A La Fleuve

It's starting to get really hot again. One morning, at 8:30, the thermostat outside the middle house read 80 degrees, and that was in the shade. You can imagine in the middle of the afternoon out in the sun how hot it is. And this is only the start...

One thing that's nice about it warming up though is that we have a lot more motivation to go to the river. Swimming is so much more fun when it's actually hot outside. So two Sabbaths ago, James and Sarah decided that we were going to make a big trip to the river with a bunch of the neighbor kids. Sarah, Jason, and Stefan took the horses and a few kids with them, and the rest of us piled into the van.

It was insane. We counted how many people were in the van-- 10 in the front (5 adults and 5 kids) and 17 in the back. I sat in the back with one of our chaplain's kids on my lap, and man was it hot. And bumpy. Thankfully it was a fairly short trip.

I had so much fun at the river; it was probably the best trip I've had there. At first, Ansley and I were playing with a bunch of the younger kids who can't swim and were sort of afraid of the water. Then kids started asking me to ferry them across the river, which was kind of funny because the river is now so low that most of them could probably walk across themselves. There's just one spot that's maybe a little too deep for some of the younger ones.

James had brought a frisbee, and at first people were just throwing it around, but then James decided that he wanted to play ultimate frisbee. It was so much fun. If you've ever played football in knee-deep snow, ultimate frisbee in knee-deep to waist-deep water is very similar. It's amazing how difficult it is to run in water, but diving for the frisbee is much easier in water than on ground. My legs were so very sore from running in water.

Anyway, the whole day was a blast, and afterward Ted, Ansley, and I walked home while the van took everyone else back. We had a nice long walk and some good conversations. Yet another great Sabbath in Chad.