Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas, full of delicious holiday food, great friends, and and fun times as a family. The week leading up to Christmas was busy, with a holiday party at the Embassy for its 400+ American and Cameroonian employees and family members. Saturday we hosted a "white elephant" party at our house which doubled as a welcome party for the Hendriksens, an LDS family assigned to the Embassy who just arrived the night before. On Sunday, the church choir Jeff directs sang a nice rendition of "Angels We Have Heard on High" which they had been working on for several weeks.

On Christmas Eve we invited to dinner the six young missionaries, the Hanks (the not-so-young missionaries), the Hendriksens, and Frere Boeglin, a French expat and member of the church. After dinner, we had our traditional nativity play, sang carols, and enjoyed banana slush and holiday cookies.

The cast

Not a creature was stirring - not even Mchanga

Christmas Day came early, as it usually does with little kids! We enjoyed our traditional pastry wreath breakfast with eggnog, and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep the kids from eating all their stocking candy at once. Santa was very good to us (I don't know how Elijah made the nice list!) and we were so grateful to have gifts from many of our extended family even though we are so far away.

Waiting at the top of the stairs . . .

. . . and off to the Christmas tree!

Christmas breakfast - yum!

We stayed in pajamas all day, playing and hanging out together, and generally recuperating from the busy week before. We are grateful to be together as a family for this enjoyable season, and we're especially grateful for the Gift we celebrate - the Savior Jesus Christ. We pray that His spirit will be with all those we love back home!

Safari in Tanzania

Panaroma of Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Jeff and the boys went to Kenya and Tanzania on safari the first week of December, along with Elder and Sister Hanks, the LDS missionary couple in Yaounde. Unfortunately, Stacey was sick and decided to stay home with Ivy to rest and recuperate. The trip was great - good weather, lots of great sightings, and all around fun for Dad to spend time with the boys.

Jeff really enjoyed being back in Tanzania, speaking Swahili again, and soaking up the incredible grandeur of East Africa.

We encountered some of the Maasai tribesmen (and kids) in their nomadic setting near Arusha.

The boys with Maasai children at a baobab tree

A Maasai village under an acacia tree

Maasai tribesmen performing traditional jumping dance

Maasai herder with his cattle

Of course, we saw lots of wild animals, too! Elijah was crazy about zebras. The giraffes and elephants were plentiful and always fun to watch. We had some great lion sightings - some quite close. Most exciting was seeing cheetahs in the wild for the first time. The first (and best) sighting was on Jeff's birthday - three cheetahs resting under a tree about 30 meters from the road. We saw cheetahs two other times in the week. We also got a rare far off glimpse of two rhinos in Ngorongoro Crater - only 30 individuals live in northern Tanzania.

Our first wild cheetah sighting, Serengeti

Mother baboon with babies, Lake Manyara

Giraffe under a lone acacia tree - the only shade for miles

Baby Elephant, Lake Manyara National Park

Elijah's zebra heaven, Serengeti

Waterbuck, Serengeti

Mating pair of lions, Serengeti

Lion cub with mother and pride resting around kill, Serengeti

Ostrich, Serengeti

Hippo pool, Ngorongoro Crater

Bull elephant, Ngorongoro Crater

Rhino (through 300 mm telephoto lens), Ngorongoro Crater