The Copeland Ramblings/

Real first day of school

Today was the day! They actually started school. I definitely got a better first day of school picture today than yesterday. =)

The boys were both a little nervous, yet they were in a familiar place. But it was a little confusing to Emmaus since he is in a new room with new teachers. He was a bit nervous but then he realized we would be leaving soon and got very clingy. So they mentioned his favorite teacher from last year… The one he was joined at the hip with. They loved each other so much. So she came in and he gave her a big hug and laid his head on her shoulder. He was happy to see her, yet he realized it meant we were leaving. So they shooed us out the door and we left. Emmaus was really crying. It was hard to leave with him crying. But I am so positive that this is where God wants them that I had peace in that.

It turns out that Canaan has the same teacher as last year. Which I love! Its great because she already knows them and what they are like. What they are good and what they struggle with. And Canaan likes her and is very used to her. I didn’t see any of the English teachers, we shall see later on if they will be getting any. Canaan’s best friend was there. His name is Guy and he is from Britain. Today he was the only other white kid there. But who knows maybe some others will trickle in.

They morning went fast for me and before I knew it, it was time to go get them from school. They were both thrilled to see us but seemed as if they had good days. Emmaus’ teacher said he cried a fair bit today. But that it was normal. Emmaus was quite the popular boy last year. So everyone was so happy to see him today… and of course Canaan too!

Faux first day of school!

We have excitedly looking forward to today for a while. Today was the first day of school. The kids were really excited to see some of their friends again. So this morning we woke up at 6:45, got ready and piled out the door with all of the supplies for the year. Everyone was a bit groggy still, but we were excited about school. When we got there we quickly figured out that something was not quite right. Someone told us the wrong date for school to start. It actually starts TOMORROW! Haha. I guess its better to be a day early than a day late. =) The kids were a bit bummed. But on the way home Canaan told me he was really excited that there was no school today because it meant he got to play with me all day!

Since we were already at the school we dropped off all of the school supplies and took the chance to check out the new classrooms. This year Emmaus will be in the classroom Canaan was in last year and Canaan has a new room as well. They were in the middle of setting up the new rooms. They repainted and decorated the whole school. It kind of looked like they needed another few weeks to finish setting up. But supposedly school will be underway tomorrow. The kids really enjoyed seeing their new classrooms. I think it will be really helpful tomorrow when we take them into school.

The day obviously did not go as planned but instead of school we had plenty of things to do! We went to a little grocery store and bought a couple of things like milk powder, tea bags, boxed milk, yogurt, crackers and juice. Then when we came home we put away the groceries, and headed out to the balcony.  I hung up the laundry while the kids played.

We put water into buckets so that they could wash their toy cars.

After we played outside we came in and made Banana muffins. The kids love helping me bake. They both sit up on the counter and help me pour and stir. While the muffins were baking we played with the legos. When the muffins were done we all ate one. They tasted super good. =)

After we ate our muffins we did a small craft with some little tea boxes.

When we were done with our boxes the kids played with the legos again while I made lunch. We had hot dogs and a thing of Mac n cheese that I had brought back to Senegal from the states. After lunch we played with the legos AGAIN! =)

And then after that everyone had a little rest. The power just came back on. Its been off since early this morning. We are happy to have the fans back on! =) Thats our faux first day of school. At least the first part of it. Who knows what lay ahead for the rest of the day!

3 survivors!

Yep! Canaan, Emmaus and I are survivors! We made the 36 hour journey back home to Dakar. And on top of that we have survived 40 hours worth of power outages since we have been home! We are surviving the extreme heat and humidity. We have also survived a record wind/rain storm the day after arriving home. (Norm is also a survivor! He survived nearly 3 months without us! That was not easy!)

Home again! Home again!

The boys were great troopers on our trip back to Dakar. They RUSHED through the hurricane affected airports with me with very minimal complaining. We had to do so much exercise on our layovers that they slept half of the 21 hours worth of airplane time. New York was very busy and crazy and we barely made it to our flight but we were so thankful that everything went so well. We ZERO meltdowns and hardly any bad attitudes. We had no drinks spill all over us and no puking.

The iPad saves the day!
The boys playing during our 6 hour layover in Madrid, Spain.

The humidity hit us like a wall when we got off the plane in Dakar. But we were second in line at customs and a new military friend of Norm’s came and got us and swiftly took us through the formalities in customs, all we had to do was stand there!!

The reunion was JOYOUS. I can’t think of any other word to describe it. Hugs and love all around. It was so wonderful! We have had such a great 5 days of spending time together and settling back into life in Africa.

My allergies started right back up as soon as I got off the plane. But God knows! We are planning on starting an allergy shot treatment in the near future. We are hopeful that they will be really helpful.

The kids start school on Thursday. Its been nice to readjust to life in Senegal before school starts. But we are looking forward to things getting back to our normal schedule.