Claire discovers ice cream

During our recent trip to Cheyenne, Gramma and Grampa introduce Claire to chocolate ice cream at the Dairy Queen.




Nancy attempts to remove too large a bite - gets a big bite herself (remember you can click on the photos to see full sized images)

Rough Re-enty due to Delta Airlines

We spent about a week on the East Coast with a trip into NYC for the American Museum of Natural History, but spent most of our time at Nancy and John's up on their little piece of heaven outside of Cold Spring.  We saw bald eagles, hawks, turkeys, deer and big black snake, all while were out picking wild raspberries, and a few black berries and blue berries too - this was a nice re-introduction to the US

We unfortunately were stuck in JFK airport for nearly 36 hours for delays of various reasons, but when our final flight was canceled after 1:00 am for weather, we were advised that Delta Airlines would not be helping us in anyway, and no hotels were available, so there we went with 2 crying kids and our little baby without further food or diapers to find a quiet gate to sleep by until our first chance for stand by the following night.  I understand that weather and things are not their fault, but with few exceptions, we were treated quite poorly by Delta Airlines staff - like "Why don't you pack more burn medicine for your daughter?, or food or diapers for the baby etc" Uh, over 3 oz, we had enough for the first 29 hours, but really - as one of their frequent fliers and sitting there on the floor with 11 thousand dollars worth of tickets I am really questioning why I should ever trust them again.

Heck, I even have a picture of one of their planes I used to think was nice looking a couple of entries down.  I know we have had just over a thousand visitors to the this blog, but like us many of you are around that 100,000 miles a year mark for the airlines so, I am urging you to think twice before purchasing airline tickets from Delta.

We missed nearly all of Frontier Days, but took in the last parade and a few minutes of rodeo and carnival - Cheyenne is a bit sleepy and slow, but nice for us to rest up and let Tess heal up a bit from her urban camping complications from the floor at the Delta terminal in JFK.  Cheyenne has great new library, named library of the year by the National Library Assoc., and one of the 10 best on National Public Radio. So, this is our office for the next couple of weeks

We will likely be moving to Arizona very soon and getting the kids started in school - it starts this Monday Aug 4th!  But the big question right now is wether we drive or dare to fly.

WozBoy Launched!

Jacob has decided to launch his own blog at http://wozboy.blogspot.com/ - actually he wants his own website with an easier to remember name to stay in touch with his friends as we get ready to leave Accra. The distinction between a blog and a website isn't exactly as clear to be as it is to his perceptions, however, I think what he has in mind is a bit more of a video blog that he works out on his OLPC - if any of you have seen the iJacob Show videos he makes on his little green monster you will know what I mean. AKA One Laptop Per Child

My how times have changed from when most of us were growing up. I pretty much grew up with computers I suppose and used BBS and Gopher before the "Web" and Minix way before there was a Linux, but I still choke when I have to use the word "blog". Anyway, I have pretty much avoided any tech discussion on these pages, just try to keep the pictures going up (More Baby pictures coming soon I promise!) Despite my techie bent I still tend to be more impressed by the old media and proud of my son's talents with those. He has posted his painting shown here on his blog too, but I encourage you to go and see it there.

Tess in Urban Camouflage

We attended a birthday party recently and Tess's bathing suit was in the exact color scheme as the water-slide - we just hope you can find her. Jeanne captured these photos.

Backyard Safari

This was actually much more exciting than it sounds. We really saw quite few fairly exotic looking animals, plants and even some fungus. We set out well armed with bug repellent, radios, flash lights and cameras. We did an afternoon after school, and a holiday mornings - so just a few hours really. We are trying to officially identify what are probably fairly common animals, so if you happen to be able to identify something we'd be happy to hear from you. There were a few creatures that were to fast or too shy or just frankly prefer the nightlife (so we may find a photo elsewhere on the web until we can get our own).The number of photos we got was actually pretty large, and probably not as interesting to everyone else as it was to us.

However, if you find our Safari Gallery interesting see it in it full resolution glory with captions and other photos by clicking Wozpics.photoshop.com.

Leaving on a jet plane

Jeanne, Claire and Tess were on this 767 when I took this picture. This is the Delta flight, Accra to New York, that flies over our house most days of this week, but today I had a reason to snap it's picture as it passed by. They'll be heading down to Washington DC, in the morning, but I will spare you the photo of the Chevy Impala or whatever the rental car is, but I thought this photo of their plane came out much better than expected.

Believe and his sister Nancy came to stay

Marie's son Believe is looking quite handsome. (An update May 24, 2008: Believe is quite sick and is in the hospital in Togo. He has malaria, but it wasn't likely the cause of his illness, which remains unknown. Our prayers and concerns go out to him and his family. Please pray for his speedy recovery.)

July 8th: Believe is much better!

He was in the hospital about one month, with some issue surrounding his kidney function, but the cause was never exactly determined, however he has been here in Ghana for about a week and recently celebrated his birthday with us and seems almost back normal, just a bit skinnier.

GIS holds bedtime reading week

Jacob's school held its first bedtime reading week this past week, culminating in "Dress like your favorite book character" assembly.



Jacob is Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean (interestingly, from a post-modern point of view, a theme-park ride character turned into a movie character turned into a book character).

As usual, if Jacob does something, Tess has to do it too, so here is Tessie the Cowgirl at the assembly too.

Patrick and his girls

Here is Patrick with his two girls early (pre-coffee!) on Easter morning. Note Tess is eating her rabbit!

Claire Elizabeth's first Easter Celebration

We had a great time dyeing eggs and celebrating with friends and lots of kids. Claire really took it all in.


Jacob and Anaïs showed how to get the best colors



Tess and her friends get a pre-egg hunt mission briefing

Tess is recovering well

Thank you all so much for your support and your prayers.


Tess is making a remarkable recovery and at the hospital she was able to play a bit with her family at the playground.



Still lots of visits to doctors and therapists, but you can see in her face all the progress she has made.
















Both Tess and Jacob have been spending a fair amount of time at the local library where this picture was taken.

Claire Elizabeth Arrives!

We are very happy to welcome Claire Elizabeth to our family. She was born Dec 4th and was a healthy 7 pounds 7 ounces.

Birthday Island Roses on Pirate Island

The kids had a joint birthday bash, Tess is shown here giving her Island Rose piñata the first bash.

Jake and seven of his pirate crew for his seventh big day.










He did a great job designing and painting his piñata too.










Tess a few days earlier broke out her cowboy boots and a raincoat to do some shopping with Sarah.

A few of the very important women in her life

We have been a little slow with posting new photos recently, but with so much going on and with the electricity going off so often we hope you will forgive us. Tess was asking where her photos were too, after a couple of postings of her brother, so here is what we came up with during a visit to Arizona last fall.

Jake wins a music award.

He treated us to a song about a drunken sailor at a school assembly this morning - An interesting choice, but he is quite a fan of the pirate genre. And I thought I'd post a picture of the new snakes and ladders games painted outside of his classroom, for a class parent I know in Manhattan at the moment who would love to see the product of so much of her efforts

New photographer is added to our staff

Here are a couple of shots by Jacob with his new camera from aunt Phyl and uncle Ken, including one self portrait and part of his series of his friend Andre

Colonial Fort in Elmina

For more photos from our recent vacation, please click on the vacation photos link to the right.

Total Eclipse of the Sun

Accra was in the direct shadow of the eclipse. We went out and shared the event with everyone, but took our last looks before it was over at home when this picture was taken.

Christmas Cookies in Wyoming

Jake and Grandma, with a little help from Tess and Aunt Mary, made a big batch of Christmas cookies. We were getting ready not only for Christmas, but for Tess's christening as well.

We were very happy Father Carr was able to make the trip to Cheyenne to perform the ceremony and to help us celebrate another special day in the lives of our family.

My Baby! My Baby!

We celebrated Christmas in Phoenix at Grandma's house. The sound of absolute delight echoed around when Tess opened her present.