Back to School

Welcome to our new family blog! I'm going to post weekly family updates so we can better stay in touch as we continue our adventures in Dakar. Big thanks to my sister-in-law for setting the example. So, a quick catch-up: the kids and I arrived back to Dakar in August a few days after Fred moved us into our new house. We all love the new house, particularly the yard that allows lots of outdoor fun. We're also a little closer to school which is a nice bonus. We've been unpacking, organizing the house, and getting things fixed and re-fixed. So I'm happy to report that as of now, we have electricity throughout the house, working A/C in the bedrooms and family rooms, and major plumbing leaks fixed (the little ones still await fixes). Here's the first day of school - note the long hair as it didn't last long in this humidity (Aug 12):

All the kids are happy back at school - Lucy in first, Charlie in third and Max in sixth. The biggest change has been for Max who now has 8 classes on an 8 day rotation schedule with 4 classes per day plus advisory. Fred and I went to the middle school open house last week where we visited each of his classes and we're thrilled with what he'll be learning this year. Later this week we'll have the open house for Lucy and Charlie. In the meantime, Charlie kept things from getting too boring by breaking/chipping his front teeth (and luckily not more of his face) while building a fort on the front porch yesterday. He was leaning down from a cement wall that's about 4 feet high and fell face first onto the tile ground. We see the dentist later today. Charlie stuck to soups, milkshakes and apple sauce for the rest of the day and the swelling went down pretty quickly all things considered. This morning:

And since I don't seem to have any other pictures to post, here are a few good ones from the summer and I'll take more pics this week (Max has the same haircut as Charlie).