Catching up

Greetings, all-

The monthly update has turned into a quarterly update, apparently. This’ll probably turn into two parts.

Annette’s mom came out in February and got to meet Joy. We didn’t do much travel outside of Nairobi, as I was traveling for work quite a bit during her visit. She seems to have enjoyed the visit, though.

Joy was baptized on February 8. She didn’t cry when the water hit her, about which we were pleased until a helpful parishioner came to after Mass and said, “You know what they say, right? If they don’t cry, the devil’s still in them!” I was struck when the priest was sending the kids off for their kids’ Mass, but knowing our boys had to stay for the baptism said, “All children, except for the Zimmer boys, come forward for your blessing.” I think “The Zimmer boys” makes them sound like the neighborhood hoodlums, which sometimes isn’t too far off.

There’s a photo here of the kids in their gear for Annette’s annual Mardi Gras party. The big boys assigned themselves as keepers of the hot sauce, so spent the whole party at the end of the serving table pouring hot sauce on the food of whoever asked.

We took at trip to Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, for Easter. Chris had never seen the ocean before, so it was neat to see him stick his toes in the “big swimming pool” and build a sand castle. I got Little Mark on a jet-ski with me; he spent the whole time asking if we could go back now, but when it was over and his brothers asked if it was scary, he puffed up his chest and said how much fun he had had. We did a trip in a glass-bottomed boat, and the boys did some swimming on a reef. Again, they were all scared until Mark, Jr. hopped in. Then they all followed. Who needs peer pressure when you have two brothers? The hotel also had five different pools, each with a theme – diving platforms, a swim-up bar, a slide, etc. All of boys were a little leery of the water, since we don’t get to swim as much as we used to in Singapore. But, after the second morning of uninterrupted pool time, they were all very brave. Luke, who doesn't fully know how to swim, got so brave that he’d jump in the pool without telling anyone. Joy wasn’t too interested in getting in the water, but did great with the travel.

This past weekend, we spent Annette’s birthday at Masai Mara. The boys and I had been there before with my cousins Shannon and Tamara, but Annette and Joy had not, due to Annette’s travel restriction before Joy arrived. We stayed in a nice camp and enjoyed some good game drives. My saint of a bride claims she enjoyed the day of her birthday, even though I managed to slide our car into a deep rut and we were stuck for a little under three hours. We started out the trip with a cooler of beer, but it got depleted pretty quickly after I gave some to the guys who pulled us out of that hole, and more to the Masai people who materialized from a grove of bushes only seconds after we got hung up on a separate ditch the day prior. All in all, it was a good trip. We saw a lion, which is rare, as well as many elephants, some Masai giraffes, and then lots of zebras, gazelles, warthogs, impalas, hyenas, and others. The dining tent was invaded by monkeys on our last morning; the boys thought it was a big adventure, though Annette and I spent the whole meal waving umbrellas at the critters for fear of a bite on the kids.

Chris came home from school a while ago and told us he’d been put in charge of the class for a bit while the teacher stepped out. He said he had to “watch his childrens” (the Kenyan way of talking about his classmates). I guess he had to stand on a chair and tell them all to be quiet. So, after I finished laughing hysterically at the idea of Chris being assigned to keep order, I made a joke about the #1 inmate being put in charge of the asylum. Annette jabbed me and said that was no way to build his confidence.

More to follow,
Mark