Jared turns 11

On Tuesday, September 22, Jared turned 11. My baby is now 11 years old. Two more years and he will be a teenager! Ackkk! Not sure if I am ready for 2 teenagers in the house.

Jared's instructions to me on his birthday were simple...large baking potatoes and rib eyes for dinner. Chocolate and vanilla cake with LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of frosting for his birthday cake. This meant I had to make a checkerboard cake for him.



The cake turned out pretty good. Dinner was fabulous. The only problem was I forgot candles for his cake. I searched high and low thinking I had candles but what I discovered was that I only had candle holders - not helpful at this moment.



Even with my crazy Italian oven that doesn't always heat at a constant temperature we still had decent results on the cake. I also bake a no knead bread that night which turned out wonderfully. And the baking potatoes were perfect. Good oven night thank goodness.




As you can see we put a pretty good dent in the cake.

First Day of School

Here are the boys - getting ready to ride to school with dad on their first day. They were ready to go. No whining or comments. Just a few hiccups but otherwise everything went well. I think they are taking it W-A-Y better than mom is. I just can't believe how much taller than Jared Caleb is. Amazing how much they have grown the last couple of months. Time to measure again.

Encouraging words...

Today was another amazing joint service at church today. It is the last week of Italian vacations. Traditionally the entire month of August is when Italians go on vacation. So while the church is down in numbers due to this tradition, our church has been holding joint services. The Ghanans join us for the morning Italian service. All parts of our service are held in Italian and Twi and some English. The service runs a little longer because most things are said 3 times.

The best part, however, is the song service. Today, Stefano led songs in Italian and I think Abraham led the singing in Twi and English. Of course, we follow along in the Italian song book the best we can. We enjoy the English portion as well. We do not know the songs they sing in Twi but it is so encouraging to sit and listen to them sing. There is so much power and emotion in their voices that it brings tears to my eyes. Words really cannot say how moving it is to be a part of a worship service like that.

When talking to Sakyi Fastfriend, a Ghanan brother in Christ, he told me about some videos on youtube.com. I am posting the link here so that you can listen to this amazing music.Ghanan concert

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

PS. We had a BBQ at our house last week and many of these people came to our house to fellowship. In the front row the tall guy with the glasses is Sakyi, the gentleman on the far end is Isaac, the guy in the "toga" also came to our home but I cannot remember his name right now. And, YES, the ladies do dress like that for church in their traditional Ghanan attire.

Hot, Hot, HOT!!!

The last few days here have been smoking hot. Really it is just so uncomfortable at times. Not the same as when you can go from your air conditioned house into your air conditioned car and then into an air conditioned building. Our house only has 2 air conditioners so the entire house is not kept cool. Fortunately, the bedrooms are the 2 air conditioned rooms so we can sleep comfortably.

The lack of air conditioning does make working around the house quite sticky and sweaty at times. Not to mention trying to get your workout in.

Last night when we were preparing dinner for our Sunday evening English bible study we were just so hot. We were making fajitas and it was just roasting in the kitchen. I think it was around 87 in our kitchen when we were cooking. We did have fans going but it just didn't help.

We are thinking it might be good to just have sandwiches and fruit smoothies for dinner from now on. At least until the heat breaks and it starts to cool down. We have heard that in September it does start cooling down. So hope that is true. I would really enjoy having some cooler temperatures to enjoy.

Because it is so hot right now we are waiting until it cools down before traveling. James and I have no desire to walk around in the heat with a bunch of other sweaty people (many of whom do not use deoderant). I know we will enjoy seeing the sights more when we are not sweating to death.

There are quiet a few places we have on our list of must-sees. Rome, Cinque Terre (again), Mt. Pasubio, Croatia, , Pompeii, and more. The first place that I know we are going to see is Mt. Pasubio. Mt. Pasubio was very important during WWI. There are a series of 52 tunnels that were dug into the mountain as a way to keep supplies giong etc. The view is supposed to be amazing and I can't wait. We will be hiking the 52 tunnels 2 weeks after school starts.

Well, just wanted to give a quick update.

Ciao for now!

Our House

I know you have all been waiting to see our house so here it is. There are a lot of pictures but I won't add them all. I just want you to see the basics.

front of the house
view from the front door
the foyer looking into the kitchen & dining area

foyer into the living room
dining area
door to the back patio
view out our back door from the patio (right of the dining room)
the patio

small stove top - cannot cook with 2 large pans at once.

this is my tiny sink - the small saucepan is in there to give you an idea of the size. If you notice the picture above that has a plastic bowl on the stove that is where we actually wash the dishes and then rinse in the sink. There is just not enough room in that little sink to wash. where we wash dishes
corner of il salotto (living rm)
entrance to il salotto
the stairs up to the bedrooms and down to the taverna
one bathroom outside of our bedroom - James' bathroom, around the corner to the right is the shower.
the hallway between the bathrooms
camera da letto (our master bedroom)not a large room but since we only sleep in there it is okay.
il bagno di donna (lady's bathroom) right beside James' bathroom. Since the house has 4 bathrooms I claimed this one as a "boy free zone"
yes, this is a really long and big room. Largest bathroom I have ever had.


up the stairs yet again you come to my craft area - Yippee, nice sized area for me to play in...


this is the view of the craft area from the computer area - it is to the left of the entrance to that floor and right next to the stairs for the boys room. You can see in the back corner another door - that is a long storage room under the eaves of the house. There is another one on the computer area side of the room.
this is the computer area which is to the right when you come up the stairs
the boys even have their own very large bathroom - shower is to the right

the stairs into the mansarda (the attic) which is a HUGE room the boys share

This is the back of their bedroom.
the large area behind Jared's bed
Jared's side of the room
Caleb's side of the room (large play area behind his bed too)
the view from the boys' bedroom into the craft/computer rm
stairs down into the taverna
the largest bathroom in the house is in the area that leads to either the taverna on the left or the garage on the right. It has the largest shower too.
view from the back end of the taverna bathroom
looking into the taverna from the stairs
dining room in taverna
living room area in taverna - cooler down here so there is where we watch movies
exercise area behind couch in taverna
taverna guest room
taverna guest room
view from the guest room
a little niche that I made a pantry
storage area under the stairs
back of the garage - I have to back in at an angle because there is a beam in the middle of the garage
right side of the garage
view of the garage from the driveway
looking up the driveway from the garage
looking down the driveway from the street