What a small world!

Vaughn and I had taken the Sister Mkwanazi and Sister Amunyela to dinner at the Hilton because they always seem to get left out--the elders are a little more forward about going to dinner with us!  We ran into an american couple who were in Ethiopia adopting two  little boys.  It turned out that they had lived in Virginia were good friends with Emily Martino, so instant connection and we ate with them and had such fun!  This is the first us/lds family we have run into here in ethiopia adopint.  This particular family said that it cost them about $35,000 to adopt these two babies!  With 5 other boys at home, I am in awe of this!

street scene 11

Street scene

This is a typical sight that we see each day on the way to and from the house to the office.

Stick ladies

Women like these carry these sticks down a moutain no telling how many times a day. They walk back up and get another load. They weigh about 70 lbs.

Washing Veggies

Washing our fruit and Veggies in bleach before they are eaten. It is a fun process to get things ready to eat. We also wash out dishes in bleach. It is easier to eat out.

Kids in Jallidada Village

Showing them a picture that I took of them

Hut

We went on a trip to our out lying branch in Awasa. 5 hour drive from Addis. We stopped at a village where the Church has dug a water well. This is the type of housing this tribe lives in,

Ethiopian Construction

There is a lot of building going on in Addis Ababa, but you wonder how they ever get done. As you can see their scaffoling is sticks and the construction is almost all concrete and steel. Vey little wood is used because they have a big termite problem

First Sunday at Church

This is the members of the Debre Zeit Branch where we went to Church the first Sunday. It is a one and half drive from Addis, They have about 70% attendance.

Blake and Dallin

Baboons

Mud Cover

This guy was standing out in the open for a long time. When we got to him it appeared that he was a lookout for several smaller Giraffes that were across the street eating. He looked black from a distance and when we got close he was caked with mud.

Mud Cover

Starring us down

Crock

We watched him for a while then he did a big back flip and dove in the water not to be seen again. He was in the same pool of water as the hippos but they never surfaced enough to see beyond their eyeballs

Moneky on a rock

Eland

Dinner Time

There has been a drought here and many of the animals are dying. But for every animal death is the vultures meal.

Rear end of a Zebra

There were a lot of Zebra's in the park. They are larger than the ones we see in the zoos or even at Joe Cates pasture. They are a beautiful animal.

Cape Buffalo

We saw a lot of these African Cows as the guide called them They are a pretty mean animal. Not you typical cow.

Rino

We were alos very lucky to find a rino as we only was 4 during our day at the park

Animal Park trip to Kenya

We got to the park early in the morning. It is about 80 square miles so it certainly isn't like a zoo. We drive around with a guide to find the animals. We were very lucky to find a pair of lions first thing. We spend the balance of the day and only saw two others. Many people driving through the park didn't see any lions.

He doesn't look from the expression on his face that he liked us much

Neighborhood kids

We gathered a crowd while we were unloading the truck for the move. Kids love to have their picture taken and then look at their picture on the camera.

New residence

This is their new place. A little bigger and a lot dryer.

Neighborhood

This is the the door off the street and the neighbors to the brother and sister we moved.

Not all places look like this but many people live in these circumstances

Moving day

One of our first tasks when we arrived was to help move these two people out of this little hut they have lived in for 2 years. It is about 4X6 with newspapers to keep the rain out of the holes. They are brother and sister and the brother is blind. He was just accepted into the local university.

Hello from Nairobi Keyna

We are in Nairobi this weekend for some meetings. It is like Heaven compared to where we are located, but we do like Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Nairobi actually has internet service that we can update our blog. Ethiopia is very restrictive and shuts down blogs so we can't even pull it up. So it looks like either we send pictures and updates to Danielle and she does it or it won't get done. We can send her pictures, 2 at a time, but it takes about 30 minutes to scan them in.

We flew into Nairobi on Friday and today we went with the Christensens to an animal park near the city. It is about 80 square miles with any African animal there is, except it doesn't have elephants. We had a guide who drove us through the area while we looked for animals and then took a 100 pictures. We will try to put some on the blog before we leave on Monday.

First Ethiopian meal

We were invited the first day we landed in Addis Ababa to one of the Church leaders home for Injera and all the "stuff" that goes with it. Some of the missionaries who also attended.

Injera isn't very good.

Not your typical horse and carriage...

Here is a horse cart in Awassa outside a rented church building.  I wonder if Vaughn has taken a stab at driving one of those...

Finally some photos!

Vaughn and Ann are doing great! Vaughn sent me some photos to post on the blog becasue he was having so many problems.  He said that the Hilton hotel claims to have high speed internet, but he still isn't convinced that it exsists in Ethiopia!  From now on I will be posting their photos for everyone to enjoy, however it doesn't seem like it will happen too often.  Here's the first two of the photos, enjoy!

-Danielle

These are photos of the LDS chapel at Megenagna, Addis Ababa.  This is the only property the church owns; all other branches meet in rented houses.

Responsibility

Those who are responsible for all this and the example they set with two missions to Africa.

Food at the MTC

We liked the food at the MTC

Fall in Park City

A break from the MTC and a trip to Brent's house in Park City to view the changing of the fall colors

Today we finished our first week of training at the Missionary Training Center. Next week it will all be computer training so we can run the office. Not nearly as interesting as thisw week.

Missionary Training Center

First leg to Ethiopia pics included

Today we flew out of DFW at 12:40pm. We had a large contingency of family at the airport to send us off. Although they were pretty unruly nobody was kicked out of the airport. It was a nice sendoff and we appreciate them making the effort to to be there. Terin is posting the pictures while Vaughn is busy cheering on the Cougars...so the comments under the pics are from me.

Ann's No Fear shirt that Aunt Betty gave her....we think that is what it says


Some last minute business that needed to be taken care of....just sign here

Little Crew and Miss Mia. It will be fun to see how big they are at our next trip to the airport to pick up Grandma and Grandpa

Vaughn and the ladies + Crew

Such a good looking group!

Brock being brock and Vaughn way overexaggerating the chokehold!

Brock getting Ann's sensitive spot: the neck

Vaughn's Sweet Spot (inside joke)

Ann being attacked by her affectionate boys

Lovin on Mia

One last snuggle with Crew

We sent our missionaries off with a loud rendition of "Till we meet again" The looks we were getting at the airport were priceless.

Here's to the best missionaries Ethiopia will ever see and not to mention the most good looking and most affectionate...that one's for you Ann! We love you both so very much and will keep you in our prayers always.