Name Change

Guess the African Groggs blog will have to have a name change.  Not sure to what quite yet.  Too be honest, I still feel like an African Grogg.  But in reality, we are American Groggs again (and always were really).  Our family just went to DAR (which stands for debriefing and renewal) for a week in Colorado.  The great thing ab this time for me was that while Jon & I were debriefing, with a theme for each day, the kids were doing the exact same thing.  One day they gave each of us balls of yellow and blue play doh.  First we were told to squish the two balls together, then try to pull them apart.  Impossible.  Next we rolled the squished balls into one ball...and it looked similar to the globe now w/ the two colors mixed together.  The yellow represented "me" before moving overseas.  The blue represented who "I" became in my new culture and country.  The end product was the person I am now, a "world christian" was the term they used.  The kids, however, came back from class w/ green play doh.  They got to mix their blue and yellow play doh together, representing that they are neither "American" or that of their second culture, but they are both.  And the two colors will forever be mixed; cannot be separated.  They are what is known as TCKs, third culture kids (there is a book called Third Culture Kid if you ever feel like learning more ab these amazing kids and the challenges/joys they face growing up).  No doubt ab it: we are blessed by our time as "workers", we have been changed by our time in Africa, and this is the hardest transition we have made so far.  The kids aren't sure which direction is up at this point.  We are all looking forward to moving into a rental house in Manhattan, KS on August 1...and watching the Lord unfold the things He has planned for us.  Exciting, scary, happy, & sad are just a few of the emotions we have been experiencing since saying goodbye to our life in Africa on May 23rd.  Maybe blogging can help me continue the "debriefing" process.  Hahaha I always say that :)

Kids quotes from Oct to Dec 2011

Well, I am pretty much behind on everything I always think I want to do w/ my life...one of them being collecting the kids' funny things they say every month and then putting them on my blog so we can laugh ab the things they say later. I started writing things in October on sticky notes but so far they never made it to the blog (either has anything else in our life!). Today its so windy here I am sure if I were hiring a nanny and there was a long line of them at our front door, they would all blow right down the street. So I am gonna pop in Mary Poppins for Gabby to watch while Kyler naps and Kolby is in arabic class and catch up on my piles. This being one of them. I obviously didn't record them all...and Kolby's list is short bc now he goes to school and most of the things he says that are funny are too inappropriate to keep track of :)

Kyler:
"Don't worry."
"No thank you please!!!"
"I santa! I eatin' my cookies and drinkin' my milk!" (as he drinks almond milk and eats banana chips)
"NO NO DOGGY! NO NO!" (yelling at the barking dogs from our bedroom window)
"I gotta bootie, I gotta bootie" (repeating several times while dancing in the bath tub)
"Nut job"
"you stink!"
"night night elephant poop"
"chocolate milk angee, chocolate milk angee" (receiving his almond chocolate milk he adds angie on the end bc she drinks hot choco w us sometimes)
"OOOH! NICE!!"
"Lay down, Mommy! Lay down!"

Gabby:
"Someday I'm gonna be a rockstar."
"When you are satisfied He shines thru..."
"I'm doing so good at preschool Angie's not gonna know what to do w/ me."
"Mom, sometimes Kyler likes to play poke in the hole, spinny spin spin, and go grandpa go!"
"That's killing me!"

Kolby:
"We need to take the grogg outta the grump."