictures of family already, in the "moto" post.) Papa just likes his privacy, that's why there aren't a bunch of his family pictures on the blog!

I have a bunch of videos of a dance rehearsal that took place next door to Yaaba and Grandpère's house one day. The group was doing traditional Bissa dances. They were going to perform at a later time (I didn't catch exactly where). The musician was playing a one (or two?)-stringed guitar-like instrument called "ngonne". He had a very beautiful voice and after they were done rehearsing, he came over to introduce himself in the best French I heard anyone speak in the village. It wasn't an unexpected thing for someone to come introduce himself, but I was a little surprised because he was also blind. I guess everyone was probably talking about the "white lady" and "little white person" though.

Anyways, we very much enjoyed the music and dancing and hope you will too.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

a happy annibirfday

Today, Mama and Papa have been married 4 years.

Nana and Boompa called this morning to wish Mama a happy anni.. something. They told me to say it too, so I said "Happy annibirthday!" Birthdays are always good. I know Mama had a birthday recently anyway so that makes sense that she would have another one.

I'm still waiting for the cake though.

And here is Papa. We all took a walk last night and we had a good view of Eugene!

In other news, I close my eyes when I smile for the camera. It's what Mama does. I learned from the best.

Visiting Albany!

We drove north (but only a little bit) yesterday to visit Mama's good friends, Brittaini and Laura. I also wanted to see her kids since Grayson is just a little less than 2 months younger than Isaac. Isaac and Grayson have both gotten so big since the last time we met up - it is crazy! Grayson was talking up a storm.

Laura and I were treated to ponytails by Chloe. Like Brittaini says, Chloe hasn't changed, she just has more vocabulary now. She has always been super smart and I think she knows it. ;)

Laura got to be quite the center of attention! (Sorry, this isn't the most awesome picture of Laura, but, well, it kind of is an awesome picture.)

It was really good to see everyone. Now I feel satisfied that I have caught up with people over the break. I don't plan for us to travel outside of Eugene/Springfield again until Easter!

And, we have an epic jam-making session planned for this summer. Stay tuned. I am getting excited already.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Visiting Seattle

*disclaimer* If there is a picture you don't like, let me know and I can remove it. :)

We took a trip to Seattle over the past few days. First, we went to a cousin's wedding in Portland. Congratulations Beej and Suzy! It was fun! I wish we had stayed longer... but I was set on getting up to Tacoma that evening. If I could do it again, I would plan that a little differently.

Dancing with a handsome little man.

There was some leftover snow and the kids all wanted to have snowball fights. Isaac really wanted to join in and finally we let him. Of course then he didn't want to leave. This was a recurring theme of the weekend.

Then, we are missing a picture here. We should have a picture of Uncle Doug, because we stayed at his house in Tacoma.

The next morning, we found this church to go to Mass. But, it turned out that Mass was at 8 am and 12 noon. Of course we got there at 10. So, I will have to admit we did not make it to Mass that day. It was my lack of planning though - only have myself to blame. Still, this church was beautiful!

Seattle had some interesting traffic signage - like these speed limit signs that changed depending on the traffic conditions. A very interesting idea. I liked that we could use the carpool lane.

Then we went to visit Greg and Michelle and their new little guy, Milo. Here is Isaac with their cat, Dexter. It was actually this cat that inspired Isaac's first word: "uh-gae!" We hadn't seen them since then - which means we hadn't been to Seattle in over 2 years.

The happy and adorable family! Man, that baby is so cute.

I could have held him for hours! He was a perfect, comfortable size for holding.

Another one of those changing speed signs. Fancy-dancy Seattle.

And a toll bridge. We apparently will have to pay the toll by mail, so I thought at least I can post a picture of the bridge.

Okay, I knew that the direction of the street was really important in Seattle, but I didn't realize that they have all these number intersections. It was almost too much for my poor little Oregon-raised mind to handle.

Then Isaac and I went to visit my friend Stasia. If you haven't already figured it out, she is an artist and I have a link to her blog on the side of Isaac's blog. You should check it out - she is really good.

It was so fun to see her! Isaac enjoyed meeting the cats and was very interested, although somewhat cautious, about the hedgehog. He also loved the park near her house, made a new friend, and didn't want to leave. I think it has been 11 or 12 years since we have actually seen each other in person, but somehow we have kept in contact. I can't say that for anyone else I know. There is a small handful of people that it is easy to catch up with even if you haven't seen them or talked to them in a long time. We also met Stasia's little sister - she is quite possibly the most adorable person ever and gave us free Jamba Juice!

I hope we can visit Stasia again soon!

We also went and visited Isaac's godparents and cousins (although he was sleeping while we were there), then went over to my great-aunt Kathy's house for dinner, where we met with more cousins. Isaac had so much fun with his cousins, especially the boys and Louisa that evening. Again, he really didn't want to leave. We went back to Uncle Doug's house - Boompa was there and it was his birthday! So we said "Happy birthday" and had some ice cream. The next day, we went back to visit Louisa and Josephine again - but they were tired so we didn't stay too long - from there we stopped back by Uncle Doug's one more time, then drove on home.

It was a great trip! We will have to go to Seattle again soon. We are wiped out though. We have been sleeping in extra these last two days.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Visiting London

We visited Auntie Anna and baby London, who is not so much a baby any more, this past week.

We dyed Easter eggs. It didn't really work, but it was still fun! We were a bit early; now we'll wait until it's really Easter.

Isaac and London enjoyed playing outside in the piles of landscaping dirt hanging out in their newly fenced front yard.

They got very dirty - but it's okay - I think it's good for them.

Little sweet girl!

One funny moment - we had London's friend Taylor over for the egg hunt. The kids weren't really getting the idea of finding all the eggs. Then Taylor found one real (hard boiled) egg and chucked it across the room. Of course, it cracked. It was funny to me - I guess maybe you had to be there.

Then, it snowed! It snowed a ton down in Eugene, but we got some too. We bundled up the small ones and went outside. London was so bundled up! She got to wear her new snow pants.

The snow on the mountains is so pretty! This is from the ride back home yesterday.

And here is a picture from our game of hide-and-seek today. I have no idea where Isaac could be hiding. He announces his hiding place every time. "Mama, I'm going to hide in the closet. You count."

Isaac and London sharing a bath. London wanted to be done with the bath, and she would go over and pull the plug. Then Isaac would get upset because he wasn't ready to be done with the bath.

London in her snow suit

We love you London! We can't wait to see you at Easter!

wildlife safari

Last Saturday, on St. Patrick's Day, we went to Wildlife Safari in Winston (just southwest of Roseburg). We had never been before, but Nana got a Groupon for us that made it a reasonable price. We liked it so much that we drove through twice.

They have a little walk-through area that you can go to for free - the drive through part is $17 per person (but Isaac was free) and you can go through twice. I think if we go down to California some day (I feel like we have been planning that for several years now, but it never happens) we should make a quick stop again, at least for the walk-through place.

Isaac started acting really weird though in the walk-through part. I think it was because there was this didgeridoo music coming from some loudspeakers on one of the buildings and Isaac a) did not know what it was and b) probably couldn't locate where it was coming from either. He was freaking out in the "petting zoo" area and last time I checked, he wasn't extra afraid of goats or miniature ponies.

Here is a dik-dik.

This is a black-tailed deer with a genetic mutation that changed its coloring.

Dorky, I know, but we couldn't resist. These things suddenly become cute when you put a cute face in them.

Lemur

A lion. And a reminder that I need to stop being lazy and learn how to do manual focus with my fancy-pantsy new camera.

The hippo. These things are huge!

Ostrich. (I think?)

Zebras and something else on the hills.

I really liked these. They had ridiculously long horns.

American bison

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?

Dinner. Or it would have been, had they not tactfully separated the predators from the prey.

Okay, I know we have llamas all over the place. But we still liked them.

Elephants.

Some type of deer

Rhinos. They were pretty close to the road. The park ranger at the gate advised us to keep moving if the rhinos seemed close.

Apparently lions can climb trees. (Round 2)

Gerenuk, I think.

Giraffe - always impressive

Giraffe via moonroof

Aren't the little balls on the end of his antlers interesting?

Bactrian camels

Homo sapiens

Tibetan yak

A turkey. We weren't sure if this was just a regular turkey you find here or some African turkey. Probably one from here.

Cheetah and Siberian tiger. A bit distant, but still really neat!

Apparently Wildlife Safari has one of the most successful cheetah breeding programs in the US. Since 1972, 168 cheetahs have been born at the park. Wow!

There we are- that was our little Saturday trip! It was nice to go south of Eugene - we don't do that very often. Again, we definitely enjoyed Wildlife Safari and would like to go again!