Out of Africa

Phil's back and I couldn't be more excited (although he had to take off for a day to go for an "interview" up in Nashville--more of a formality since he is already accepted into the program). This time he downloaded some of his pictures onto our computer so I thought I'd share. The one above is what a typical village looks like. The one below I liked because of all of the colorful clothing. This time there Phil got to go to some of the villages where they were doing the blood tests. The people were congregating to see what was up.

Here's a picture with a village chief. He's the man just above the white baseball hat. He presented Phil with a chicken...a live chicken handed to him by the feet. Phil gifted it to the driver when they got back into Lome, because he wasn't sure if he could get a live chicken on the plane. Apparently the chief also tried to present him with a wife too (she's in the picture too). He assured the chief he already had one.

Here's the dress that the wife of the guy that went with him to translate made for Clara. I have an outfit in the same fabric. You should see the stitching on my outfit. She put a lot of time into it. If you notice the stick that Clara has in her mouth, that's African chewing gum/toothbrush. Not thrilled that Phil taught her to chew on sticks.

Spring Break

Spring break was spent up in PA, which meant fun with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandma and pappap. Clara actually learned to say all of those words really well while we were there. Here's Sophia with her cousin Adryanna and grandma in the back round.

Here's Clara 'sharing' with Bennet. There is only a month separating these two. Where Sophia doesn't have any cousins close to her age on either side of the family, Clara has 6 all born within 7 months of her.
While there we also got a good dose of crazy spring weather. The first couple of days after we arrived it was in the 90's. Then a wild storm came through and in it's aftermath was a beautiful rainbow and temperatures down in the 40's. If you look closely, you can see the double rainbow reflection in the second picture. At one point there was a reflection on top and bottom, but I didn't get a picture of the '3' rainbows.

Popcorn Trees

Atlanta is in bloom and we have a beautiful "popcorn" tree in our yard to enjoy.

"I looked out the window and what did I see?

Popcorn popping on the apricot tree. (so it's not really an apricot tree but an ornamental plum)

"Spring has brought me such a nice surprise. Popcorn blossoms right before my eyes."

"I can take an armful and make a treat, a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet."

"It wasn't really so, but it seemed to be, popcorn popping on the apricot tree!"

Clara insists on singing this song a lot, pretty much every time we see a "popcorn" tree and they are pretty plentiful right now.

Who Can Resist Chocolate Pudding?

Documentation that Clara really enjoyed her pudding.

This is her saying, "More, please."