After the roller coaster

It's been a while... yet again. And as Julie pointed out as a comment on the last posting, it's time to add some news.

Since June, I feel like we've been on a roller coaster and it's finally slowing down (that's a good thing!).
Jara and Lisa started the summer holidays in Bietigheim, Germany with Oma and Opa Huber. Thorsten had 6 weeks of training at the GTZ head quarters so it was the ideal opportunity for the girls to spend some extra (bonding) time with their grandparents. The grandparents enjoyed it at least as much, if not more, to be in charge of our precious little princesses. I stayed behind in Cameroon as I was working and had a few busy weeks ahead - a military health conference in Yaounde and a GEIS retreat in Kenya.
I had never been to Kenya before so it was a welcome change and distraction. I enjoyed getting to know my colleagues from the US and Cameroon from a different angle - the retreat was very relaxed, laid back and on the beach...



Beginning of August, I joined my family in Belgium and had a very short but intense visit. We also met our new nephew Mats (son of Dries and Grietje) who was born in December. He was baptized while we were there and Jara and Lisa enjoyed playing hide and seek and showing him the tricks of the trade.






Once back in Cameroon, we moved houses and are so much more enjoying living in the centre now. No more roadblocks, no more trying to avoid drunken policemen at night, no more spending hours and hours in traffic jam. We're happy people. We're living in a very nice and quiet neighbourhood, residential street and lots of friends around the corner. And we've got a swing!

Jara started kindergarten on the 1st September and she's loving every minute of it. She was very pleased to see there were scissors in the classroom because this meant she was gonna WORK! Also Lisa is going to the creche 3 days a week.
Jara and Lisa have developed soo much over the last few months. Jara's become a cascade of words in a mixture of 3-4 languages, but she definitely manages to get her message across. Sometimes the way she thinks is just hilarious. Lisa's also speaking lots, mostly copying Jara and every word you say.. time to watch our language! Physically, she's got no fear and loves climbing high structures and balancing on the cords. They also learn to play together much more and it's nice to see how they engage in their role plays - Jara the bossy teacher, Lisa the caring mother of her little bear.