Updating Blog - Thanksgiving

So, one of the reasons that I did not post a lot in the last six months is that my computer died.  Arianna has the oldest computer in the house so it was quite disappointing to have mine die.  For a while I couldn't access my old data, including photos and then I wasn't quite sure where to store new photos on my newer computer.  Finding my photo-less posts to be quite dull I just didn't post.  I finally have gotten around to uploading my photos and so I thought I'd catch up a bit.

We hosted another Thanksgiving dinner complete with Turkeys that that Embassy imported via South Africa:

We had several families over and the crowd included quite a lot of teens:

They had a good time, especially carving our two pumpkins.  Just for the record, they didn't show up in the shop until the first week in November (after Halloween mind you).  However, it was the first time in 5 years that I found real carving pumpkins, so I thought the girls would be excited to see them.  They were, but didn't get around to carving them so it was good Thanksgiving entertainment.

The tall and the small of the younger crowd:

See, isn't it more fun to read when there are photos???

Last College Visit

After three and a half years of visiting colleges with our first born, we are pretty sure we had the last one in December.  We saw four last summer (one of which we had seen two years prior) and when it came time to apply we realized we needed another visit to Gordon College because when we first visited a year and a half earlier Arianna was planning on majoring in Elementary Ed.  Since then she has changed her mind and decided to major in Music Ed.  Gordon has a new head of department and great placement rate so we thought we ought to give it another look.

So, after arriving in JFK last December we rented a car and got up to Connecticut that night.  We spent a whirlwind day at Gordon and enjoyed the visit very much.  Of course we couldn't leave the area without seeing how close the beach actually was to Gordon.  It was a lovely beach in a lovely town quite close.

However, despite a very positive day, Arianna has not made a final decision (and please don't ask her about it!).  She has received scholarships from all of the schools to which she applied (resulting in proud parents) and stands to receive a bit more so is waiting to hear what the final packages are before she makes a decision.

ISSEA Band 2015

Last year HIS (Harare International School) hosted the first annual ISSEA (International Schools of Southern and Eastern Africa) Band Festival.  And yes, all the HIS string players played in the band (mostly covering the oboe part with the violins and the bassoon part on the cello).  Abigail had a great time meeting kids from the other international schools (if you recall, we hosted a Canadian and a girl from India who were from the international school in Tanzania).

One of the hardest things about not sending Abigail to HIS was the fact that she wasn't going to be allowed to participate in this year's festival which was held in South Africa (I asked at about it in January 2014).  Then in December when the plans were being made I finally had a chat with the HIS music director about the possibility of Abigail going.  Originally they thought all the spots would be taken up by current HIS students but in the end there was a spot left on their maximum number of participants.

After much back and forth (emails to the school director, ISSEA director, etc.) it was finally decided that Abigail would be allowed to go!  It was very exciting to have such a positive outcome and Abigail anticipated the event enthusiastically.  She loves South Africa and had a blast seeing some of her friends from last year and just being around the kids for a few days.  They kids all seemed to agree that the festival wasn't quite as good as when HIS hosted it but they all had a blast anyway!  You can see some photos if you are on Facebook here:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/ISSEA-2015-Band-and-Choir/348125352041802

Something New!

I have been incredibly slack in posts as of late - did you notice?

Last Saturday was a new first - first wedding gig that the girls did!  It was fun to be the Macy Trio.

Weddings are always a bit stressful to play for - this one had the added stress that it was in a new culture.  So, the bride had put on the invitation that the wedding would start at 4 but wasn't really sure what time the guests would arrive.  I had a few experiences of cross cultural weddings in my days back at True Light Community Church and so I wasn't convinced that the wedding would start anywhere close to 4.

So, after a few back and forth conversations with the bride (Zimbabwean) and groom (who it turned out was from Pittsburgh), we settled on the plan that the minister would actually keep the wedding to 45 minutes and we would play a little prelude, the processional and stay through for the recessional.  Sticking to our 90 minute maximum by starting to play just 15 minutes before the stated start time of the wedding, with the plan that it would start 15 minutes late.

There were actually a few guests there at 3:45 so we started to play.  4:15 comes and goes and no sign of the wedding party or even too many guests.  But they did seem to be there in full force when, at 4:45 I was finally informed that the bride had just left her house!  Happily it wasn't too far away and we "made a plan" to skip out after the processional (which actually was the original plan, but the groom had hoped for a recessional too).  We ended just on the dot of our 90 minutes and never did find out if the minister stuck to his promise of a 45 minute ceremony.   What do you think?

Another Unfamiliar Sound

Rain!  We did have our first rain a couple of weeks ago, but this was a full fledged thunderstorm so it was the rain pounding on the roof accompanied by thunder sound that we haven't heard in months.  Of course, it happened to occur when we needed to go pick up Abigail from the movies.  Fortunately, John offered to go with me because - yeesh - it was pouring and the roads were full of water.  One road near our house has very poor drainage (and of course no street lights) so it is always scary in the rain.  It is amazing how foreign it feels to have rain and that soon it will feel very commonplace!

Ah! the Sweet Sound of Silence

Since my last post our generator has been running 24/7.  The reason that we have a generator is of course due to unreliable power here in Zim.  Power cuts are at times a daily occurrence and when that is the case we are most thankful that we have a generator running.

However, in the past two months the issue has not been a lack of Zesa (local power company) but apparent surges in that power.  And our generator is set to come on when there are surges to protect the US Government appliances in our house (and of course our electrical devices as well).  Despite numerous visits from Embassy personnel and their attempts to get Zesa to figure out the problem our generator continued on - with it's accompanying noise and smell (and of course, cost).

This morning yet another Zesa team came and this time seem to have found the problem on the property next door.  And so, for the first time since we've returned back from the US in August it is actually quiet.  The sound of silence can be amazing!

Breaking the Silence

I'm not sure who's reading this blog - but apologies go out to any of you who check it regularly for the almost 3 months with no posts.  Now that we're starting our third year here (haven't lived in a house that long since 2004!) a lot of things will be annual occurances, so I probably will be posting less often.

But there's another reason that I might not get to post so much:

Abigail is doing 9th grade at home.  This was a VERY hard decision because she really enjoyed the social interaction at HIS.  But for a variety of reasons, we decided the best thing would be for her to attend part-time.  We made this request of the school during the second semester last year, and much to our dissappointment, we were turned down.  Happily, the school will continue to allow the girls to particpate in after school activities.

While Abigail is taking many online, teacher based courses (Algebra 2, Spanish 4, Biology and Literature), she is not doing a complete school program.  So, that combined with her need to get out and about every day is going to make life a bit interesting in the coming school year.  She started school two weeks ago and so far is enjoying her course work but does miss being with her friends every day.

Of course, we also have a high school senior who is applying to college.  Happily, Arianna's school doesn't start until after Labor Day so she has been able to spend the last couple of weeks relaxing and getting a head start on applications.

This coming week both girls will be busy with some of those "annual occurance" events.  Abigail is at the National Musicamp out in the country (the HIS kids also skip a week of school to go) and Arianna will return to a day camp that is run by the local churches for 15-25 year olds (Week of Transformation - otherwise known as WOT).

We are definitely getting settled back into our lives here after our "home leave" summer in the US.  Hopefully I'll get to post a few high lights of that in the future.