....take me home, to the place, where I belong,"
I have received a request for a blog update (thanks for the subtle hint, Tim. I needed a bit of motivation), and since a blog from Portland, Oregon won't be necessary, I'd better get writing.
Most of you have heard by now, that we are moving back to the US of A! We finally have our tickets situated and we will be leaving Addis on July 27th, to arrive in San Francisco on the 28th of July. We are really looking forward to time with family and friends. Nate wants a good burger and fries and I'd like to eat Mexican food 3 meals a day indefinitely.
Until then, we will stay busy with all sorts of activities here in Addis. Such as selling our car, sorting out the goods in our house, exploring more of Addis and saying our goodbyes.
Otherwise, life here has been good. We have 4 new pets....you'll never guess. Silk worms. We went to a place my friend works called Sabahar here in Addis. They have silk worms to make scarfs and such. The real reason we went was for the boys to see the silk worms, not for me to go shopping. After spending a couple hours learning of their life cycle and inspecting the worms, (I call them caterpillars) Almas (the woman working with the silk worms) was so impressed with Otto's love of insects and bugs she thought it was a great idea to give him a small chunk of eggs. Her last words, "only 2 or 3 will hatch, in about 10 days."
Well, she was right about the 10 days, as it was exactly 10.5 days until 100 hatched. Yes, you read that right, and yes, we counted them. I told Otto there was no way we could take care of 100 of them, so we decided since he was 5, we could keep 5. Two days after they hatched, we drove back to Sabahar and returned them. Almas was so excited as none of her eggs in the same batch had hatched. She convinced us to take 7 of them due to the high mortality rate. And hence, we are left with 4 healthy ones. It takes them 45 days to grow bigger and then start spinning. They only eat a certain type of leaf, and every day, we take a walk to pick that certain leaf we have found in our neighborhood. We clean out there poop 2 times a day too. Talk about a high maintenance pet! And as you can guess, Otto is enthralled with them, and Arlo could really care less!
Arlo loves playing soccer, and kicking the ball around. He loves using his imagination while flying airplanes and racing cars. He loves to read and still loves to play with his brother most of all. He turned three last month and had a small party with his friends at our house the day before his birthday. On his actual birthday, he requested to go to Bob and Bongo's (chuck e cheese equivalent, I suppose), ice cream and pizza...all in that order. And so we did and Nate took a half day, and we had a great afternoon.
We are not 100% sure of our plans once we arrive in the states. We don't have our needed onward tickets once we are in the states, but we'll keep you updated. School starts for the boys in Portland the week after labor day, so we know we'll be there a couple weeks before then.
Lets get to the pictures. Guess I have nothing else important to say. Hoping everyone is well.
PS, Guess what we had for dessert here in Addis tonight? Ben and Jerry's ice cream!!!
Arlo helping make his homemade cupcakes:
I have received a request for a blog update (thanks for the subtle hint, Tim. I needed a bit of motivation), and since a blog from Portland, Oregon won't be necessary, I'd better get writing.
Most of you have heard by now, that we are moving back to the US of A! We finally have our tickets situated and we will be leaving Addis on July 27th, to arrive in San Francisco on the 28th of July. We are really looking forward to time with family and friends. Nate wants a good burger and fries and I'd like to eat Mexican food 3 meals a day indefinitely.
Until then, we will stay busy with all sorts of activities here in Addis. Such as selling our car, sorting out the goods in our house, exploring more of Addis and saying our goodbyes.
Otherwise, life here has been good. We have 4 new pets....you'll never guess. Silk worms. We went to a place my friend works called Sabahar here in Addis. They have silk worms to make scarfs and such. The real reason we went was for the boys to see the silk worms, not for me to go shopping. After spending a couple hours learning of their life cycle and inspecting the worms, (I call them caterpillars) Almas (the woman working with the silk worms) was so impressed with Otto's love of insects and bugs she thought it was a great idea to give him a small chunk of eggs. Her last words, "only 2 or 3 will hatch, in about 10 days."
Well, she was right about the 10 days, as it was exactly 10.5 days until 100 hatched. Yes, you read that right, and yes, we counted them. I told Otto there was no way we could take care of 100 of them, so we decided since he was 5, we could keep 5. Two days after they hatched, we drove back to Sabahar and returned them. Almas was so excited as none of her eggs in the same batch had hatched. She convinced us to take 7 of them due to the high mortality rate. And hence, we are left with 4 healthy ones. It takes them 45 days to grow bigger and then start spinning. They only eat a certain type of leaf, and every day, we take a walk to pick that certain leaf we have found in our neighborhood. We clean out there poop 2 times a day too. Talk about a high maintenance pet! And as you can guess, Otto is enthralled with them, and Arlo could really care less!
Arlo loves playing soccer, and kicking the ball around. He loves using his imagination while flying airplanes and racing cars. He loves to read and still loves to play with his brother most of all. He turned three last month and had a small party with his friends at our house the day before his birthday. On his actual birthday, he requested to go to Bob and Bongo's (chuck e cheese equivalent, I suppose), ice cream and pizza...all in that order. And so we did and Nate took a half day, and we had a great afternoon.
We are not 100% sure of our plans once we arrive in the states. We don't have our needed onward tickets once we are in the states, but we'll keep you updated. School starts for the boys in Portland the week after labor day, so we know we'll be there a couple weeks before then.
Lets get to the pictures. Guess I have nothing else important to say. Hoping everyone is well.
PS, Guess what we had for dessert here in Addis tonight? Ben and Jerry's ice cream!!!
Arlo helping make his homemade cupcakes:
Otto's stick bug (Nate's informed me we have way too many Otto with bug pictures on the blog! Well, here are a few more):
Arlo's new "magic stick." Nate was on a work trip just before Arlo's birthday, and I asked him to bring something home for Arlo's birthday. Here you have it:
Cupcakes after lunch...what could be better?:
Bob and Bongo's:
Birthday ice cream @ Bruno's:
Mother's Day hike up at Mt Entoto. I am one lucky Mother:
The world's largest grasshopper:
Otto chasing Arlo on Entoto:
Almas, the boys, and silk worms galore:
They are quite pretty:
Weaving the silk:
100 year old tortoise @ Born Free; an animal rescue place 30km outside of Addis with lions, cheetahs, gelada baboons, and tortoises. They wouldn't let us pet the lions or cheetahs, so tortoises it was:
Addis cityscape:
One reason driving is difficult in Addis:
Charcoal or scaffolding anyone?:
See you all soon. Ciao
The Oetting's
