pretzels and bunkbeds

Our days have made the transition from all day study to beginning preparations for moving into the tribe! Yay! (And now that i feel so much better, i'm beginning to be able to actually help - yay!) (Note: Our plan to move into the tribe is for late this year - after our time in the States)

Phil has been working on making beds for our house interior. We wanted beds that would be sturdy, affordable, and dis-assemble-able (for all the travel yet to come). So, we settled on twin beds for the kids (kidS! yikes!) and a queen for us. He's done such a great job! I think they're beautiful. I'm so proud of him. :0)

8am the sun is already high and close and hot. Thank God for sunscreen (now, only if we could find some shade...).

Since there is no building supply super-store anywhere here, all the wood needed to be prepped once we bought it. A friendly neighbor came to the rescue when he offered to take it all (on the back of his motorbike) to have it planed by machine (Phil was planning on planing it all with a hand-planer... yikes). So, for a cool $6, we got all the wood for all three beds planed and ready to go!

Late afternoon work always attracts the attention of the neighborhood kids. Phil works around them, as they try to "help".

Queen bed almost done!

Adding the plywood.

Testing out the mattress fit (also known as taking a break).

Sizing the headboard

Nearly done

One of the twin bunkbeds gets attention (party hat helps him think).

Testing out the mattress fit (also bouncing gleefully on her "Brandnew HUMUNGOUS bed!!! I sleep up on TOP!!!).

Adding varnish to keep moisture and termites at bay for awhile. They are beautiful! He has done a fantastic job. He's never built beds before, and we had nothing to go on. He just whipped these things up like it was nothing... He even beveled the edges of the tops of the posts to make them less sharp :0). I love it!

While Phil works away the morning in the hot equator sun (that seems to be everywhere... there is no place to hide), i work on making food for the day (among other things). Above i'm working on soft pretzels - a Saturday evening favorite in our house.

Nadia splits her time between "helping" Phil and helping me. Overall, she's a busy little girl.

Saturday evening pretzels! Yummy! (she likes them with yellow mustard, just like her mama). She calls them 'prince-els'. She used to call them 'princesses', but has recently gotten closer to 'pretzel'. :0)

The end of a long work day for us here. Sleep comes easy to all three of us these days. We are blessed with work for our hands and rest for our bones. :0)