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This Week’s Happenings 10/7-10/14

Monday, October 15th, 2012

Have you missed us? The month of September (and part of August) was filled with travels to the US (hope to blog about some of our adventures in the future). While we were there I took a blogging hiatus to enjoy time with family and friends. But now we are back home and back to the grind! We were so busy/tired last week that I didn’t get a chance to blog, but this morning I woke up before Ben and Mikayla and decided to do a little blogging.

When we got back to Swaziland we were in the midst of a very busy time for Cabrini Ministries. Ben was working on year end reports and annual progress reports. Plus we had a special visit from the regional director for HIV care for Southern Africa with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and a bunch of other country big wigs. This paired with the arrival of other visitors on the same day made for a really stressful and busy Tuesday of last week! We started our slew of visitors by saying goodbye to two sister candidates from the states and two from Ethiopia who had been here for several weeks (they arrived just before we departed). We also had a medical team in from Australia doing healthy child physicals throughout our catchment area. Then we had a three month intern arrive as well as a former volunteer back to do research for a couple of weeks. Eesh! It has been a whirlwind. I spent most of last week cleaning and prepping the volunteer house for our new visitors. I also cooked a lot of extra food last week because the team was gone from like 6am to early evening each day going non-stop. We said goodbye to the Australian team last Sunday and everyone was able to take a big sigh of relief and breath a little easier. We were still busy, but able to get back to a semi-normal routine! We even started our first week of preschool this past week!

Yesterday, we celebrated Joe’s birthday. It was pretty low key, but we had some yummy food and good laughs! Ben and Mikayla even made him a rainbow cake for his birthday! We will really celebrate his birthday in a couple of weeks when both of the sisters are back. He has requested a Dessert themed party, so that should be interesting.

Today we will take Sister Barbara to the airport for a two week trip to the US and spend a little time in town grabbing a bite to eat and grocery shopping.

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Ben and Mikayla made Twizzler glasses one day that were hysterical!

Tags: visits, weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

Some Video Posts

Saturday, August 25th, 2012

Since we are in the states and have some awesome Internet, I thought I would upload some videos I have taken over the last little bit. Enjoy!

Mikayla reciting one of her favorite Nursery Rhymes: Jack and Jill

Does anyone remember the Hamster Dance craze? Well, Rita and Steve were so kind as to send Mikayla a card with the song it for her birthday. We have been listening to it ever since then!

Every kid should know how to make mud pies. Here is Mikayla making her specialty!

Who doesn’t love a good tea party in the pool?

Another fun dancing video of my child. She is a dancing fool and loves having dance parties!

Another Nursery Rhyme – Little Miss "Muffin"

The Three Little Pigs as told by Mikayla

When trying to teach Mikayla to skip I told her to step and then hop, which is what I always told my students. It worked for my students, but clearly my literal child did not catch on!

I have some more videos to post soon!

Tags: Mikayla, videos
Posted in Life, Parenting |

This Week’s Happenings 7/23-8/4

Sunday, August 5th, 2012

The last few weeks have been filled with visitors, sickness and Olympics…fun, fun!

Last week Joe had two of his best friends come in for a two week visit. We enjoyed getting to know them, teaching them to play Settlers and sitting around talking and eating yummy food too! They brought Mikayla a "princess dress up dress" that she has been loving all week. And Ben found some old glasses in his office this past week so she has been in dress up heaven!

Letter X and Y, Miliwane, Katie's groups 007

Letter X and Y, Miliwane, Katie's groups 011

She really wanted to take a bath in the sink last week and because she has grown so much we had to deem it as her last sink bath! She was so uncomfortable that she didn’t spend much time in there.

Letter X and Y, Miliwane, Katie's groups 021

We stayed up late last Friday to watch the Opening Ceremonies with Katie. It was an interesting opening ceremonies, and if I am speaking honestly not one of my favorites! About halfway through my stomach decided it wanted to be sick and I spent the rest of the ceremonies in bed! Ben swears I didn’t miss much though, plus we video taped it so we can show the kids at the hostel since there were three Swazi’s competing!

Speaking of Olympics, I think we need some Olympic therapy in the Kickert household. Our Satellite offers four stations (five if you count the Portuguese station) that run 24 hour Olympic coverage. We miss out on all the stories that the stations in the states offer, but we get to see a whole lot more events. We have been loving watching them, even Mikayla is getting in on the fun! The trampoline event (or boing-a-hopping) has been her favorite so far.

Katie has been to Swaziland three times now and has never been to do the "touristy" things, so last weekend we took her out on the town and showed her how the tourist visit Swaziland. We all had a great time (despite me being sick). Here are some shots from the day.

Letter X and Y, Miliwane, Katie's groups 080

Letter X and Y, Miliwane, Katie's groups 135

Roan antelope in Mliliwane.

On Wednesday, Ben headed back to Johannesburg to pick up the staff who were in the US for the AIDS 2012 conference. Unfortunate for him, was that on Tuesday he came down with a terrible head cold! He is just starting to get over it today. Needless to say, this has not been a good health month for the Kickerts! Hopefully we are all well by the time we travel in a few weeks.

Yesterday we welcomed two candidates for sisterhood to the mission for two months. On Friday a couple of sisters from Ethiopia will be joining them. Joe’s mom will be here for a visit starting on Sunday. So it is a busy time filled with visitors in the upcoming months!

And just because she is so beautiful and was having an exceptionally good hair day…

Letter X and Y, Miliwane, Katie's groups 139

Tags: animals, weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

This Week’s Happenings 7/16-7/22

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

Yesterday (7/22) marked our one year anniversary of our arrival at St. Philips. We left the states on 7/19/11, but because of some travel delays and long flights we didn’t actually arrive at our new home until the 22nd. It has been a great year and we fill very adjusted in our new lives. In the last year we have experienced so much, it has been wonderful! It is hard to believe that one year has already passed us by and we still have those moments of "We live in Africa!".

In the last week we have had several bird sightings, both inside our house and outside our house. One night I was in bed and Ben and Joe were just hanging out, when this little guy popped right into the house. He hung out by the microwave for a bit before the boys caught him and released him back into the wild.

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Bird in the house 010

Another bird in our house was this precious baby owl. The people of Swaziland have a huge superstition with owls. Because of all the witchcraft that occurs here, certain things are taboo…owls being one of them. They think if an owl lands outside your house that someone is trying to bewitch you. So you can understand the confusion and hysteria when an owl showed up at the hostel this week, right as several guests from Taiwan arrived! To make a long story short, the bird was injured and so Joe sent a kid down to my house with the bird. I got a call that said a kid is coming down with an owl, can you please find something to wrap it in. I assumed the bird was dead and so I went for a trash bag. When the kid arrived the bird was very much alive and I had to rethink my plan. In the end, Joe and Katie drove the bird to Big Bend (town about thirty minutes down the road), to a guy who offered to care for the injured owl. Quite the experience!

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Unfortunately, we had to dispose of Mikayla’s box car after this because the owl pooped inside it. Oops!

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Here are a few of the birds we saw outside.

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Not birds, but I thought it was pretty!

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Speaking of experience, on Thursday Mikayla and I ventured out to watch some of our hostel girls compete in a National Dance Competition. It was completely different from any competitions that I have been to in the states. For starters each group competes doing the same dance. Secondly, the girls are all in traditional attire, which means they are topless. At first it was weird for me to see primary students performing topless, but then I came to terms with the fact that this is part of their culture and sat back to enjoy myself. Our group of girls won third in one dance and fifth in a second dance. They did great and got to bring a trophy home to the school.

On Wednesday, Ben headed to Jo-burg to drop three of our staff members (Sharon, from childcare, and two health care staff members) off for a trip to the US. They will be heading to the AIDS 2012 conference in DC. They were so excited and seem to be having a good time already. Ben spent the night in Jo-burg that evening and headed home on Thursday.

And just for fun, a picture to show just how quirky and creative my little girl is. She turned her kitchen (which is really just a carry on suitcase) into a crib for her and her babies!

ABC hunt and letter V 045

Tags: birds, weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

This Week’s Happenings 7/9-7/15

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

In one more week we will have been in Swaziland for an entire year…so hard to believe that that much time has passed!

For the past three weeks, the teachers in the schools have been striking to try and get a pay increase. It has been interesting and slightly different than the last strike they had about a year ago. For two weeks the teachers were in the classrooms, but striking from teaching. So basically the kids were just sitting in the classroom and doing nothing. This week the teachers chose to strike from going to school, but the kids still went. So now the kids are just at school being supervised by the head teacher (principal) and maybe one or two other teachers. It is so hard for me to fathom this because it is so different from anything that would happen in the US. Two days last week Cabrini kept our kids home and didn’t send them to school and we put together some small learning activities for them to do throughout the day. The third day, the children were instructed by our staff to stay home, but actually snuck to school because their feared punishment from the head teacher. I am not sure what the next week will hold, but after talking to one of the teachers from the primary school it doesn’t sound promising for the teachers to be teaching in the next week.

On Tuesday Katie arrived. She was a volunteer who was here when we arrived last year and she has come back for another two month volunteer visit. We are so excited to have her back and have enjoyed spending time with her in the last week. Mikayla is really excited and hasn’t’ fully grasped that Katie has to work and not play with her all the time!

On Friday night we hosted a pizza night. Joe taught me a delicious trick that I thought I would share when making homemade pizza dough. After you roll out the dough, before you place it on the pan layer the pan with some olive oil and then put the dough on top. Seriously, try it! It makes the pizza dough rich and buttery tasting, plus makes it perfectly crisp on the outside and moist and chewy on the inside. Thanks Joe for the tip! Since Katie has a wheat allergy we also tried out a cauliflower pizza crust too. I never got around to trying it, but it smelled great and Katie said it was tasty. We finished off our glutinous pizza dinner with Mikayla’s Upside down cake from her Letter U study this week.

Earlier in the week I was busy typing something up on the computer and Mikayla wanted to brush her teeth. Instead of asking me like she usually does she took the initiative to brush her teeth herself. Aunt Chelsea would be proud!

Letter U 011

Sharon’s girls came in for a visit last week and stopped by our house for some play time with Mikayla. Bayanza wasn’t too excited about having her picture taken though!

Letter U 007

Letter U 010

On Sunday we finished digging out our garden and then planted some seeds. We still need to buy more to plant, but it is a good start! And if all goes according to plan we will be harvesting vegetables from our own garden very soon!

Tags: food, weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

I headed into the grocery store with Joe and Katie today while Ben stayed home with Mikayla today. He was so clever and decided to do an alphabet scavenger hunt with her to present to me when I got home. I don’t know how to upload the actual power point, but I can show you the images from it and captions! Mikayla was so cute when she was going through each slide

A is for ash.

B is for boots.

B is for butterfly.

C is for chair.

D is for dog.

E is for "I’m pointing to an E".

F is for fencen.

G is for garbage can.

H is for house.

I is for Ice Cream.

J is for jellyfish.

K is for "I’m holding the letter K".

L is for Lemon Cream Cookie.

M is for Mickey Mouse.

N is for "I’m pointing to the letter N".

O is for onions.

P is for Pawpaw tree.

Q is for "I’m point to the letter Q".

R is for rocks.

S is for shirt.

T is for tree.

U is for under the umbrella.

V is for vine.

W is for water.

X is the x we made.

Y is for yellow on the bag.

Z is for zipper.

I hope you enjoyed Ben and Mikayla’s creativity as much as I did!

Tags: Ben, Mikayla
Posted in Life |

This Week’s Happenings 7/2-7/8

Sunday, July 8th, 2012

We had a very uneventful week! Ben was busy with work stuff and worked a lot of hours this week, which left Mikayla and I to entertain ourselves! We had a lot of fun studying the Letter S this week and spent a lot of time at the hostel. The kids were off an on with being out of school (which is a whole different conversation) so we spent a lot of time at the hostel this week. I also did a mini training with the hostel staff on quick reading and math activities they could do with the kids. Here are a couple pictures from our week.

Two new birds for Steve –

Letter S and birds 024

Two of these were swooping around the sky this week. They were loud too!

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Bird from above sitting in the tree at a distance.

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Heard this guy pecking away in a large tree this week! Obviously this is the bird’s backside.

Letter S and birds 031

I looked out the window while doing dishes last night and just saw Mikayla hanging around! What a monkey!

We have a busy few weeks coming up. Ben will continue to stay busy with work as a lot of quarterly reports are due. Katie, who was here when we arrived, will return on Tuesday for a two month stint. Joe has some friends coming in the middle of July for two weeks and then his mom will be here in August. We are also trying to finalize our plans while in the states. Speaking of, anyone have fun ideas of things to do with Mikayla while we are in NYC, specifically Manhattan? Or London? Thanks for the help!

Tags: birds, weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

This Week’s Happenings 6/24-7/1

Sunday, July 1st, 2012

Our week wasn’t too eventful, but we were able to finalize some of the details for our upcoming trip to the states. Here is a rough overview of what what we will be up to while we are around. Please keep in mind that things are flexible. The only thing set in stone now is our flight schedules.

August 18: Everyone departs Johannesburg in the evening.
August 19-22: We arrive in Newark that evening and will spend some time in NYC. Ben will be working, and Mikayla and I are there for pleasure. We are hoping to catch up with my brother and sister-in-law while we are there since they will have just moved to Boston.
August 23-26: Everyone travels to Chicago for a Cabrini fundraiser. We will be staying with Ben’s family that live in the southern suburbs of Chicago.
August 27-31: Ben flies back to NYC and then heads to Philly. He will spend the front end in NYC for meetings and the back end (at least 29-31) will be at Cabrini college in Philadelphia. Mikayla and I will fly out to Nashville on the same day and arrive at 8:30am.
September 1-24: Ben returns to Kentucky for a few small fundraisers and time with friends and family. Tim and Chelsea are due to have a baby during this time and we are looking forward to snuggling with Baby Reid during part of this time as well as spending time with other family and friends.
September 5-6: Ben will travel to St. Louis by car for a fundraiser there.
September 16-24(?): This last week is being left open for Ben for meetings that will develop in NYC/Philly/DC (or elsewhere). Mikayla and I will still be hanging out with folks in Kentucky. Mikayla and I will fly straight to Newark on Sept 24 to return home. Ben will meet us there from wherever he ends up at the end of the trip.
September 26: Arrive back in Jo-burg in the morning.

So there you have it folks! Let us know if there is something specific you had in mind while we are around.

As for the rest of the week…

We spent the week without the sisters because they were in Ethiopia visiting with other sisters. There is another section of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart there; the sisters went there this month and then next month they will come here to Swaziland. We picked the sisters up at the airport on Saturday and said goodbye once again as they traveled to South Africa for a few days. Mikayla was so excited to see them though and ran right up and gave them both big hugs! It was really precious.

Since we had to be in town to pick the sisters up from the airport on Saturday we decided to take full advantage of the situation and spend some time on a hike we have been wanting to do since we arrived in Swaziland. You can read all about it here on Ben’s blog. We basically hiked up to the top of Execution Rock and drove around Mlilwane to see some wildlife. Here are a few of the pictures we took.

Execution Rock 002

Our view coming into the park. Please note the two hippos just hanging out on the island!

Execution Rock 008

Close up on hippos. The lighting is terrible, but you get the picture.

Execution Rock 025

At the beginning of our hike. See that big rock on the left…that is where we went.

Execution Rock 051

Cheesing with daddy…

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And mommy!

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Our little hiker. She insisted on walking most of the way. We only carried her when the rocks were steep and plentiful!

Execution Rock 114

The wildlife around the rest camp is used to humans and so they are really friendly. Here is Mikayla hanging out with a Nyala.

Execution Rock 187

Huge crocodile! We were able to get pretty close to this guy!

Execution Rock 190

And of course we saw lots of zebra!

Here are some bird shots from our visit.

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Execution Rock 158

This is one of my favorite bird shots we have taken thus far!

Execution Rock 009

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We also spent a lot of time at the hostel this week. I am helping out with the afterschool enrichment program we run for the children. It is a program that focuses on English, reading and math skills. Basically I am just offering support and suggestions for ways they can make the program more engaging and meaningful for the kids. Mikayla has even started taking part in the groups and joining the youngest group that is focusing on sounds and basic math. She is becoming more independent at the hostel and runs off with the kids to play immediately. Where a month ago she would have hung onto my leg at all times and made sure I was in her line of vision at all times. She still has though moments, but more and more she gains her independence. It has been really fun to watch her progression. The hostel staff even commented on it the other day!

Ben did some cooking this week. He made a really delicious meal with Impala steaks one night. And then another night he made a grilled shrimp dinner that was super tasty. He used Julia Child’s birthday shrimp recipe and it was delicious! On Sunday morning I made Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with a cream cheese frosting. Mmm! Who ever said you couldn’t eat well in Swaziland!

Mikayla enjoyed spending time playing with her baby dolls and princess dolls this week. That is pretty much the only toys she wanted to play with! We were also able to take some three year portraits one evening. It was a very impromptu thing so her hair is a hot mess and the outfit isn’t what I had intended them to be taken in. But she is still cute! There is an album on Facebook with a lot of the pictures, but some of the best ones can be found here.

Princess dolls 010

Tags: animals, Cooking, Mliliwane, recipes, travel, weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

This Week’s Happenings 6/17-6/24

Monday, June 25th, 2012

We had a pretty uneventful week here in Swaziland, but here are a few highlights.

Last week we decided that we would partner with Joe and have a garden together. We all wanted a garden, but none of us wanted to do the work by ourselves…enter teamwork! The ground is very hard at our garden plot (right outside of Joe’s house), but we were able to dig about 1/3 of it out and prep the ground. Basically you dig a big ditch and then alternate filling it with manure, straw and dirt. This helps to aerate and enriches the soil. We hope to finish digging in the next week or so and then plant by July. We will see! We worked again this week and were able to get three of the four berms finished. One more weekend and we should be about ready to plant.

Letter R, birds 005

Ben and Mikayla hanging out in the ditch before we filled it back up to make our berms.

We have always known that we had a condiment obsession. Most of the time our condiment shelves in the fridge are overflowing. Since arriving in Swaziland and restocking our fridge and pantry, we have also developed a "heat" obsession too. Particularly a hot sauce and chili obsession. We pulled these gems out of the fridge and spice rack. We also have a bag full of frozen chilies in the freezer and a whole rack of chili’s drying in our laundry room. Do you think we have enough?

Letter R, birds 011

From left to right: Ben’s homemade Peri-Peri sauce, homemade chili paste, dried bird’s eye chilies, Peri peri sauce (sweeter), Tony’s Cajun seasoning (our favorite), a Mexican seasoning we picked up here, Chili powder, Ben’s homemade hot sauce, dried and crushed chilies, Nando’s Peri Peri seasoning (Nando’s is a local chicken food chain), Black mamba hot sauce (delicious), Nando’s garlic Peri Peri (also delicious) and in the front row we have Black Mamba chili paste and Cayenne pepper. I guess you could say we love some heat!

Sometimes Ben comes up with the best inventions and sometimes they are just plain silly. He would call the following a "best invention", I call it just plain silly! Instead of pouring Mikayla a glass of milk he took two straws and put them together to make a large straw so she could drink milk out of the box/carton. By the way, have I mentioned the milk here before? It is what they call long life milk and you buy it off of the shelf. It will last for months in the pantry and then three days once you open it in the fridge. I hate the taste of it, but for convenience sake it is nice because we don’t have a grocery around the corner to purchase milk from when we need it. I am looking forward to a nice glass of real milk when we head back to the states (along with some Mexican food and a few other staples)!

Letter R, birds 018 Don’t you just love her mischievous face here?

Early in the week we were painting some rocks for our learning time and I ran inside to get something. When I came back out this is what I found.

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Letter R, birds 014

Turn your eyes for five seconds and this is what a toddler does with paint!

After Mikayla found out her friend Lylah could draw people a few weeks ago she decided she wanted to give it a go. (Do you think she gets the competiveness from Ben or me?) We have been working for a couple of weeks on drawing stick people and she has finally caught on (sort of). Here are some snapshots of her people from this week.

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Letter R, birds 016

Can you see the tiny feet at the bottom? She hasn’t quite got the hang of drawing the feet yet!

Ben caught the stomach bug I had a couple of weeks ago at the end of the week so we laid low. Unfortunately I came down with something on Friday and Saturday we were both pitiful! Good news though, we are both feeling better today!

Here is a bird for Steve. I think we have posted this bird before, but it was before he had his Swazi bird book! These birds look really cool when they are flying because of their long tail feathers.

Letter R, birds 001

Tags: weeks happenings
Posted in Life |

Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

This Week’s Happenings 10/7-10/14

More videos

Some Video Posts

This Week’s Happenings 7/23-8/4

This Week’s Happenings 7/16-7/22

This Week’s Happenings 7/9-7/15

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

This Week’s Happenings 7/2-7/8

This Week’s Happenings 6/24-7/1

This Week’s Happenings 6/17-6/24

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