Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Rock Band Group
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Welcome to Livingstone
Welcome Back!
- School started. Now my teacher is Mrs Anderson and I am in Year 2 - we are already at our half-term holiday.
- I had my birthday - I got walkie talkies and a BMX ramp!
- Finny had a birthday - Nana was here for Finny's birthday!
- We moved houses! We used to be at 24 but now we are at 23B - it used to be our friend Dayo's house.
- ALL the grandparents arrived!
- We have been to Livingstone TWICE.
- I am going underwater and swimming without a life jacket or anything (except goggles)
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Who Cooks For You?
We think the Owls just come after our dinner because we go outside and look for them and we listen for them and …we see them! The wings are totally quiet but their call is noisy. They are supposed to say “who cooks for you….who cooks for you all” but we haven’t heard that yet! (This is probably because it's actually the barred owl not the barn owl that 'says' this!)
Our neighbors, Janice, Hans and Dayo, brought us an owl pellet from their yard because they know we like to think these are 'our' owls. An owl pellet is something that the owl eats then it takes all the left over stuff it has eaten and it makes it into a ball inside its body and….it spits it out, then your neighbor finds it in the garden! We have found one in our parking space – and it looks like the same but it looks like someone has driven over it.
We took it apart and it seemed that one of the bones inside the owl pellet was kind of like a mouse because it didn’t look like a bird and it was as small as your fingernail on your thumb if you are a five year old.
We found a skull (above) , some leg bones, back bones (vertebrae), ribs, lots of fur and a few feathers. And we think there was something else in there that came from the feathers…OR the mouse was bringing the feathers home to make a nest and instead... the owl ate it! A mouse can’t have a feather sticking out of it!
The bones we found - some were so tiny!
Lilayi
I saw it at Lilayi walking around the reception office. We went on a drive there and had lunch and went on a walking safari. The walk was like three hours and the drive was one hour--but it seemed like two. We didn’t see as much but we some new animals – Eland (daddy actually ate some of for lunch! It’s crazy!), hartebeest, crested eagle, zebras and vervet monkeys.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Horse Post
Before my lesson, I got my helmet in the tack room. My friends Sean and Kim showed me where to get the helmet. We tried every single helmet on me until they found the right one. It doesn’t have a buckle, it has a stretchy strap around my chin. It is dark brown on the top and red on the inside. It is a little bit loose because once it fell off of my head when I was riding super fast. A horse can: walk, trot, canter or gallop. Galloping is going as fast as you can go! Sean said I was almost cantering!
After I got my helmet, I brushed my horse with my friends helping. My horse’s name was Gandolf. The head of Gandolf was taller than my mom!
To groom, you use a brush, a plastic brush, and you brush on the fur and even the mane. Brushing is called grooming. Finny did it, too. You will see a funny picture. Finny was kind of scared of the horses!
The guys that worked there, they get the horse ready by putting on the bridle and the bit. They put the saddle and blanket on and fix the stirrups so they are the right size. Next, there is a tall block that you stand on and down below, your horse is there.! You just get down the two stirrups, you put your foot on, and put your knee on, pull yourself up, swing your foot over and... off you go into the woods!! One of the guys was holding my reins so all I had to do was to hold on and balance. It was super fun!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Pasta Fun
Our recipe used: eggs, flour, oil and salt. Some recipes just use egg and flour.
1. Making Dough - squish it up, open it, lift it up, squish it up....
2. The first level is the hardest of all of them - it is level 7...it goes up to 1.
3. You just keep putting it through. You start on 7 and you end on 1. You cannot skip or it will not work. If you start on level one it would be the hard! Level 1 makes it long and THIIIIINNNNN.
4. The pasta got longer and longer and longer and thinner and thinner and thinner...SUPER THIN!
5. Now I'm turning it into skabetti!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Counting Kwacha
The smallest bills are 50 Kwacha. They have a zebra on them.
The next bill is 100. It has a buffalo.
The 500 bill has an elephant.
The 1000 bill has an aardvark.
The next bill is 5,000. It has a lion on it.
The 10,000 bill has a porcupine.
20,000 is next. It has a black lechwe (looks like an impala)
The 50,000 has a leopard.
There used to be a 20 Kwacha bill and also coins. The coins were called ngwee. (Note from mom: 100 ngwees = 1 Zambian Kwacha.. ”Ngwee” means “dawn” in the prominent local languages, Bemba and Nyanja. This is said to be in reference to the Zambian nationalist slogan: "new dawn of freedom".)
The newspaper costs 3,000 Kwacha. I have 14,000 Kwacha!
This is how it starts, a long time ago:
I kept asking daddy for little change and eventually I had 6,400 Kwacha --two dollars! Then, I decided to sell in my house. I got lots more money. I was selling a sleeping bag, two books and that’s it. I sold it to mommy and daddy! And that’s how I got 14,000zkw. I used to have three dollars and now I don’t know how much I have. I have three 1,000s, two 500s, and one 10,000 bill. I keep trading mommy for some bills. If I have one thousand more I will trade mommy for a lion bill! Maybe I will get it by selling the paper – again! Or, by doing EXTRA cleaning! Maybe every time I do something and I can get money? Mommy says this is called “getting an allowance.”
These are some things I could do to earn my allowance:
Cleaning up toys
Sweeping
Reading books with Finn
Bring laundry to the laundry room
Help with cooking
Bring the plates to the sink after dinner
Friday, June 6, 2008
By Owen
Cats need love! They are so sweet!
Cats creep at night. Creep! Creep! Creep!
Last week we saw a kitten! It was in Viv's pool house!
Sleep, creep, three, sweet, feet, need, week, street, live, put