Our weekend somehow became full of unexpected, nice things. We had the Plaster House "Come & Play" fundraiser/open day which was fantastic. We were helping on the "Pin the tail on the elephant & lion" games but I also ended up helping the poor overrun face painter & must have decorated more than 30 excited little black faces....& 2 little white ones! It was so nice to see these kids who have suffered so much have such a great time. Discovered the ...

Days seem to be flying already with work busy as ever. A typical day here: Zac wakes at about 5:30am, before the birds (urrrg), wanting milk and cudddles. We put off getting up as long as possible but being jumped on and getting tangled in the mossie nets by an active 2 year old is worse than getting up. There's usually no power so we put on a big pot of water to boil on the little gas cylinder outside. Once its boiled we scoop out a few cups for coffees and por...

Jumbo! Well day 4 back in Tanzania & all is settling into place nicely. We have a dodgy sedan that we hope will rattle its way through the next 5 weeks, visas are on the way, we have phone &internet cards & have visited work & friends. We found a very little but colourful serviced apartment just out of town. It has bright red outside walls & lime green on the inside! We are all squished into 1 bedroom with no remaining floor space and the kit...

Zoe found a small (40cm), lime green snake in the mossie net above her bed this morning! OMG!!!! Thankfully she was not in it & it was on the outside of the net. We are staying in a thatched banda at the beach. She was so calm about it .... "Daddy, there's a snake up there." At first we thought she was playing & did not even really pay a lot of attention. Thankfully this time we could call for help to "usher" our visitor out. Scared ourselves (thanks to a...

Left the lovely Usumbaras after a short but nice stay that included breathtaking lookouts, chamelion encounters & colourful markets. We'll have to go back once the kids up to hiking as some gorgeous trails begging to be walked. After a bumpy, dusty 6.5 hour drive we arrived at the beautiful coast. A challenge to find as hardly any signage & well meaning locals kept pointing us in the completely wrong direction! Our lack of Swahili & Aussie accents t...