Friday, June 29, 2007

Rainy season has come to Oklahoma!!

I thought I was going to leave the rain in Nigeria when I went home for vacation. BOY WAS I WRONG!! Oklahoma is having it's own monsoon season! Today was the 17th consecutive day of rain. They are breaking records for rain here. I had to take some pictures of the flooding in areas since my husband is posting pics of Nigeria rain. We were heading over to look at the new church building, when we came across a road block. We looked past it and the water didn't look like it was crossing the road. So we scooted the blocks over a bit and drove around. Then we topped the hill and saw this.


There has been SO MUCH rain. And it is raining like it is Nigeria. You either get long steady showers or these small violent rains pop up and dump buckets of rain for about 10 minutes then they are gone. It's crazy. While we were sitting taking these pics, the SUV that was behind us decided to get brave and cross this water!! I was so worried that they weren't going to make it. The water was all the way up to their floor boards.


Lucky for them they actually made it across. Had the water been any deeper, they would have been stranded. This was mom's favorite part of the view. Anyone want to by some water front property.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

So not been in the mood...

Roy keeps telling me that I HAVE to write in my blog.... He keeps telling me things to write about.... blah. I just haven't felt like it. I know, I know, how else are you going to know what's going on you say. Welllllll... blah. But today I will break down and write some more. Lets see, last Saturday we were finally invited to go out to the beach house. Everyone always says how great it is there, but no one had ever invited us to go on a day that we actually could. We were really excited to go. We went down to the boat dock (you can only get there by taking a 45 minute boat ride) and met up with the people we were going out with. But there seemed to be a problem with the boat. They couldn't get the engines both running and keep them running. So we waited while they tinkered with them. We got there at 9am and we waited.... and waited... and waited. And when it was 11:30 and the boat still wasn't running we decided to call it a day and took the food back to our apartment complex and had a pool party. Oh well... it was fun anyway. But here's something interesting that I probably never would have done in the US..... I ate goat. Yes that's what I said. I ate goat. We had BBQ'd goat ribs that day. They were tasty, greasy and not a lot of meat, but tasty. And I did have to tell my friend that they were the best goat ribs I had ever eaten!! He was quite amused at that.

Also we just finished a week long fuel strike and 4 day labor stike. The streets have been virtually empty for days because no one had any fuel. We were worried that they would shut off the power as part of the strike, because we didn't know how much diesel the apartment had left for the generators and there was not any new coming because of the strike. Also I really didn't want to have to reschedule my travel plans for next week if anything major happened. But all that ended last night at midnight. WOO HOO! I can breathe a little easier now. We will just have to wait and see how long it takes things to get back to normal again.

Another piece of info... We finally got our sea shipment!! I got out my sewing maching the other day and totally love it!! Alisa you were totally right, it is a GREAT basic machine!! It makes me very happy!! And very sad that once again I have to box it up and wait to play with it till after my vacation. (But I would rather go see all my family then stay and play with it... it will be here when I get back.) And speaking of getting back, I was hoping to be moved to our new flat BEFORE I left, but that won't happen until AFTER I am gone. And I don't think Roy will be in any hurry to move after I am gone, so MAYBE we will moved before I get back. Oh well, at least I was able to get the kitchen all unpacked and arranged fairly well. I really just want to go unpack everything and get moved in, but we are still waiting on them to get those last little things finished. Things like getting the internet working and putting screens on the windows. I really think most of all the MAJOR work is done. I just have to stop worring about it and know that Roy will take care of everything. He is very good at moving.

So there is a quick update. Life in a nutshell.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

New toys!!

I just ordered 2 new toys today!! One for me and one for Roy. Remember how I said I dropped my little camera. It was a serious bummer. I didn't drop it very far and it didn't bounce even. BUT... that was enough. It will not turn on at all. And the cost to get a little camera like that fixed is almost as much as just buying a new one. SO, we ordered 2 new toys today!!


This is going to be the perfect camera for me!! You can drop it get it dirty and wet and it will fit in your pocket. It will make taking pics in Nigeria a lot easier. If you want to read more about the camera click on the picture. But in a nutshell is is waterproof up to 33ft deep, you can drop it from 5ft up it is resistant to cold (14 degrees F) and it will withstand 220lbs of crushing pressure. It is a serious rough and tumble camera!! So I can drop it all I want, take pictures in the rain without fear and even jump into the pool with it!! I am so excited!!

One drawback though...... It is being shipped to mom's house. So I have to wait to play with it. Oh and if you have to mom, you can open Roy's camera (the silver one) but not mine (the blue one)!! LOL HOORAY FOR PRESENTS!!

Friday, June 8, 2007

I can tell we are sisters!!

I pulled up my sisters blog and read exactly what I needed to say... "I haven't written in a LONG time, and I know that. And many many people have told me that. I just always feel so funny about posting with no pictures, and I'm sort of in a camera funk. I hope to get a new one soon, I hope." How did she know?? I dropped our little camera last month and broke it and the big one isn't easy to carry around here and take discreet pictures with. Well, I hope to get a new one soon so that I can get pictures of the strange things that I come across here.

Now that the excuses are out of the way... on to what's going on. Since we got back from our cruise (which was so great) it has been a game of hurry up and wait. We are still waiting to move in to our new apartment (that we were originally told we would move into in mid-April). We are still waiting for our sea shipment. (We were told it was cleared by customs 2 weeks ago... They are supposed to deliver it on monday now. And I am not going to let them postpone it again.) But what is really stressing me is that I am going out of country at the end of this month and will be gone for a month. I REALLY want to get this move done and out of the way BEFORE I leave so that Roy doesn't have to worry about it while I am gone. There really aren't that many things left to finish on the apartments to get us moved in. They COULD get it all done in a week if they REALLY tried. But that is something that doesn't seem to happen here. As Roy says, "People here set low expectations and then fail to meet them." Anyway, I am going over to the new flats today to talk to facilities and try and get a commitment on when we are moving in. I need it to be next week honestly. That way I can get everything unpacked and organized before I have to pack and leave. But we'll see how it goes. Anywho.. my driver is here, I gotta run. I'll post more later. Hopefully it will be better.