September stuff

 Not much happened in September, as the city went back to lockdown mode... I took a parenting class, became a COVID contact tracer for the Embassy, we hosted a dinner with Brian's Indian & French counterpart's, made friends with a new family from school and helped our new neighbors settle in...

Also found my new favorite plant/flower here- 

Called the "lobster claw plant" because of the red claw shaped flowers. We have tried to plant them twice now- and they have died. Hopefully someday we will have success in our own yard!

There is lots of time spent like this-

We were talking about Macy's "tages muter" Ester, when we lived in Germany recently... and Macy suddenly said "I still have Ester baby" which is the doll she kept at Ester's house- 

There are two other kids in the neighborhood who like to play- Summer and Brandon, both a year younger than each of my kids. One day Summer and Macy wanted to make popscicles from a recipe Macy saw in a magazine, so they did and Brian helped out just a bit!

Orchids grow VERY well outside here. See the pink flowers coming out of our palm tree?

Brian just tucked that into a crevice in the tree and grow it did!

We have a new neighborhood mascot- a monitor lizard! He is about 5 ft long and one day I looked out and he was in our garden. Sadly not the best picture, but he is in the middle of the pic, along the wire fence- looking very much like a small alligator- 

Slow days mean more time in the kitchen for Brian- and he taught the kids how to make homemade pasta- 

Sometimes I miss the busy-ness of our old life here, other nights I embrace it and find joy that we are all home and the kids have time to draw, color, whatever they want!

For our dinner party, Brian roasted lamb  and wrapped it in a banana leaf, a very common practice here to preserve moisture and gaurantee moist meat. He went out to the yard and cut down this leaf from our very own banana tree-

So, so cool!