Thursday, May 16, 2013

Family Pictures

Family pictures are never an easy task with 6 children.  It was hard enough with just 3 boys trying to get them to look at the camera.  Thank you to the world famous Joni for coordinating with the sun to make these happen.





Sunday, May 12, 2013

Side Projects

With our free time here we are always keeping busy working on projects and new ideas.  Here are a few things we've been cogitating:

A solar fruit dehydrator.  We'll see how it works in our climate, but I'm hoping it will be a good tool to allow Liberians to dehydrate mangoes and other fruit to save and sell.

Our guard never likes it when we leave chairs on our front porch at night.  So we made a concrete bench (actually a couple, this is just the first one).  At probably about 200 lbs., I'd like to see the rogues try to cart this one off!

My biggest project, building a barbecue and smoker.  I started a couple months ago but there are a few things I need from the states so after we come back from our home leave in July we'll try to finish it up.  More pictures to come when we're done...

Our Flintstones gym.  There is a store in town with a nice weight set for about $1,000, but we decided to use some 1-1/2" galvanized pipe, various sized buckets and concrete to make our own weight set.  I think our guards like to "eat iron" and use them more than the boys though.
Christopher couldn't let an opportunity to buy a couple rabbits pass when  someone came by selling them.  In a couple weeks it will be a rabbit skinning and cooking project.

One small snafu when we made the weights.  To keep them from falling over we braced  them with the motorcycle.  Unfortunately I think the heat was effecting us and we braced it by running the pipe through the handle bars and foot rest...now I guess we get to cut it off. Or ride around with a weight attached.

And our most recent (and last!!) pet.  The boys bought two but either one escaped or the dog ate it within about 12 hours.