The past couple of days...

Happy 4th of July from across the world!  We hope you are all enjoying your day!  We have had another great past couple of days here in Uganda.
Yesterday, we slept in a little and had a great breakfast here at our guest house.  The typical breakfast they serve is eggs (omelette or fried), toast, cereal, some kind of bread (donut, sausage roll, cinnamon roll,etc), sometimes sausage, and always fresh pineapple and watermelon!  They also serve the best mango/pineapple juice and coffee!  We never leave breakfast hungry. Many of you have commented about how beautiful this place is, and it is!!  What blows my mind is that we have this beautiful room in a beautiful guest house.  They serve all 6 of us a full breakfast and it is only $80/per day for all that!  It is guarded by a security guard and it is gated, which is so nice.  So, if any of you want to come, we can give you the details!!
We spent the morning yesterday relaxing and reading.  The kids played cards and we just enjoyed the grounds here.  We walked to Caffe Roma, our favorite pizza place again for lunch.  We had our same server, Stella, who gave us one of our pizzas for free for us coming back!  We tried the Hawaiian pizza, which is crazy good with fresh, sweet pineapple!! It's our new fave!
After lunch, our friend Livingstone, picked us up and took us to the downtown craft market.  The kids were so nervous about us bargaining for prices!  We had a blast and ended the day getting coffee beans and Rolex (rolled eggs in Chapati bread) for dinner.

This morning, our friend, Chris, picked us up and we headed for Jinja.  It is 42 miles away, but with traffic, it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there.  The drive is gorgeous there, so it didn't seem so long!  We went to a resort where we took a boat ride to the source of the Nile.  Imagine starting off in Lake Victoria, and all of a sudden you get to a point where the water is bubbling up from under the ground, and all of a sudden the water shifts directions as the Nile begins!  It was breathtaking!  We got out of the boat at that spot on a little bridge and took pictures.  We ate at the resort, where Martin loved eating a whole fish that weighed about 2.2 pounds!  That was the small option!   He managed to eat most of it, but none of us could finish all our fries.  Chris suggested we have them bag it and give it to kids in the village, which we did.  They were so excited to have that!  I have been convicted many times this trip about how I overlook practical ways to bless others.  Chris is really good about that.  He has such a servant heart and truly looks for ways to help.  He has been a huge encouragement to us!
We left there and went to the land that has the goats Kate helped buy for the children's home.  The home is in transition now and they are starting to build a multi-home site to help many children.  The children from the original home are settled in homes in the area for now.  The goats are already at the new land and so Kate got to meet her "babies!"  It was so cute.  One had 3 babies yesterday.  One died, but Kate named the other 2 "Peanut Butter" and "Chocolate." We had more fun playing with the goats.
We then went to an outdoor market in Jinja to buy the 19 kids from the original children's home new school shoes.  Chris' wife, Christine, joined us to help us know sizes.  That was quite an experience and we were so thankful she came along to negotiate prices and help us know what to get!  On our way home, we stopped at a road-side stand to get the kids something to eat.  There are no words to describe that!  We pulled the van over and immediately, people rushed the van, opened the windows, and shoved chicken on a stick and sodas in our faces.  There were multiple people selling the same products and it was just...wow!  The kids were laughing so hard as we tried to negotiate the best price!  They all ended up getting the chicken, which they loved!
We finished the day with a 3 hour drive back to Kampala and we are now showering and getting ready for bed.
Brad preaches tomorrow morning for a pastor's conference and then we are going to spend the afternoon in the slums in Kampala.  We haven't done that before, but Chris said it would be a good place for us to visit and bring encouragement.
Thank you for praying for us and for following us on this journey!  We are making memories that I know will last a lifetime!