Don't you just hate it when... (South Africa style)

Don't you just hate it when...

after learning all the adapter styles that you need to have for South Africa to run all of your electronics, and then plugging your adapter into the extension cord, that is plugged into the 3 prong which is plugged into the converter which is then plugged into the wall in the next room because that is the nearest plug, you realize that you can't watch the download of the season finale of your absolute favorite show because you've just capped your internet!

you wait for 3 weeks for your capped internet service to come back up, you excitedly log on, and nothing happens and you go to find that something has eaten through the wire.....

you log on and excitedly skype all your family and friends that you've been waiting to talk to and realize that the hour conversation just took up 1/6th of your allocated monthly usage and you've only talked to one grandma so far!

you start to smell a dead animal odor and think that maybe you weren't dreaming about the cable being bit in two. Your manly husband goes up to investigate it and finds lovely kangaroo rat perched stiff as a board on the bookshelf. That really stinks!!

you finally think your connectivity issues are resolved and the water goes out at the house, so you have to stay where there's no internet connection for 3 more days.

you finally get ready to come back to the house after a week of being away on a trip and disconnected and find the power is off in the whole neighborhood and manly husband again has to take really big dog through the whole house room by room in the middle of the night (without a flashlight) to make sure there are no intruders.

Don't you just love it when you finally get in the house, the water is on, the power is on, there are no dead stinky animals, you have all the right converters and adapters connected, you log on and not only do you find 4 offers on your house for sale (whoo-hooo) but then you find sweet emails from your family and friends. All that other stuff - 423 bazillion hours of stress, happy emails from home - priceless!

He's eatin' and breathin' and celebratin' life!!

Weird title, yes I know, but I just had to write a note to share our praise of God! Shiloh's allergies are doing so well here. In the last 3 years in the U.S., Shiloh has suffered from terrible food and pollen allergies that required him to use breathing treatments, epi pens, antihistamines, inhalers, and avoid all the many ways that corn, soy, nuts, wheat, rice and carrots (yes carrots) could be put into any edible substance. This was such a huge pain as the kid could never just eat out somewhere or go to a birthday party and eat the cake.

Well after many grueling, but effective alternative treatments (www.naet.com) - years of needle prick skin tests at the allergist and disappointments after avoiding food for years and becoming MORE allergic to it, Shiloh has now triumphed over all of it and is loving life. We decided when we got on the plane to London that we would have to just put it all in the hands of God as we couldn't "control" what he was eating everywhere that we would be going. I was armed with the emergency responder bag full of all kinds of meds to help him breathe in case of dire situation. You should have seen his face on the plane when we told him he could eat anything on the tray - he still read all the ingredients anyway. I told him not to look at them anymore, that he had to have faith and believe.....

His first exciting thing was the dessert, then the sour cream and chive pretzels, then.... anything he wanted!!!! He also has not had to take his antihistamines or nasal sprays once since he arrived. The doc in the US told us that if we could get coastal, the ocean air would blow away the pollens and that it would take generally 3 years to become allergic to the pollens in a new place. Let's hope he's right since there are about 900 different types of grasses in South Africa!! So as Shiloh happily eats the muffins, burgers, foods, etc. that he's avoided for so long, you wouldn't believe how his palate has widened and he's willing to try new foods. I think he thinks South Africa is the most awesome place purely because of this (and the beach of course). Now we won't be so bold as to eat a mealy (as they call corn on the cob here) or a nut and test our luck, but we will for now enjoy the pleasures of this freedom for him and pray that it will continue.

Funny, that when we would say our prayers together at night in the US, we would pray for God's kingdom to come and talk about how in the kingdom he'd be able to eat anything he wanted...... what a blessing that he didn't have to wait! A special thank you to all of our family and friends who for all those years grocery shopped and cooked to feed Shiloh.... I know you all are especially rejoicing with him now. If so - send Shiloh a note on the comments - he'd love to hear from you.

Ode to Buddy

Our dear sweet little long haired chihuahua came to live with us about 10 years ago. When we moved to South Africa, we had to find a home for him. The kids were very sad, but were comforted knowing that our dear friend Sam (pictured below) took him into her home and found him a wonderful place to live! He now lives with a man who has a small poodle named Teddy. He has a yard, and a pool to drink out of, and lots of room to play! I thought it might be nice to record for history's sake a few stories about Buddy's life with us and how we believe that he must be the immortal dog that may never die.


When Cameron picked up Buddy for the first time from his previous owners (yes- Buddy was the dog that got the boot when the baby came!), he was dressed in his business suit and on his lunch break from work at Wal-Mart ISD. It was a hot summer day and he planned to run him about 30 minutes home to our house. Buddy's name was originally Copper, but he was so untrained that he didn't even know his name, so we renamed him Buddy because he was our dog Bitty's little Buddy. Buddy started to whine tremendously on the way home and Cameron thought that he must need to go to the bathroom. He didn't bring a leash, but he thought that he'd be able to stop and like our other dog, he'd just do his business then Cam could pick him up. Cam stopped at the Walton Life Fitness Center and let him out and the dog took off like a flash of lightning. Now Buddy is faster than any cat you'll ever meet, and Cameron absolutely could not catch him. Here was this 175 pound man in a full suit in the middle of a summer day chasing this 5 pound chihuahua all around trying to keep him from going into the street. Cameron enlisted the help of some very amused sand volleyball players and a team of them finally caught the dog. I believe this was truly the beginning of Cameron's cynical humor toward Buddy. He's spent the rest of Buddy's life trying to get even!


Then there was the time that we drove down with Marria and Dyron to Arkansas Bible School and took Buddy with us. He howled the whole way there which was the longest trip ever on earth at that time (we didn't have kids yet!) When we stopped at Grandmother Sanders house, and opened the door, Buddy bounded out of the car with a vengeance and headed straight for her donkey! That donkey started hee-hawing and ran as fast as it could with this tiny little dog chasing him all around the pasture. I will never forget how hard Marcia laughed, we were all crying and had vowed that had we been in possession of a video camera, we would have won the World's Funniest Video Show. Buddy came proudly prancing back after he had passed up the donkey with the biggest smile on his face.

Shiloh's first words were Bu-du - and he loved Buddy. Buddy put up with a lot from the kids, everything from being drug around on a leash way too long (he hated leashes), to being carried like a baby, and put into strollers, etc. Buddy had many near death experiences which he managed to always narrowly escape. There was the time that he opened a whole bag of hershey kisses that were on top of the upright piano, and unwrapped the foil and ate all of the chocolate (I kid you not) and never even got sick. Isn't chocolate supposed to be toxic to a dog? Then there was the time that he got into my lunch box on the table and ate my vitamins. We got home that night at 10 pm and called the vet, and even though I knew Bitty had not been into them, the vet said we had to give them both ipecac to induce vomiting. Poor Bitty started throwing up right then, but after 3 doses, Buddy still had not thrown up. The vet said he'd never heard of a dog that wouldn't heave after 3 doses of ipecac - go figure!

Then there was the time after we had moved into our house in Bentonville that Cameron left the lid off of the hot tub. Buddy loved to jump up on that lid so he could see into the neighbor's yard and look at their dog. Ani was just a few months old and was napping in my room, and I went for a nap, which was something I never did, and kept hearing this water splashing. At first I thought it was the washing machine, then I checked the kitchen sink, finally I went outside and Buddy was dog paddling to save his life in a hot tub that was 102 degrees! Poor little guy. I guess I should have realized at this point that Cameron was trying to knock off the dog, but it really didn't dawn on me until he started making all the comments to the kids about the meat we were having for dinner was chihuahua!!

In spite of all of the peed on furniture and carpets, the scratched up doors which we had to repair, the killer bad breath and the continual escape attempts (how many times did Laura phone me that she saw a dog that looked just like Buddy running down the road?), we have very loving memories of Buddy and all of our adventures with him. He's always been such an affectionate, sweet dog - and we are so glad he has a new friend to share his life with.