Departing for Africa Look/See Trip

Well, the day is approaching for Darren and I to set off for our Familliarization Trip to Port Harcourt. We will be leaving next Saturday at 10:00 PM and will be flying into Paris then from there we will arrive in Africa at 4:30 AM Monday morning. Pretty long flight with all the time changes.

This trip will be a bit nerve racking for me as I will have to take care of my ankle. For those of you who don't know, I went to Lake Charles, Louisiana last weekend with my sister Erin for some Casino fun and while there on the second night I fell down some stairs and sprained my left ankle really bad. I felt like such a big Loser and ruined the rest of our weekend by having to be brought to our room in a wheelchair. Erin drove me home the next morning and took me straight to the ER in Tomball. I had no broken bones thank goodness, but was on crutches and had to go to Houston the next morning to apply for my passport and get my shots for the trip. On Tuesday my dad took me to an orthodepic doctor and he gave me excersises to do and when I informed him of my trip to Africa he told me I had to start taking one aspirin a day to thin my blood and to make sure I walked the length of the plane every 30 minutes so I wouldn't get a blood clot since this could kill me instantly. Due to all the bruising in my ankle and foot I'm at much greater risk for getting a blood clot. Only me guys, only me.

I ordered some bamboo circular knitting needles so I can work on my knitting while flying and I just hope they don't get confiscated. I read all the information on knitting items allowed on the plane and bamboo is the way to go, I just hope they don't get picky about it. Not sure how the African airport will be though. I may have to do some more research.

On a side note....Darren took our new kitty Indy to the vet yesterday for a check up and found out that she is a HE. Evidently I'm not good at checking this on kittens cause I swore Indy was a girl. Oh well, we just have to remember to call HIM instead of HER.

More when we get back from our trip and I'll be sure to post some pictures of our new home to be.

The Look/See Trip

Well, Darren and I found out today that we are leaving for our Look/See Trip to Africa on Saturday, July 29th. We will depart from Houston and arrive in Paris then off to Africa. We will arrive in Africa Monday morning. We will be meeting Darren's new manager Mark and some of the Expats that are living there, tour the facility and camp and have a few days to check out the area. We will take photos of the area so you can get a first hand look of what living in Africa will be like.

The girls and are I are taking Passport Pictures tomorrow then on Monday we are heading to Houston to apply for our Passports and expidite the process. Then Monday afternoon we're going to the Medical Building at Darren's office and I'm getting my first round of vaccines. We also have to decide which Malaria pills we want to take, some you take daily and some weekly, I think we're leaning on the daily ones since they have the least amount of side effects.

More to come later.

The Anderson Fur Babies

Here are our fur babies in the order they joined our family. Coco, Blacky, Chopin, Reigni Marie, Spurzie Girl and Indy












Here are our Fur Babies:

Hey kids,

This should be fun, please do not let the head hunters get a hold of this. Ha ha Did you send Sally a thing to join? mopheads@windyglen.net

Happy Fourth of July

Well, today is July 4th and Darren has received his "handshake" emai offering him the Contract Engineering job in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He has sent back his acceptence and the process has begun. Things should start moving pretty fast now. We will be getting an Expat Coordinator to help and guide us through the process. I guess the next step for me and the girls is to get our passports. Darren and I will be taking a trip to Port Harcourt to check everything out and find out what we need to do to register Jade for 1st Grade and Lexi for Pre-School.

On a side note: Last night around 9:00 PM Darren when outside to get something out of the van and heard a tiny kitten crying. Being an animal lover as I am I went outside to investigate and found this sweet little bitty kitten in the tire well of our neighbors SUV. It took about 5 minutes before I could catch her, she was so afraid and dirty and a big dog tried to eat her right before I caught her. To make a long story short, she was brought inside and cleaned up a bit, I fed her some food and she ate like she hadn't seen food in days it was so sad. We held her for while, let the greys and Coco smell her (everyone was fine except Reigni wanted to play and Coco was a bit snobbish. I put her in a pet taxi with a towel and stuffed animal and she slept all night without crying. Poor little thing was exhausted and happy to feel safe while she slept. She did her business in the litter box this morning. Now I have to figure out what we are going to do with it. I don't know how I'm going to pry it away from the kids, they already started calling it Africa, although I think Indy would be cute since we found her for the 4th of July. Coco can't come to Nigeria with us, she's just to old to make the long trip, she hates riding in the pet taxi to go to the vet, you'd think we were killing her with those screams. But we could take Indy, she's young enough to travel and the kids would be happy to bring a pet they knew with them. The greys are staying with our friends who own a kennel and we'll pick them up when we come home for our long visits. This is breaking my heart, I love Blacky, Chopin, Spurzie Girl and Reigni Marie more than words can say, and I cry everyday thinking I have to leave them, but they'll be together and they'll have many friends (greys, whippets and afghans) and lots of love from the owners who live on site. Many areas for them to run free (fenced in of course) it will be like a doggie country club.
Well, that's it for now, I'll keep you posted on the next stage of our Adventure.