How is our life in Tanzania different than yours? How is it the same? Let's take a look at what a typical day here might hold, and you can see for yourself.
Breakfast. We occasionally have guests come to help us with some aspect of the project. It's nice when a guest stays at our house, as our friend Leila did recently. She took this picture of us at breakfast. Jack was upset because he had knocked his knee and was being consoled by his Mama and Blankie. Tessa wears her princess crown almost daily. On this day she is holding bean sprouts that she and Jack grew from 2 lone beans. They planted them later on in the afternoon. In this photo Dusty is recovering from a black eye he received from an accidental elbow to the face during the weekly Sunday afternoon soccer game.
Dusty takes his "piki piki" to the office, which is about 4km down a dirt road.
After Dusty leaves, I hit the trail with Ellie for some fresh air and exercise. The fresh air bit can be a challenge since the farmers are daily burning off dead grasses and residue these days, and the air is frequently smokey.
We try to do something interesting in the mornings. Here the kids are enjoying water balloons before tossing them at each other, which they loved.
Another example of a morning activity - we made grape juice! We've never seen grapes in Musoma till the past few weeks when they've shown up at the market. Because the skins are a bit tough, and the grapes have seeds, I decided it would be easier to enjoy them as juice. The kids plucked them, threw them in the blender, and then strained them. I boiled the skins, added a bit of sugar, and strained it again, and now we have fresh grape juice for the first time ever. Great!
After lunch is Jack's nap time, "Mama Time," and "Tessa Time." While Jack sleeps, Tessa does a bit of coloring, a craft, looks at her books, and enjoys her imagination while I get a few things done (guess what time it is right now?). Yesterday's rest time was interrupted by a mighty crash and screaming. While trying to get some photographs to look at, Tessa inadvertently pulled a six foot tall bookshelf down on top of herself, but miraculously escaped unscathed. To say we were relieved would be a vast understatement. I prefer rest time without drama.
While he's at the office, Dusty is currently supervising the beginning stages of constructing the new translation building. Here are two workers grinding rocks (to mix for concrete). The team is also clearing the area for the building and making concrete blocks for the walls.
Dusty is also supervising the literacy team, and we're in the middle of four weeks of literacy workshops. Here he is holding a meeting in Swahili with some members of the team to clarify some details for the workshop.
Back at the house, and after rest time, I get some afternoon chores done like taking down the laundry. We are very blessed to have both a washer and a dryer, but unless it is raining, or the trees are dropping seed balls full of gook, we hang the laundry outside the kitchen window like in the "good old days."
A fun afternoon activity, when the weather is not too hot or wet, is reading books in the hammock with the kids before the pre-dinner frenzy begins.
Our evenings are generally more mundane (dinner, bath-time, etc.), but who wants to read about the mundane on a blog? So instead I'm giving you a glimpse of an evening we had out recently when a few of the missionaries were invited to the home of a colleague from work. Nashon is a pastor, but he also helps out at the office with several tasks. His wife and family prepared a lovely dinner for us in the home they are building. Traditionally the guests bring a gift for the host like bananas or sugar, but we all pitched in for a less traditional gift: much-needed bags of cement to help with the construction.
Mama Grace (Nashon's wife) pulled out all the stops by cooking rice, beans, fish, meat stew, cucumbers, pasta, cabbage with carrots, and pilau - all cooked outside over a small coal stove. It was an amazing spread in the home of a family full of generosity.
After the meal, Tessa and Jack played with the neighborhood children. The evening's big game for the kids was jumping off a large rock. We made it back to our house a bit before dark, and after brushing teeth, a good-night story, prayer, and bedtime songs, the kids collapsed in their beds, under their mosquito nets exhausted from...just another day of our lives in Tanzania..
January - the typical excitement over opening a care package! 
February - we're always trying to get decent family shots for the prayer updates and newsletters. This one is in our backyard.
March - Making Tessa's 5th birthday cake together
April - The kids love dying and decorating Easter eggs. This year we had letter stickers from a care package that worked nicely.
May - Mother's Day gifts that Dusty bought on a trip to Dar included Caesar salad dressing, a citronella candle, beet seeds, and pesto in a jar.
June - The Tanzanians and missionaries from our project came together by (ironically) playing each other in a "World Cup" soccer match, and everyone had a great time and felt more unified as a result. Since then we've had several more games with mixed teams.
July - Annual family photograph session on the Kenyan coast at our branch conference. Sometimes the best photo follows the silliest.
August - Tessa gets involved at the literacy workshop.
September - Dusty's birthday, hamming it up.
October - dressed up for the wedding of one of the translators, Shem.
November - mini-vacation at the Rondo Retreat in the Kakamega Rain Forest in Kenya. We let Tessa use our big and heavy camera to finally get a picture of the two of us together. She did a pretty good job!
December - Jack turned 4 on December 23rd, but we celebrated with a party on the Saturday beforehand. He loved his dinosaur cake, pin the tail on the donkey, pass the parcel, and musical chairs. On the 26th he said, "Now I'm almost five!"
