Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Jinja

I have been posting updates, but it has been a long time since I did a picture update. We are only updated until April 2nd in pictures so if you continue be prepared for a huge photo dump!!

I left off with the day Mike came. I was SOOOO excited!! I COULD.NOT.WAIT. to see my man!! It was only 17 days, so just two and a half weeks, but it felt like an eternity! Now it has been more than 60 days since I saw him off at the airport! Anyway, I could not wait to see him an introduce him to our son! I think I embarrassed the Ugandans, who typically NEVER show public displays of affection in the way I flew to my husband and refused to let go, but I was later told my behavior was probably excused since I am an American. Whatever that means.
So here is Mike meeting his son for the first time. He was sleeping.
No words needed.
The next morning after meeting his son we went to Jinja on a weekend holiday at the Jinja Nile Resort on the Nile river. We knew the rest of Mike's trip would include courts and judges and meetings and stress, so we decided to take a little time for ourselves to bond our new family. Before we got there we went to Bugagali Falls at the Source of the Nile.
Mike and J at the source of the Nile.
Our first family (self) photo minus J's head. Sorry J, I did mention it was a self photo. Taken at the source of the Nile. That is pretty cool!
The mighty Nile. It is still hard to believe I was there! At the Nile River! How exotic of me!
Testing the waters. I wasn't going to go swimming, there are crocodiles in there! But I wasn't going to pass up the chance to touch the Nile River either!
The adorable monkeys at our resort. Room service for one please?
So curious!
Yes, they really came this close!
Cute baby!
Twins! Aww, he sucks his thumb just like a people baby!
Just hanging around!
The Nile from our resort.
By the end of his second day with Daddy I would say J was pretty comfortable with him!
Easter morning at the Jinja Nile Resort.
Ya, I love him!
Tuckered out after Easter breakfast in the hotel dining room.
Second family picture. This time we managed to get J, but he is sleeping :)
A cute monkey we saw on the walk back to our bungalow after breakfast.
After breakfast we lounged by the pool and I went swimming. Suddenly the sky opened up and rained on us like nothing I had ever experienced. We ducked under a thatched cabana until a lady from the hotel offered us an umbrella and we hightailed it back to our bungalow. We were soo drenched by the time we got there. We decided to put Jeremiah down for his nap and we all ended up catching up on our rest. After nap time we wandered around the grounds of the hotel and watched some Ugandan fishing boats out on the water. They have to have 3 men in the boat, one person to row the boat, one person to bail, and one person to fish!
There was supposed to be a huge Easter dinner in the main dining room, so we decided to go up and watch the sun set while we waited for dinner.
Sun setting over the Nile.
A view of the cabana area from the balcony by the upstairs dining room.
I love you Dad!!!!!

We took pictures while we waited for dinner and then we finally went in and asked how long until dinner would be ready. 10PM!!!! What? We decided to go eat in the bistro downstairs!
We ate out on the patio with a view of the pool and setting sun. It was very romantic until Jeremiah started screaming. I asked for some warm water so I could make the baby a bottle. Thirty minutes they bring me a kettle of water that was still boiling! I told them that was way too hot and could I please get some warm water. They motioned to J and asked if it was for him and I said yes, to which they replied that it was warm for him. I said "no, it will burn him!" They acted like I was very ignorant and went to fetch some warm water. Another 10 minutes passed and I decided that maybe if I brought my hungry screaming baby into the restaurant I might get better service. I was right! Funny how that works. After Jeremiah was fed and sleeping I enjoyed my English tea and margarita pizza. Partway through dinner the power went out (making us so glad we had decided Not to eat in the dining room upstairs since it was after 10pm by then. They brought us candles and it was very romantic!
I loved the Jinja Nile Resort cups and saucers and asked the waiter if I could buy two sets thinking they would make a great souvenir. After checking with his manager he said they were not for sale. Come to think of it they had no gift shop at all. Someone should teach them about capitalism!
Stanly, the bear we found in Ireland who has accompanied us on every trip since then appearing in random pictures :)
The power didn't come back on so we made our way into the dimly lit front desk and asked for candles which he gladly produced for me along with matches. We laughed all the way back to our room because Mike had woken up at 1am the night before with Jeremiah to make him his bottle. The power was out then too (we are in Africa) and in his sleepiness he somehow manage to pour Jeremiah's formula into my flashlight which was illuminating the situation. He killed my flashlight. A moment of silence for the poor orange flashlight I bought in Hawaii......RIP poor flashlight. Anyway, after killing our only light source he managed to make it to the front desk in the dark, which was quite a feet considering the pitch blackness of the night and the size of the resort. We were pretty far away! He asked for candles because our power was out and they explained to him that they don't give candles to guests and he should have brought a torch (flashlight).
The next morning we got up early because we had arranged for our driver to meet us at 8:30am so we could do some African shopping in Jinja before heading home. We went to the lobby and checked out and waited for him. And waited. And waited. And WAITED! I finally called him and he said he just left and would be there in about 2 hours. Did I mention we checked out, so we couldn't just go back to our room and change into our suits and go swimming and we really didn't want to drag all of our luggage over to the bistro even though English tea sounded delish! So Mike went and took Jeremiah to take some pictures and I arranged a special hire to take us into town while the front desk kept our luggage. When we go back to the resort after shopping our driver was there waiting for us. He was very annoyed the we made him wait, but somehow I didn't feel too bad!
J and Stanly on our last day a the Nile.
Stanly he Irish bear at the Nile River.
And that was our first holiday as a family. Jinja was wonderful and I loved every minute of it with the two men in my life!




1 comment:

Chrystie said...

I LOVED your updates! :) Wow! on the taxi driver! Time is has such a dif. meaning there! That is weird & a bummer you couldn't take the cups & saucers home! Darn! I thought everything had a price! Guess not! Too funny about the long hug when you saw Mike! That's funny they're not into PDA there! Who knew! :)