Turtle Bay

This past weekend we celebrated American Thanksgiving by...... not eating turkey!  The school had Thursday and Friday off for the holiday so we decided to get away for the weekend.  We went to a resort on Kenya's east coast called "Turtle Bay".  It is an all-inclusive family friendly resort on the Indian ocean.  

Being right on the equator and at sea level, we found it to be warmer and much more humid than Nairobi.  High 30s degrees Celsius during the day and low 30s at night.  Thankfully this time we did have air conditioning for sleeping.  

The boys were also excited to have bunk beds!  Of course the two slept in one bed which kind of defeats the need for bunks.....  

There were several other families from Rosslyn at the resort -- it is a favourite of ex-patriots and Kenyans alike.  The boys had several friends to play with and participated in a Kids Club to earn points.  They played table tennis and water games, watched movies in the evening, built sand castles, and hunted for moray eels.   

 We spent our time reading in the shade of the palm trees, splashing in the pool, sipping drinks and eating.  At any time of the day we could order fruit juice or ice cream.  Simon discovered that a pineapple float is a special treat (fresh pineapple juice with vanilla ice cream).  One night there was a beach BBQ so our tables were on the sand and there were large grills set up for fish, lamb, beef, chicken.

The highlight for Tim, Max, and Simon was a snorkelling trip on the reef.  They saw colourful fish and beautiful coral like we have only seen in books.  Sea cucumbers, sting rays, rock fish, Nemo clown fish, electric blue fish, angel fish, anemones, and many others.  Lisa got very sea sick on the boat ride to the reef so spent the time floating on a life preserver.

Our last trip to the coast was an 11 hour drive.  So this time we decided to fly (one hour flight).    The airport in Malindi is as big as Mom and Dad's living room -- I am not joking.  The plane held 48 people (Lisa took Gravol for the flight).  Can you believe that they lost our luggage?  It arrived 9 hours after we got back home.

Happy Birthday Tim

This week we celebrated Tim's birthday.  He doesn't believe that he is 45!!  

We started our celebration with a delicious meal at the Furusato restaurant.  It is an amazing Japanese restaurant.  We went with Chris and Stephanie Weeks and laughed all evening.

On Sunday we shared a meal with the Rasmussen family.  Isaac and Rachel are friends of Max's and it was also their birthday last week.

Sunday evening we had the McGees for supper.  Simon made the birthday cake -- German cake with boiled frosting.  
 


Tim's gift from us was a large can of Tim  Hortons coffee.  He was surprised that we had manged to bring it from Canada this summer and hide it in the house until now.  

On Monday we started the special day with breakfast on the deck -- a beautiful morning with fresh biscuits, strawberry jam, sausage, and eggs.

After the boys went to school, Tim spent the day running errands..... gettng a hair cut and a massage, fixing his phone, hanging out at the hardware store.  In the evening we went to Diamond Plaza for Indian food.  We went with the Hortons and their friends visiting from Canada.

Our evening entertainment was trying to catch a VERY LARGE male wolf spider on our car.  Creepy. 

Mistletoe Market

Every November the Grade 11 class at Rosslyn Academy organizes a day of shopping for the community.  The lead organizer this year was Chris (here with Tim and boys).

Just like a Flea Market, local vendors rent a space to sell  food, used clothing, handcrafts, and junk.  Hundreds of people come to the campus to start their Christmas shopping.  This year we were able to purchase a baseball glove for Max, an Indian blouse for Lisa, ornaments for our Christmas tree, an apron for Simon, electronic DS games, beads, computer games, snorkel and flippers.

There was also a slient auction and we were the successful bidders on a basket of jams.  Good jam is very hard to find here so we were excited and can't wait to try jam on biscuits for breakfast.

Rosslyn Spirit Week

This week the students at Rosslyn have been celebrating "Spirit Week".  In NS we would have called it Winter Carnival.  All week there have been dress-up days, Pep Rally, Sports Finals.  Max, Simon, and Tim have enjoyed a change from the usual.  Here are some glimpses of the boys with their friends....

These are the "Injured Administrators".  Tim with Don and Lee from the Leadership Team.  This was "Fake an Injury Day".  Lee (in the middle) actually broke his hand last week so Don and Tim are showing empathy.  

Here is Max with some classmates on "Multiplicity Day".  The challenge was to get as many people in your class to dress the same.  Simon's class all dressed like their teacher who is pregnant.  They wore glasses and stuffed a pillow under their shirt.


Pyjama and Jersey Day meant you could wear your pyjamas but also a team jersey.  Here is Max with some Grade 6 classmates.

Simon and Max both wore a tie to school on "Not My Style" Day.  Tim, on the other hand, wore shorts and T-shirt to school!

Run like the wind!

This past Saturday was the Rosslyn Track Meet.  Kenyans are great runners and get very excited about track races.  We all helped at the meet -- the boys were "errand runners", Tim was security, Lisa was a recorder. 

 These boys here are from a local Kenyan school and were a joy to watch!  Even in their bare feet they could run like the wind!

This past week the whole country was excited to have Usain Bolt in Nairobi.  Bolt is Jamaican and three time Olympic gold medalist.  He holds the world record for the 100m and the title "fastest man in the world".  He met with the President of Kenya and also visited the animal orphanage where we had been just a few weeks ago.  He adopted a cheetah.  There were lots of newspaper pictures of the fastest man in the world holding the fastest animal in the world.

We also got to hold 3 week old cheetahs.  What a thrill!!

Happy Halloween

It is a strange thing to live in Kenya during Halloween.  Last year the boys woke up on November 1 and remembered that Halloween had been the night before.  This year we did remember October 31 but there are no special activities here.

We did have a wonderful evening with our neighbours, the Hravatics.  We made delicious caramel apples!  The caramels were purchased at a special American store and we decorated with peanuts and sprinkles.  It was fun and yummy!

Then we all watched the movie StormBreaker.  Max has read all 8 books in the Alex Rider series and the movie is based on the first book.  We all enjoyed the movie on our big screen in the family room.