Packing up and heading out

After months of planning, we're ready to go to Nigeria tomorrow morning. At this point of any trip I always wonder why on earth we would ever travel anywhere when it's so much work, but whenever we stay somewhere for too long I get itchy feet and want to travel. In spite of the craziness, we're ready to go and really looking forward to the next three months in Nigeria.

Once we spread out all the stuff we planned to take with us I thought there was no way it would all fit! But it did. Four bags stuffed full. I didn't get a picture of everything spread out all over, but here's just small bits and pieces that had to be fit together.

Here's the four bags fifty pounds each all ready to go.

Pictures from our trip to New Orleans

St. Louis Cathedral.
This is the oldest cathedral in North America, founded in 1720.

The inside of this cathedral is beautifully decorated.

Bourbon Street, the French Quarter is alive at night with street dancers and night clubs.

Two blocks from Bourbon Street with its notorious night life is this beautiful statue of the risen Christ and it's shadow, with hands spread wide apart, inviting night crawlers to come to him and find rest.

CAFE DA MONDE!

This was perhaps the highlight of our trip. The beignet and coffee in this cafe was worth our trip to New Orleans. We literally went there everyday and we even brought some back to California.

Uche is a happy boy. He couldn't get over how good their beignets and coffee were.

You really don't need to rent a car to move around New Orleans. With a three day bus pass you can ride both buses and cable cars, and it's affordable.

Apples!

Fall is apple season, and we've had apples coming out of our ears around here this fall. A family in our church has quite a few apple trees, so we've been grateful beneficiaries of their apples. One day we went out to their place with a few others to make some apple cider.

Sarah is cutting apples that will be sent through the cider press. We worked a little, had some cider, worked a little more and drank some more. It was a delicious afternoon!

The trees were loaded down.

It's amazing what you can make with apples. It's seems like there is apple in everything I (Uche) eat now. The good thing is that I'm enjoying it. We drink lots of apple juice, eat all kinds of apple cakes and even have apple butter. Just this morning Sarah made pancakes with applesauce and that's when I realized that apple is more useful than I thought. Last night She made chopped apple with green onions on pork chops, boy was it good! I like everything about apples.

Black Berries

Another thing I like about summer is the many different fruit, with different shapes and colors I get to eat. This summer, we rented a house that a many blackberry bushes covered with sweet, wild blackberries growing over the fence. So we made all kinds of blackberry pastries and shakes. The blackberries were so sweet that Sarah made a blackberry pie without adding sugar to it.

This is Uche's favorite of all the blackberry recipes. This is blackberry scones. The best tasty scones ever.

After living here for a long time I'm beginning to realize that the fruits we buy in the shops don't have the best taste. If you want to enjoy good tasty fruits, you have to go to the farmers market. We are regulars at the Saturday morning farmers market. I guess if you can't beat them, you have to join them!

Vanilla lattes, fresh fruit and blackberry scones.... perfect Saturday morning breakfast!

Blackberries, yogurt and granola... this is the life!

Climbing the mountain

How wonderful is your creation Oh Lord. Yet people believe in the big bang theory.

The last hurdle to get to the top. There was still a pile of snow up there

We had company up there. This little squirrel was friendly and so we shared our lunch with her

One good thing about Redding is that you don't have to go too far to be out on the mountain, lake, river, trail, out door shooting range or to go camping in the woods.

We enjoy a little hiking every once in a while. So a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hike to the top of Mt. Lassen. I had wanted to do this for a while now, so when the opportunity presented itself, I couldn't miss it.

It was a great hike. my other two companions, whose names I wont mention (even though they are in the picture above) were physically fit, which was good as I tagged along behind them.

From the top of Mount Lassen (10462 ft.) I saw the other famous mountain, Shasta (14, 179 ft.) sitting majestically as if it was beconing me to try it. Well, I accepted the challenge and hope to hike it some day before I grow too old to walk. I heard that people die while trying to hike on it. Well better die trying...

Living near the river trial

Uche was trying out his picture taking skills here. This is the tip of the Sundial bridge.

A beautiful sculpture under the bridge.

Sarah and her friend

Right now we live near the river trial and we love the area because it's cooler than most places in the northstate. We also have access to the aquatic center, for swimming, and the river trial where we bike and run. We are trying to be healthy.

On this particular day we went to hang out by the bridge, it's a major tourist attraction here cause it's a glass bridge. Across from where we are in this photo is a cafe and a live band was playing jazz. We totally enjoyed the music even though we didn't go into the cafe. Who said you must spend money to enjoy good music?

Do we all look alike?

The other day I met two Latino gentlemen in town. The older one asked me if I was rooting for South Africa in the world cup? Do I look like I'm from SA? I didn't ask him that, but I just smiled and told him that I'm rooting for Nigeria cause I'm originally from Nigeria. The guy told me he was rooting for the USA team. I began to wonder why he said that since his own country made it to the World Cup. I didn't waste time in pointing that out to him. I said, "Well, it's good that Mexico made it". The guy smiled and said, "We're not from Mexico, we are from Nicaragua"
Anyway, I guess we all look alike. When it comes to World Cup, we identify ourselves not just by country, but by continent.