Good morning and a very Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends:Thursday 11.24.2011

Good morning and a very Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends:

As all mornings here, it is cool and heavy with no breeze.  It will clear off by 9 am with a rise in temperature and bright sky.  As you gather to celebrate today, we give thanks for you, our families, life and God.

We have been preparing for the arrival of our first American guest.  The boys have replaced a door, and are painting the room, hanging new screens and curtains.  It is an interesting reaction in the house for this is an entire new experience for them.  They are quite excited and yet a bit apprehensive.  This is the trial run before we have Kelly and a group of people here next July for 2 weeks.

Yesterday, Timothy graduated from the LEAD program “Liberian Economic and Development”.  It was a ten week course in marketing, finance, public relations, etc. for people who are marketing a product.  It is a very good training program with lots of information and resources.  It was with a great deal of pleasure that I was invited to present the certificates to the graduates. 

   There was supposed to be a picture here!

In the evening after Grandson Luther (Sawsee) has taken his bath, he likes to come in our room and rest on a towel to fall asleep.  I will put relaxing music (generally Mozart) on the computer and it only takes a few minutes.  Last night Rolf chose to lay down with him.  It was quite a sight to see both my “little men” sleeping together.  While I was on Skype, Luther thought it was great fun to see himself on the computer and was waving to my friends.  It was great to actually see people even through there was frustration  with the connection breaking up.  It was the first time I was able to use Skype since I have been here.
 
There was supposed to be a picture here too.

Rolf got to ride in the taxi with us yesterday and thought it was really great to spend some time seeing everything.  Last week when we went to the local market to get rice, we took him with us.  We took a short taxi ride to bring the rice home.  When we got out of the car, Rolf sat down along the side of the road and would not move because he wanted to ride longer. 

We understand that our car is to arrive tomorrow at the port.  Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have it at our disposal.  Son Jeff has already arranged for the license plates so we will be able to drive it home.  How wonderful it will be to have our own transportation.

Next week is the District Conference from Wednesday through Sunday.  The District Superintendent has invited me to be a special guest for the Conference.  While this is an honor, it also means long, hot days in a meeting and no knitting to keep me occupied.  Those of you who know me, can see the humor/frustration in all this.

Today some of the community girls and I got together with my Liberian Cookhouse Cookbook and went over a few recipes that I would like to try.  One of them knows someone with an oven so we want to try to bake a pie or some bread for our guest next week.

When I went to the market yesterday a lady came in wanting canned pumpkin for a pumpkin pie.  The owners looked a little quizzical to her until I said “are you making Pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving?”  She replied that she was.  I told her my time of making cranberry salad with Craisons and Jello.  She thought that was a great idea and got the items to do that as well.  We wished each other Happy Thanksgiving as we left.

It seems strange to think of Christmas being here in just a month.  I will have to think of something very creative to do.  We have a Christmas tree packed in the car and a few decorations.  It will be fun to light the tree and see the children’s eyes light up with a new discovery.

It is after 9 pm here and about time to call it a day.

Love and hugs to all,

Anne and Timothy