Ledcafe

Sometimes, on a Saturday morning, we will go and have a latté at our favorite coffee shop.

What? A coffee shop? I thought you guys lived in the middle of nowhere!

Ledcafe is a wonderful service provided to the community by our friends Loren and Kensey (above). Since there is no such thing as a coffee shop anywhere nearby (they don’t even have a single Starbucks in the country, if you can imagine...), most Saturday mornings Loren and Kensey open up their home to the community. They have an espresso machine and make specialty coffees, as well as Kensey’s famous breakfast burritos and chocolate chip scones. They don’t make a profit off their coffee shop. The prices they charge just cover the cost of the ingredients. It’s a great way to relax and feel for a moment like you are back home.

People can sit inside or out on the porch, and can chat with the hosts or have a quiet conversation with friends.

There is usually someone who is willing to hold Greg too.

almost, but not quite

Greg is at that frustrating stage where he can almost crawl. If you sit him down on the floor, it won’t be long before he attempts to move forward. Sometimes he gets himself into interesting positions…

Eventually he’ll end up on his stomach, but so far he has only been able to move backwards. Most of the time he’s content to scoot around without seeing where he is going, but then he’ll suddenly find himself stuck, as he did yesterday when he ended up under the sofa. Then mom comes and rescues him and he starts all over again.

Finish quilt - check!

I’ve been so busy with teaching Spanish lately that I haven’t had free time to spend on sewing. I was finally able to find some time yesterday to finish my first “real” quilting project – a Christmas wall hanging. Thankfully the photo doesn’t really show that the top ended up almost a full inch wider than the bottom. Oops! Still, I’m pretty proud of my attempt. Too bad I’ll have to wait until next Christmas to display it. I’ve already started planning my next project though. The hard part here is finding fabric (it’s almost impossible to find cotton fabric in the stores here), but with a little scrounging and borrowing from other quilters and maybe resorting to cutting up secondhand clothes I should be able to gather enough.

Greg is Growin'

For his 7-month birthday, Greg got his first cold. He’s been crabby and has been able to produce amazing quantities of snot. I tired to clean him up as best I could though to take a few 7-month photos.

Here is the 6-month tiger photo:

And at 7 months:

Check out the belly on this guy! He’s really gotten chunky lately.

Yet another Greg and Ruby photo. When I took him outside the only smiles I got were when the dog was in the photo too.

Morning Tea

One of the things that I love about living in Ukarumpa is how easy it is to get together with friends. One family here on center hosts a weekly “Neighborhood” morning tea. I say “neighborhood” because pretty much anyone is welcome, and not just the people who live close by. It’s a great chance to sit and catch up with folks while the kids run around and play or watch a video inside.

Greg usually gets passed around quite a bit, as do the other babies. Here he is with Auntie Joy.

Thad is just one month older than Greg, and his family just came back from furlough. This is the first time they have really gotten to take a good look at each other:

It started out fine, but within a few minutes both were crying. Maybe Thad suspected that Greg was thinking about grabbing his phone.