Christmas

For our Christmas tree this year we finally decided to use a real branch after many attemps at making one out of cardboard and paper, and we made a lot of ornaments as well as borrowing some of Alyssa's ornaments and other decorations.

For presents we made every family a DVD with pictures on it and we also gave them a few other things like headbands we made and shadow puppets. For our family I gave mom a bag I sewed, dad a Burundi ornament, Mekdes a clay dolphin, and I gave Biniyam a sword.

We hade a Christmas party at the McLaughlins and the school kids had a Christmas play and we sang and talked.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts, especially aunt Theresa, who sent us a surprise big package.

Our Christmas tree.

Biniyam playing with toys.

Our Christmas dinner, when he was alive, we were going to keep him but then it was confirmed to mom that he was a rooster, and she doesn't want a rooster.

Our weekend getaway

This weekend we came to a hotel called club du lac in Bujumbura that's right on lake Tanganyika, it has a big beach, a big swimming pool, good internet, a playground, and 2 African gray parrots, one that lets us pet her.

Yesterday we went to another hotel to check it out, it was really pretty and it had a little chimpanzee that came right up to you and let you pet him, it also had a mom that was kept in a cage because she was mean. We ate lunch there on the beach and while we were waiting for our food the chimp climbed up the deck and came over to our table and grabed Mekdes's fanta and ran away.

It's a lot hotter in buja than in Kibuye and we spent most of our day swimming, we can't swim in the lake because it has crocodiles, hippos, and bacteria.

We gave him a bottle of water and he took the top of and drank it

We can see the mountains of the Congo from the beach.

Thanksgiving in Kibuye

This year for thanksgiving we celebrated on Saturday because on Thursday all the doctors were working, we had a big feast at the Cropseys house and lots of people came, we had pies, ham, fruit, cookies, and a lot more, we even got a turkey from America.

Mom made a carrot sufflet that tasts like sweet patatoes and some cornbread pudding that she makes at home, she also made some pumpkin cookies.

On Friday the kids all had a craft party and we made turkey's out of candy, like we cut of the tips of the candy corn and the candy corn was the tail feathers and the tips were the beaks, grandma Cropsey sent us all the candy and the instructions since we can't buy it here.

We had to stick them together with frosting so we could eat them, we used whoppers for the head, Oreos for the body's, peanutbutter cups for the belly, and sprinkles for the eyes.

Here are some pictures of the turkeys: