And the winners are....

drum roll please.......

Grand Prize winner:

Sarah F.

Next top five winners:

ALee Blake

Bianka Rose

K. Nuttall

Naomi Rae

D. Nicholes (meaning Dannon not Deric)

Congratulations to you all, and we'll need to get everyone's e-mail addresses. Also Sarah, we'll e-mail you to let you know which things you could have from Patrick Mavaros. For the top five winners, we'll e-mail you also and figure out which types of things you can choose. Thanks for everyone participating and we'll have more contests to come soon! Don't lose faith, you'll maybe win on the next round! :)

Again CONGRATS to our winners!

Continuation

I meant to put these photos up on the other blog with the spider, but the pictures weren't uploading. But today they seem to be doing just fine. So here are the other random pictures I wanted to post.

This first picture needs a little background story.

One day I was sitting at home while Spencer and Tyler were at school and work. I was reading a book in the living room, by the front door, and I kept hearing this crackle noise. I kept putting the book down and listening really hard to try and figure out what was going on. Then I got up and went over to the kitchen window, and this is what I saw:

The neighbors were burning their trash and it got out of control! I was worried it was going to burn up one of their trees and then jump over to the branches of our trees. But nothing like that did happen. I was a tad scared though. I watched the fire go all the way around the property, it was crazy!

This next picture is of one of our cantaloupe that didn't make it. Most likely because of that bug that is sticking out the side of it. It was a BIG black beetle with orange spots. I let him be to eat the rest of the cantaloupe.

But we did have one cantaloupe that did marvelous! It was the first one I picked.

This is me comparing the size of it to my recipe box. It was good size!

And lastly our carrots! Half of them are gone in this patch because they were ready to come up. This was right before I picked these ones, and we already have more growing and they are almost ready to pick. I really like having a garden! :)

One More Week

Just wanted to remind everyone that in one week the contest winners will be announced. So if you want to get in on the "goodness" then make sure you start following the blog or leave a comment to have your name put into the contest. :) We are getting just as excited as you guys to find out who will win. :) Good luck to everyone!!

Now onto other things...I decided this would be the random picture blog too of things I capture while living here. But it seems that I can't get any pictures up here except the scary one. So this is all you get for now. :)

I saw this spider over Christmas break up in the corner of our kitchen, luckily the maid was here and I asked her to get it for me. She was braver than I. :) This spider was HUGE and I was so scared, Spencer wanted to get it, but both the maid and I thought he wouldn't and then we would have a massive spider around the house.

The Grand Prize

We've decided that for the Grand Prize for our Zimbabwe Contest will be something similar to what's pictured, depending on if it's a boy or girl who wins.

For the Ladies:

For the Gentlemen:

It will end up being something nice for the ladies and for the gentlemen, maybe not exactly those ones, but close to it. :)

If you go to the Patrick Mavros website: www.patrickmavros.com then you'll be able to see all the different things, this was just a preview.

Hope you win!!!

Zimbabwe Contest!

On your mark.

Get ready.

Get Set.

GO!

We've decided to do another contest on here like the one we did in Congo. Here is what you have to do and the rules.

We'd love to give away another prize from Zimbabwe, so you all can enjoy the many things we've seen here and have been able to experience. So all you have to do is become a FOLLOWER of this blog!

Once you become a follower we will put all the names into a hat and randomly pick 5 winners, and a GRAND PRIZE winner.

The GRAND PRIZE winner will get a big sculpture/statue/souvenir from Zimbabwe, and the 5 other winners will be getting smaller souvenirs from Zimababwe.

The start date for the contest is.....NOW!

The end date for the contest is....January 31st.

We will let you know February 1st as to who won everything. Also, one more thing. If you don't want to become a follower or if you don't have an account to become a follower then just comment and let us know why you can't, and then we'll put your name into the hat. :)

GOOD LUCK!

Grade A student?

I decided last summer that I would go back to school to get my Bachelor's degree. I got my Associates from Ricks College, but then right after that Tyler and I were married. He had only one semester of schooling done since he was just getting off his mission, so I knew he should go to school to finish his degree, and then I would work to help us get by. We did that, and Tyler got his Bachelor's degree in four years from Utah State. And during his last year we had Spencer, so I was taking care of him. I knew that ever since then Tyler wished that I had finished school while he went to school also. Yes, we would have been scraping by with money, but then I would have finished it.

I found too many excuses, Spencer, then us moving 5 times in a year, and then us moving some more, and getting a new job, and then moving overseas. It was all too much, and I didn't have time to do schooling while Spencer was home. But now has come the time that all of the excuses have stopped. Spencer is in school, I know we'll be here for two years, we have no other kids that I need to look after, and everything in the house and garden are being taken care of.

So I decided last year to start looking at places online that I could go to. And I found one!

Ashford University is where I'm getting my degree from! I started the process WAY back in July of last year, but then told them who knew when we would get our internet when in Zimbabwe, so they were patient enough to wait for us for 3 months to get internet. And FINALLY I have started school, last Tuesday was my first day. It was a bit stressful since Spencer IS home for holiday break, and I had no idea what I was doing, and then realizing it's been almost 10 years since I've been to school. Yikes! But things have been going pretty good, and I'm quite excited that I have made the decision to finish my schooling. I love learning, and so glad I have something to fill my time now while Spencer is in school and Tyler at work.

If things go as planned I should finish before we leave Zimbabwe! My degree is a Generals in Social Sciences. Since I can't finish my degree to become a Marriage and Family Therapist online, AND there was no English degree, I'm hoping when we get back to the States I'll be able to use some of these classes to help me get degrees for those things.

So far the first class is pretty simple, and since I only do one class every 5 weeks, it's not really that much of a load, although there is still lots of reading. It's fun though. I'm getting used to it, and I can't wait to finally have my Bachelor's Degree!!! To me it's a great accomplishment, and I hope when getting back to the States to keep going.