Celebrating and Planting

So, I've been really bad about blogging. Though I'm glad I did it, I think writing about Niger kind of zapped my blogging energy.

Anyway, there's probably lots to catch up on, but I'll save most of it until we find the cord to download the pictures off of our camera. Hopefully that won't take too long.

I did come across a few pictures I wanted to share.


We had our sixth anniversary in Niger, but we celebrated it again after Ryan finished his finals. We went out to eat at Del Frisco's, which, incidentally, is also where we ate for my birthday the first year we were married. The only difference was the location--Fort Worth vs. Louisville. Who would have guessed then how God would have worked things to bring us to Kentucky!? Praise the Lord that He is sovereign because I'm certain that my plans would not have turned out nearly as well. Anyway, dinner was fun and the free dessert afterward was even better! :)

In God's perfect timing, He brought a wonderful couple into our lives--Adam and Andi Graig. We met them right before we left for Niger, and they were definitely a Godsend in helping us (mainly me) deal with the reverse culture shock. They recently returned from China and were dealing with some of the same feelings we were having.

Anyway, Andi spent many, many long hours helping me with our landscaping. She definitely has a green thumb, and well, I had never planted a thing in my life before moving into this house. Actually, I take that back, I think we planted a lima bean in a paper cup in elementary school, but that's been the extent of it.














The landscaping of our house had been neglected for some time, so there was quite a bit of work to do. We spent a long time just pulling out all the lava rock so we could plant more stuff. We even moved a Rhododendron (basically a small, flowering tree) from the front to backyard. I might post some before and after pictures later, but here's a picture of our Rhododendron before we moved it.

Niger: Day Seven

*Most of the pictures from today were taken with Dr. Martin’s camera so Brad and our guide didn’t have to take the same picture with 10 different cameras. I’ll post more pictures later when we get our CD compilation of all the pictures everyone took in Niger.

There was some confusion as to our flight schedule. I think we were originally scheduled to leave Niger Thursday evening or Friday morning, but it had been changed to where we left very late on Friday night. Brad was unaware of this change until we got there, so our Friday schedule was wide open. Brad suggested we go on a giraffe safari, which he said was one of his favorite things to do there.


We slept in a little bit that morning and left the guesthouse around 8. We then drove out to the place where the giraffes were. A giraffe guide got in our bus and we took off driving across the land. We were off-roading, which in terms of bumpiness really wasn’t much different from driving on the roads there.

We all kept watch to find some giraffes, and it didn’t take too long before we saw our first one. There were actually two giraffes, but one was a little farther away. We stopped the bus, all got out and slowly walked toward the closest giraffe. Brad told us that the closest we should get was about ten yards away. We walked up until that point and then stopped to take some pictures. I also got some great shots of the giraffe eating leaves off a tree. Check out that tongue!



























We saw a few more giraffes as we drove around, as well as these two kids leading a couple of cows pulling a cart. The kids let us pile around the cows and cart so we could take a picture. We also saw these three camels.


As we were leaving, we came across this massive rock-looking thing. Brad told us it was actually a termite mound. That’s right—an enormous termite mound! I even crawled up on it to get a picture, but I didn’t see any termites while I was up there.


We finished up with our safari and headed back to the guesthouse to pack and to do our debriefing for the trip. That night, we had dinner at the same restaurant as the night before but this time we had pizza! It was so good.

After dinner, we finished packing and just hung out until our flight late that evening. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave around 11pm, but it was delayed a few hours. The flights home were long and filled with delays, but we were so thankful to make it back to the U.S. By the time we got back to Louisville, it was about 2:30 on Sunday morning. We were completely exhausted from our long travels, but it was wonderful to climb into our big, comfy bed.