Reason #836 to Come Visit Us in Florida

Ok--we definitely expanded upon the home improvements over the weekend (thanks to Target's 75% off summer sale). We just got it all put together last night. So...there's lot of room for relaxing when visitors come! hint...hint...

Jeff's Grill

I gave wife approval to get a grill this past weekend as well. Here's the proud owner!

Daouda b'a fe furano bilibiliba o la n ko, "a be se k'a san" weekend temenen. A b'a fe kosebe barisa sisan a be se ka sogo tobi ka dun cama cama.

Sod: Before and After

We did it! We've been talking about it for months, but we finally sodded the backyard! Thankfully, our good friends, Aaron and Shelley, came over and helped out a ton so the job got done FAST. The whole project started when I came home last Monday from work and I looked outside only to see the weeds missing from the backyard (I say weeds b/c no real grass existed out there).
Jeff had ripped up the yard and said, "We're sodding Saturday." Ok...so we're sodding. Tuesday I came home and he had huge holes all over the backyard--making sure no missing irrigation heads weren't missing. He said, "If we're sodding, better make sure this is done right." Ok...so we're digging up the ENTIRE irrigation system just to make sure.

Alright, to be fair, he really was doing a great job. I'm just trying to make the story better. So we spent the week prepping the backyard and our other friends, Wayne and Danielle, came over to rip up the last few patches before the big day. Last Saturday, the truck showed up and delivered FIVE pallets. By the end of the day, we were all covered in our lovely loam and no, I did not plan those black spots so nicely and stratigically placed on my shirt. It just happened. Anyway, it looks great and we're pretty excited about being able to enjoy the backyard now!

Tegedegena ka di! Peanut butter Sauce is Good!

" Tege" means peanut and "tegedege" means peanut butter and "na" means sauce, SO peanut butter sauce! It was one of our Malian favorites. We decided to have Malian night at our house one day with our neighbors. When Jeff would make it in Mali, it was so good that everyone called it "tegedaoudana" instead. Jeff's Malian name was Daouda so it was like "Jeff's peanut sauce."

The rule is that Jeff cooks the sauce and I cook the rice. It's dangerous to cook in our house b/c the pups will lay right behind you and try to make you fall down and trip. I'm very accident prone SO this is probably going to happen one day.

These are our neighbors, Beth and Brennan, who humored our Malian outfits while eating Jeff's famous peanut butter sauce on rice, or tegedegena [say it like tiga-diga-na]. Jeff and Brennan had the super dressy outfits. Beth and I went more casual.

An ka voisins, Beth ni Brennan, don. U na na an ka so ka tegedegena dun an fe. An ye feti fitini ke an ka sokono walasa ka Mali feti kalan.

Dog Drama

So a couple of weeks ago, Karma and Zen got in a fight and Zen won. Karma was limping around and sad for days and I had to take her to the vet b/c she had a puncture wound in her armpit (see circled area). So I took a picture of the actual wound below. I know it looks small, but it was a real BIG FAT HOLE in Karma's leg.

Look at this proof of Zen being a ninja assassin. A silent killer if you will.
Here is Giles and Karma fighting over the prized flamingo rope toy. It was so funny to see them fight over it b/c every once in a while one would drag the other one by the toy across the floor.

Catch-Up from June

Ah-the parents! N ka bangebaw don.
This is Uncle Paul/A ye ton ton Paul ye.
The Family on the Boat/An ka somogow be batowkan.

Just wanted to post some pictures from when the family was visiting last month through this past weekend. These are from when they were here in June and we rented a boat to go out on the intercoastal canal. It was pretty fun and we were all very happy that it wasn't super sunny and hot (these non-Floridians can't handle the heat!) EXCEPT when we got caught in a tsunami storm on the way back and got drenched.

By the way, every once in a while I'm going to do some posts with text in Bambara for my Malian friends to see, so no one get freaked out ok? It looks funny spelled out.