Next stop?

Alot of people have asked us when we will be done with this great adventure we are on. Well there is two answers to that. First, we will be leaving the Congo in the summer/fall of 2009. However, most likely we will be spending the next 20 years or so, we will be living overseas off and on. Because we love our family and friends so much, we want to get your input on where we should bid for next (bid is the state depatment term for putting in for a certain place). Just because we bid on it, doesn't mean we will get it. We want to know what places you think we should go, as well as what places you will visit if we go there. No matter where we go, everybody is welcome to come visit, you will have a free place to stay and we will show you a good time. You can pick anywhere in the World, besides the United States. This will also give us a chance to know who is looking at our blog, so I encourage everybody who reads this to respond. Who knows, maybe if several people pick the same place I will bid for that place.

Tyler

Defense and Muffins?

We love March Madness time and are so excited that we get to see the games here during the afternoon and evening. Spencer has even joined in with us on watching the games, so Tyler and I have taken it upon ourselves to teach him a little bit more about basketball. Here is how one of the conversations went: (Spencer wanted to play basketball with Tyler)

Tyler: Okay Spencer I'm going to tell you about defense and offense. Sometimes you play defense, and that's when you try to get the ball.
Spencer: okay
Tyler: say defense
Spencer: Defense.
Tyler: Good. If you are not playing defense you are playing offense, and that means you have the ball and you try to make a basket.
Spencer: Okay
Tyler: say offense
Spencer:Offense.
Tyler: Good job
Spencer: Okay Daddy. Um, Mommy, you are going to play defense, and Daddy and me are going to play muffins.
Mommy: Muffins?
Spencer:Yes we have the ball and try to make a basket.

Eventually we got him to say offense, but for a little while he just kept saying muffins. He also now says that when he grows up he wants to be a basketball player like the ones on TV, the college players. I'm all for it, and so is Tyler. :) I'll be like Stephan Curry's mom in the stands cheering my son on.

One more thing, when Spencer now plays basketball he commentates himself, saying "Spencer has the ball, he is getting blocked, but he makes the basket! YEAH!!!" Then he cheers for himself. :) Too cute!

Where to go first??

So I have already made out my list of places I want to eat when we get back to the States. I'll share those places with you now.

First and foremost is Wendys, I already told mom and dad that as soon as we land we will be stopping by Wendys on the way home so it can be my first meal (although I'm wondering if all of the fried food and oil will make me sick, I sure hope not!).

Here's the list:
-Wendys
-Olive Garden
-3 Amigos
-Chesapeake Pizza
-Outback Steakhouse
-Cold Stone
-Little Ceasear's Pizza (thanks to Haylee for that one, she talked about wanting some one time, and now I can't get it out of my head.)
-Red Robin
-Subway
-Five Guys
-Cheesecake Factory
in Utah:
-Arctic Circle (for their milkshakes and fry sauce, for the fries not the milkshake)
-Kneaders (for the smoothie)
-Tempenyaki's (probably killed that spelling, but I loved their food!)

and also any Chinese food...I miss getting those little boxes of Chinese food brought to my door.

Alright, so I know most of this is not healthy, but I will be eating lots of fruits when we get home too. We have fruit here, but not always the ones I like and they are not always good, and we have to soak them in bleach and water for 20 minutes. WAY too long for me to wait to actually eat the fruit or vegetable. If I want something I want it right away. Anywho...I will be eating lots of fruits at home and milk. Since the box milk here is not good. Hope you enjoyed the list, if anyone wants to go eat with us anywhere just let me know! I'm all game for going out to eat places, and I will be eating at these places more than once. :)

Books, Books, Books!!!

Being stuck in the Congo, Becca and I have been reading alot. One of my goals for this year was to read one book a month, well since Christmas I have read all three Twighlight books, "The boy in the stipred pajamas", "the Book Thief", finished "blink", "The Five People you Meet in Heaven", "The Richest Man in Babylon", "The Walled Garden", and I am currently reading "The Automatic Millionaire". I thought I would do a small commentary on each book, so if some of you are looking for something to read you have some suggesstions, but you don't have to take my word for it. (Note the throwback to "The Reading Rainbow")

TWILIGHT-Becca has read these books a million time over, and loves them. I thought they were good, but most of the people who read this blog, probably already have read this series.

"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"-good book, very sad. I would encourage people to read this book. I can't tell you what the book is about, because part of the mystery is not knowing what it is about until you start reading it. It is a short book and an easy read.

"The Book Thief"- Mary let Becca borrow this book, so I read it as well. This was my favorite of the books I have read so far. The story is set in Germany during World War II and is written from the narative of death. The story follows a young girl, her family, and her two best friends. I thought it was well written, and having death as the nararator was an excellent choice. This book is over 500 pages long, but is a fast read.

"Blink"- This book is by the same author as "The Tipping Point" and is a book on making quick decisions. The basis of the book is sometimes people get wrapped up in research and statistics and forget to listen to their gut instincts. Now the book isn't encouraging people go out and only make decisions based on gut feelings, but if you have a knowledge base in a subject, for example art, you may be able to tell a sculpture is a fake, when all this research done by scientists say its legitimate. This was a great book and made me think. It also discusses how our actions can be influenced. For example, we yawn when we see other people yawn, we do this because when we see others yawn our brain thinks we need to yawn. If I played a tape of someone yawning, it would most likely make you yawn as well. And since you have read yawn seven times, most people who read this will have yawned as well. I recommend this book, but if you don't like social science this book can be a very long read.

"The Five People You Meet in Heaven"- Short book, fast read, didn't like the book. I know alot of people who like this book, but for some reason I didn't think it was that good. Maybe I am not sentimental enough about things that this book didn't inspire me.

"The Walled Garden"- Decent book. This book is about Iran pre the 70's revolution. It follows the story of a grown women from high society in a unloving marriage who comes back into contact with her childhood best friend, who also happened to be one of the servents son. Thier friendship didn't last becuase of their different stations in life. The story is about how the differnt classes viewed things and how the friends/potential lovers are unable to fit into each others lives, even though they try.

"The Richest Man in Babylon"- I didn't know this book was written back in the early 1900's when I started reading it, but the advice it gives is still good now. This book is a money book that teaches a few principles in parable form that will help any person, and any income become rich over time. The book was okay, but I thought the parables make it harder to read. Especially when dealing with money, I want more current, detailed information. Short read though, so I encourage people to read it.

"The Automatic Millionaire"- Awesome book. I am currently reading it for the second time and this time taking notes. This book is similiar to the Richest man in Babylon, but is current and more detailed. This book teaches a few principles that if you abide by you too could be a millionaire. Now this isn't a overnight millionaire promise, nor is it a in one decade you could be a millionaire. This book is that if you set aside a certain percent of every paycheck and put it into a retirement account, with the miracle of compound interest you will be a millionaire when you retire. The recommended percent is at least 10%. Now most people who read this will say "I can't put %10 into a retirement account, I am already living paycheck to paycheck. Well I encourage you, if you have no money going into retirement to start off putting 2% into retirement, if you are already putting some money away, I encourage you to up it one or two percent. And every year, or everytime you get a raise, try to up it a percent or two. The trick is to do it right when you get the raise, before you get used to having all that extra money. The other trick the book teaches, is to make this all automatic, meaning that your company takes the money out before you even see it. That way you don't even now your missing it. I encourage everyone to read this book, especially all of my friends who just have finished school.

Well that post was long enough. I hope I encouraged some of you to pick up a book and to read. I will try to post in the next week or so, updating y'all on how I am doing on my goals. Accountability is a good motivator.
Tyler

That's Our Boy!

So, Spencer has grown into such a little boy here and into his own personality. He is stubborn (like his mom and dad), he loves basketball and will even sit down and watch games with us, he loves to dance, and he is the master at negotiating. But we love him so much and love when he figures things out on his own. Story: Tyler and him were playing blocks one day, Tyler put one rectangle block standing up and then another one across it, then he was going to put two more blocks at the end of that one block and balance them on there. Well Spencer thought this was a great idea but soon figured out that he couldn't put one block on one side because then it would fall. So he thought about it and figured that if he put both blocks on at the same time they wouldn't fall. He loves puzzles and trying to figure out a solution to any problem, and looking for things he loves it! We got a package last week that had 12 plastic easter eggs in it, and we haven't stopped playing find the easter eggs. We play it all the time. He hides the eggs then we have to find them, then we hide the eggs and he finds them. It's great. Alright, so those are my cute stories of Spencer for today. I will put up video of him dancing tomorrow on here...our internet still isn't working at it's best so just be patient.

Yet again

We have some bad news....we have lost or someone has stolen our camera! YES AGAIN!!! This has not been the very best week for Tyler and I. To have our camera stolen (because we have looked through this house 5 times) only after a month of using it, we are quite done with this place. Although I still have some more pictures that I haven't posted and I put them on our computer before we lost or someone took the camera. So I will have some pictures up here, just not pictures that are from now until June. We are not going to buy another $200 camera to have it stolen again, so most likely I'll just ramble on here till June when we get back to the States and I can get our pictures on our film camera developed.

There isn't really any new news here. We are doing fine, just frustrated with things here. We are trying to keep positive and are looking forward to our R&R in June. That's what we are focusing on now. The hardest part is trying to describe this place to all of our blog readers. There is no way to describe this place, and it's not that it's bad, it's just hard. I wish to just have a clean house (without the bugs), and have a washer/dryer in my house, carpet, dishwasher, decent food. We have already started our list of resturants that we are going to go when we get back to the states. I'll have to make the list later on. Oh and I wanted to say sorry for taking such a long time to do a new blog, we had an awful storm a week ago and our internet is still trying to recover from it. So I haven't really been able to read e-mails or do much. I am actually surprised I'm able to write this blog. Hopefully it will still be posted by the time I finish. Oh the joys of being here.

I don't want anyone to worry about us, I just have to vent some. We are still trying to keep positive. But just know that we are going to be SOOO EXCITED to see everyone when we get back to the states. I could possibly kneel down on the ground and kiss the floor as soon as we land at the airport. :)

Our house pets...none that I really want to keep

So you have all probably heard about how many different kinds of animals we have living in our house with us. None of which I'm very excited about. But to name the ones that we have found so far....ants (lots of them, we have like 5 lines of them coming into the house), cockroaches, beetles, spiders (the jumping ones), geckos, and a worm (that kinda looked too long to be a worm). We know we will have this company the entire time we live here, but still when you turn a corner in your house and see one staring at you or scuttling away, it freaks you out.

The newest stories I have about these animals is that Spencer and I found a gecko in my dresser drawer that holds my pants. Yes, I do have geckos in my pants now! :) I don't mind the geckos that much, just because they run really fast and away from me. I will try and get a picture of one of them soon.

The ants we just have to keep spraying every week at them, and make sure no food is on the floors, they will find anything and everything!

The worm that we found we took a picture of and you can look for yourself to see that it is very long for a worm. When we poked it, it didn't even move like a worm would. So who knows what it was, but here is the picture of it. I put the marker next to it so you could get an idea at how big it is.

And now the cockroaches. So many days are filled of me and Spencer screaming "Cockroach!" But we have gotten somewhat used to them. The picture I have of the cockroach here is of one we killed, so you can see the underside of it, but the marker is next to it so you can see how big they are. So gross!