Happy Christmas!

Many of you, our family and friends, have been very much in our thoughts and prayers as we have celebrated Christmas in Tanzania. And we know for some of you, it has not been an easy time. We have missed you! But we have had a lovely Christmas here. We spent Christmas Day with the Galvin family and Raymond and Helen and our Canadian friend, Laura. The girls thoroughly enjoyed their first Christmas in the sun as they played outside in the huge "paddling" pool the Galvins had. (Not a lot of water in it though!)



Amisadai and Louisa splashing with Tianna, Abeni and Kaiya

 As well as paddling on Christmas Day, there were many other Christmas firsts this year: 1. We had no brussel sprouts (yay!) 2. We went to get milk and wish the cows a Happy Christmas before breakfast on Christmas morning  3. We were tormented by flies during Christmas Dinner  4. We ate our Christmas cake off  plastic picnic bowls and not our best china... But amidst all the things that were so different to our "normal, traditional" Christmas, the reason for Christmas, the meaning of Christmas, the story of Christmas was the true constant and this was happily celebrated! And it was good to share this with new friends - from Canada and Tanzania on Christmas Eve, and friends from Australia on Christmas Day.

Now we are thinking about Amisadai's birthday coming up on Thursday. Her idea is for us to go for samosas at Hasty Tasty in Iringa. They are tasty! And then we will have some kind of party here in the afternoon. Thanks to Grandma, we have everything we need to decorate a birthday cake now!

And as I write, Tim is intently chasing flies and mozzies with our new toy - a racquet which electrocutes insects!



The girls gave me a lovely Tanzanian bag!