Okay the good part of our house!

Okay so the above pictures are part of our house but not the real part of the house. The bathroom and shower are there for the guards and househould help, the sink is an overflow for the washer, the old looking grill thing is an old grill in our yard, the window is our bathroom window, the barbwire, well that is for real. Below are the pictures of the yard of our house. We are lucky to live in such a beautiful place. I will post pictures of the inside of our house later and will also take pictures out on the streets, but we have to be careful as the police and military don't really like people taking pictures.

We got our camera....We got our camera

We finally received our camera yesterday! So I immediately started taking pictures of Spencer. :) He was quite delighted that he can pose for these pictures again. So stay tuned, because the rest of the week and weekend we will be taking lots of pictures to show you all where we live! :)

Whole lotta shakin' going on

So we had an earthquake over here Sunday morning!!! BUT....we didn't feel anything. I'm sad, because I've never felt an earthquake before, and a little tremble wouldn't hurt, right? Anywho, there was an earthquake on the border of Congo and Rwanda (magnitude of 5.0), so far away on the eastern part of Congo, maybe it shook up the rebels that are out there? :) But we are fine, really nothing happens here, as of yet. We've heard the news in Chad, which is two countries above us. They are having an election, and if you have an election here things seem to get all crazy! So in Chad all Americans were evacuated, my mom actually told us that yesterday because we hadn't heard about that one. Anywho...we are fine.

News in the Congo

As soon as the United States Presidential Primaries are over and the General Elections start you will probably notice all the fighting between the Democrats and Republicans. When this starts and you are wondering why they all just can't get along, I want you to think about Africa. Elections in many parts of Africa are a fragile and tumoltous process, the Democratic Republic of the Congo included. Currently in Kenya there is violence between supporters of the Orange Democratic Movement and the currently elected government. In March 2006, a few months after the presidential elections here there was fighting between the Congolese Military, loyal to the elected President and the forces loyal to the Opposition leader who lost the election. Madagascar in 2002 also had some violence after the opposition political parties challenged the results of the presidential election that had the president, who had been in power for at least a decade, winning the election. Many of the political parties are based on tribal lines and grudges between these tribes have been around for centuries.

Not only do you have problems with elections, but you have rebels and opposition forces throughout Africa, you have several humanitarian crisises to include Darfur, Somalia, Eastern Congo, and now Kenya. I want all our friends and family to know that even though all this is going on we are safe. In an effort to keep our loved ones informed about what is going on in the Congo I have added a Congo News link to the side. As articles come out about Congo I will place a link on this blog. I encourage all to read these articles and feel free to comment on what you read. Some of the articles may worry you, so I also encourage you to look at a map and look at where the problems are occuring. For the most part these articles will talk about things going on in eastern Congo, which is at least a 3 hour plane ride away, and impossible to get to by car. So we are far removed from these problems. For those of you who also want to watch some movies about Congo and the regions close by, I encourage you to watch Hotel Rwanda, Lumumba and The Constant Gardner. I hope this helps people know a little more about the world and the place that we live.

Movie Star in Congo

It's true...we have a movie star right up from the street from us at the hotel. Can you guess who it would be? The one, the only...... George Clooney!!! Can you believe it! Tyler came home today and gave me that news, and I told him "Why are we standing in the kitchen, let's go find him!" But Tyler was smart in thinking George wouldn't be walking around the streets of Kinshasa, and most likely is in his hotel room. So then I told him that I would get all of us Embassy girls here and we could go there and try to guess his fake name! Like Mr. Flintstone, or Mr. Smurf, or Mr. HeMan. :)

Then Tyler continued with good news, he hears that Ann Curry is coming here, and we also heard a month or two ago that Anderson Cooper was out in the eastern part of Congo. They are all coming here because of what is going on in the east. Finally, someone is starting to see that there is trouble here. Well...that is the highlight of our day....George Clooney. :)

Tyler's "Bucket" List

I saw this on Yahoo news today, and also read about it in Stephanie and Deric's blog. A bucket list, is a list of things you want to do before you die. There are quite a few things I want to do, and I am in the process of doing some of them. Things are going to be added to the list as I think of other things I want to do, and as I get older some of the things may come off because they no longer hold the same appeal. I am letting you all know this list, one so you can better know me, but more importantly it may be 10-15 years down the line and you have an opportunity to go to a final four game and you have an extra ticket and you are wondering who to take, and maybe you will remember this list and go "Tyler always wanted to go to a final four game" and ask me to go. Or some of you may have done some of these things in the past and have suggestions on how I can accomplish it or suggestions where the best place to do some of these things are. Your comments are welcome.


Things I want to do in my life
Go Skydiving
Go on a safari
Go on a hot air balloon ride
Visit every continent for an extended period of time (still need South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia)
Visit Italy, France, UK, and Madagascar again
Visit Hawaii,
Visit all 50 States
Go to the Super Bowl
Go to an NBA Championship game
Go to a World Series Game
Go to a Bowl Game
Go to a Final Four game
Speak 5 languages fluently (already have English and French)
See the pyramids
Write a book
Take a cooking class
Swim in the Congo river
Donate a lump sum of 10,000 to my alma mater
Retire at 55
Own a beach house
Ride an elephant
Go scuba diving
Take golf lessons
Take a ballroom dance class with my wife
Learn how to water ski
Serve a senior mission
Go with Becca to Tahiti and rent a bungalow on the water
Own water machines and snowmobiles
Learn how to drive stick-(done)
Coach my child’s basketball team
Shake hands with the prophet
Run with the bulls in the city in Spain
Climb mount Kilimanjaro
Go on a cruise
Run a marathon
Beat my dad in chess
Go deep sea fishing
Attend my high school reunion
Visit the 7 wonders of the world
See mountain gorillas in the wild

Not funny to me...but to you...probably

So today is one of those days that I don't like very much. It's a cockroach day. Which means....they are EVERYWHERE! We've seen an increase of them for the past couple of days, but still...I don't like it. So on with the story.....

Tyler got one before he went to work, then I went to get Spencer up, and there was one right at his door. Time to go get armed with the Swiffer. I kill that one, and I think okay, I'm done for the day. Nope. I go to take a shower, and see in our room amid the mess (we are still trying to unpack some things, so don't get upset mom) there is a HUGE cockroach...probably 2 to 3 inches long. Well this one wasn't going to take anything from me. He started running everywhere! So then that means...I run everywhere! I have Spencer come in to try and help me find it. I can't find it and still take my shower (the fastest I've ever taken). So I'm not happy that I have to be in the house all day with a roach that I know is still alive and roaming around. But finally a couple of hours later I see it scurrying out of our room down the hallway, and going for the front door. I yell for Spencer to get the Swiffer, while I go get the bug spray, and for him to keep an eye on the roach so we can find it. I spray my heart out to get that thing to slow down...he was a fast bugger! Then finally I got it with the Swiffer, and it made the weirdest popping sound. The best part was when I asked Spencer if he wanted to get it to put it in the toilet (mostly because I didn't want to do that), and he was like yeah. So he went and got a shred of toilet paper. I looked at him and said I don't think that will be big enough. So he went back and got another shred. I told him I would get the toilet paper for him to use, and then he started to bend down and get the roach. When he got close to it and kinda swiped at it, he realized that he wasn't cut out to grab it and take it to flush it. He shot right back up and said I don't want to get it, I'm scared. Poor kid....his mom is terrified of bugs, and now depends on him to be the strong one! So then he just pushed it up on the Swiffer and we finally flushed it. The end.

The whole fiasco took probably 10 mins. But the roach is gone, although it's relatives will be back tomorrow to avenge his death. This life in the Congo is rough! (Hope you got your laugh for the day out of this...I'm sure some of you did)