Acker family (at present)

Acker extended family at present :)

Potential future Acker family members: Lydia and younger brother Meron

Lydia is 15 years old from Eritrea. Here she is making traditional coffee at our house- delicious!

Ready to drink!

Paw Paw enjoying his "boon" coffee and all his grandkids, and adopted grandkids during their January visit!

Kaelah-Joy turns 3!!!

She is still our fearless climber.

Mimi playing "rock school" with the girls
It became an afternoon tradition while she was here.

The competition was fierce

Which hand is the rock in Mimi??

KJ enjoying her cake. Sorry for her our camera battery died...so we were limited on our photos of this momentous ocassion!!

Happy sisters

Still a fashion queen, KJ is sporting big earrings and a necklace

Nana and Papa came for a visit in December

Relaxing by the pool

Making sugar cookies with Nana

At the Source of the Nile

A fishing village on the Nile

A local shrine to the Nile god

Mubarak has at long last finished high school and we danced to celebrate

Mommy and AG dancing at a local dance performance

Jade's parents came for a visit in January and his mom helped out at the Center of Hope with the sewing and cooking classes

Cutting out skirt patterns

The guys all home for Christmas (and Hussein on the far left who works for us) Abdul is now back in Sudan and Mubarak has finished school. In two years they will at long last all be finished with High School!

The girls decorating for Christmas

Sweet girls!

Christmas morning!

Gifts

Princess wave with tiaras

The guys opening gifts

Saudi's hero is Nelson Mandela

Abraham's gift

Christmas dinner--we had both American traditional food and then the guys roasted a goat :)

Christmas dinner with friends

Playing at the pool!

Playing Sudanese dominos at the pool

KJ with 2 of her brothers

KJ and Shelah

Making a gingerbread house with Mommy

I am still not sure it was worth the sweat and tears...but must agree it was a pretty impressive undertaking... :) It was devoured on Christmas day so at least it wasn't only for looks.

Going out to the source of the Nile in Jinja

With Nana and Papa

AG is 5!!!!

Opening presents

We had her party at "Wonder World" the local version of an amusement park

On the rollercoaster

Tea cups

Merrygoround

Fall "Rain" Festival at school. Each class picked an international city and decorated their classrooms, dressed up in costumes and participated in a parade. AG's Kindergarten class chose London as their city. Here they are with Big Ben in the parade.

AG was the Queen of England

KJ's class chose Agra, India

She was very pleased when she won an award for her outfit

KJ hanging out with Angelo at home

Lucky for us we have friends here with the US Embassy who invited us to be their guests at the Marine Ball in Kampala!!

It was a nice rare event to get all dressed up and go out! (did we actually do things like this before kids??)

Thanksgiving Dinner

We had a full house with 30 people and 14 kids!