The Start of a Nice Morning

We had a wonderful series of relaxing mornings lately. Since our labors at Imani, followed by the projects out in Maasai land, it is extremely nice getting to sleep in. This morning was meant to be one such relaxing day but with my luck, there's always one thing I forget to plan for. I was in that dazed, just barely conscious stage when I took a long stretch and accidentally leaned to far to one side. The mattress tipped and slid off, I rolled and slammed right into at a wooden desk next to my bed. I whacked both of my shins and elbows on the legs of the desk coupled with making quite the clamoring noise thus waking Nathan up. It was not the wake up call I was hoping for in the least. Because of the bed situation at Pastor Robbie's house, we are sleeping on a bunk bed we set up in the living area. Nathan sleeps on the bottom--despite the fact that we had a unofficial wrestling match over it and I WON, lol--and I sleep on top. This would not be any issue if it wasn't ABNORMALLY tall, AND there's no ladder. So I get to jump from Nathan's mattress and pry myself up onto my bed. Getting up is a challenge, but nothing compared to getting down, lol. It has taken countless trial and error attempts, and I have just now developed an "okay" method for safely getting down. The only problem is that I tend to get down every so often throughout the night for various reasons and though I CAN get down, I really don't ENJOY doing so. So I decided I would just sleep on the floor. But not before developing some kind of defense against the man-devouring insects. Seeing as how the spiders out here in Africa are something out of a horror film, there was NO WAY I was sticking my mattress straight on the floor. Not unless I HAD to. So I ingeniously decided to lay out our suitcases in a row and placed my mattress on that, thus giving me nearly a foot of sterile lift from the perilous floor. It was this very design that led to my downfall. Because of the size of the mattress and the lack of support from my small suitcases, there is sizable overlap of the mattress. I often have to sleep in the very middle to maintain the balance. This very fact I forgot while stretching this morning, lol. And I paid the price. Nathan got a kick out of it all. He said he barely opened his eyes to see me towering over my disheveled mattress and bags, attempting to fix it all while holding my now bruised shins. He said he was too tired to laugh but still found it hilarious to observe, lol.

I tried to go back to sleep and nearly succeeded, that is until Pastor Robbie's 4 years old daughter Abigail woke up and scampering down the hallway practically screamed into the curtain, "Ray Ray! Nathe! Are you awake now?!" I can't count how many times Nathan and I have "pretended" to not hear her ear-piercing call and continue to sleep, lol. It often ends with Elizabeth calling out to Abbie, "Sweety! Leave the boys alone for now." Once she walks back to the kitchen we usually glance at each other both recognizing we are wide awake now, and then say, "Well... Abbie's up, haha." This morning pretty much went just like that. Our morning continued with us cleaning up our areas, eating breakfast, and then having a competitive game of monopoly with Pastor Robbie under his porches overhang, overlooking the National Wildlife Park. I'm telling you, there is nothing like playing a board game with loved ones, with the Lion King in full color before your eyes. It was a wonderful time of fellowship. And me having completely DOMINATED and DECIMATED both Nathan and Robbie has NOTHING to do with my apparent enjoyment, haha. Needless to say Nathan was pretty ticked, lol.

We had a great day just relaxing and enjoying eachother's company. I felt truly blessed to experience it. :)