We got water from the sky... but NOT all in the form of RAIN

We finally got water from the sky...but not in a good way! At least 300 pounds of ice was just dumped on my house and yard in a wild span of 20 minutes!! Since our average temperatures these days are over 100 degrees, the hail will melt and water our yard and for that, I am thankful! But, the intensity of the hail storm killed most of my plants that desperately needed the water sadly.

I don't think pictures do this storm justice, but to at least paint a picture... see below

Can you see the white balls? This is actually UNDERneath a tree and under the over hang of my roof and it was still this much. The yard was totally covered!

I am dreading going out to look at my car in the day light tomorrow to see the damage of this hail storm.

Most of the balls were about half the size of a golf ball. There were some bigger and some smaller of course...

Percy went and scooped a handful off his car so the kids could feel it was really ice!

This is at our back door and under neath a porch. The winds were hectic and I guess this is evidence that the hail made it under the porch and literally to my back door!

The entire yard was WHITE! If you look closely, you will see that the vegetable garden behind is not white. But, look on top. My dad put up an awesome shade net to shield my veges from the scorching heat. That shade net broke tonight with the weight of all the ice. You can see how badly it is sagging due to the ice if you look closely. Sorry dad! I guess you need to come visit me again to fix it!! :)

I hope this shows how THICK the ice blanket was that covered under our porch!

Sadly, my plants were broken and destroyed with the violent dropping of ice falling from the sky!

The hail must have knocked off all the leaves on this chilli pepper plant that was looking good earlier today. And since it is located where the roof water runs off, the plant may drown too...

Another picture of my back porch. By the way, the shoes are there because our yards are made of dirt, so walking inside with them always tracks a lot of mud/dust/dirt. Therefore, my family usually leaves our shoes at the door. Something I learned in Canada to be polite! :)

This is a picture of the yard!

Despite the damage, the kids had a blast playing in the closest thing to snow they will ever experience in Botswana. They also repeatedly praised God for the water, showing how even at a young age they truly understand the deep preciousness of water. I am sad about my plants but at least now with this good water, I hope they will grow back....

ALL in ALL... we Thabas thank God for the rain today! Not the way I would have preferred God to answer the prayer for rain, but still water from the sky all the same. :)

My girls' CRAZY MIXED HAIR

 Let me confess. When I agreed to marry Percy, one of the things that scared me the most was the future of our children's hair. Sadly, it has been even worse than I could have imagined. HOWEVER, it is also more BEAUTIFUL than I could have ever imagined as well. In the case of mixed hair, I can truly say no pain no gain. And, there is a cost to be pretty! In this case, the cost is lots of conditioner and TONS of TEARS!!!

I thought for this blog entry, you might enjoy to see the journey of how to fix our daughters' hair, or in some cases I should say their "nests". We have SERIOUSLY lost small toys in their hair. One time I found a PEN lost in the afro! 

DISCLAIMER: Although I have been doing this now for 8 years, I am still in NO WAY any where near an expert in mixed hair. This is simply a picture entry of what we have to go through to fix our girls' hair.

We started with her hair being braided in large braids all over her head.

 Taking out the braids took about 1 hour. There have been times she has had smaller braids and it has taken about 4 hours with 3 people working to take them out!

Side view to really show the ENORMITY of her hair!

Now that all the braids are out, I moisten it with a spray bottle with water.

I then finger comb it with conditioner and olive oil to work out as many of the tangles as possible and give it a bit of a deep condition. I usually let this sit for about 15 min. If I have time, I put a plastic bag over it and leave it in this stage for a couple of hours to really DEEP condition.

I used to wash her hair with shampoo (like I do with mine), but I have since learned that her SUPER DUPER DRY hair only frizzes and kinks more with harsh shampoo and does better when I wash it with conditioner. It's unbelievable thickness soaks up the conditioner like a cactus in a desert, so each time I "wash" it, I usually use half a bottle of conditioner!!! INSANE!

One tip I have realized over the years is that brushing it when the conditioner is already in makes it MUCH MUCH easier to work the tangles out!!!!! The conditioner acts as a lubricant so the process is far less painful!!

The conditioner is washed out and we have a clean shiny thick head of hair to work with.

I add more olive oil and leave in conditioner and the process of TAMING THE FRO!! This is the WORST part ... for her and for me. I try to be gentle as possible, but trying to comb through a nest of kinky curls in next to impossible and sadly does inflict a lot of pain!! :(

With two of us working together, the job takes about 15-30 minutes and we have the hair divided and ready for pigtails.

Pigtail braids are in. Anna Catherine is excited with how cute she looks and her hair is done... only 3 hours this time!!! That is good for us!!! I will maintain this by daily spritzing it with a homemade mixture of leave in conditioner, coconut oil, olive oil, water, and two other oils that I forgot their names but are supposedly good for hair.

Now on to little Abi's hair experience. Again, the same steps but MUCH easier since her hair is shorter and her threshold for pain seems greater. She doesn't scream and cry as much as Anna Catherine does! :)




We have just taken out the braids and this is the "raw" fro that results!



The Afro has been combed out and now is ready to wash with conditioner.

TONS of conditioner really softens it. I don't show a picture but I also comb out her hair when the conditioner is still on.

Then we wash it out! :) By the way, this part has to be done with two people. One holding her while the other fingers through and washes it out.

All clean and ready to style!

Not near the tears with Abi. We just gave her a book to read and began combing through. Although, there ARE tears with her too during this section. 

Abi's hair isn't long enough yet to put it into pigtails like Anna Catherine, so we have to put it into 4 little puffs. I think it is cuter in puffs, but they quickly get super tangled and frizzy so it last longer and doesn't get as dry if I braid it.

I have now braided her hair while her older sister read her a book and empathetically comforted her.

The hair is done!! Only took about 2 hours! I will maintain daily with the same conditioner/oil spritz I spray on Anna Catherine's hair.

I DREAM of the day when the girls get excited about their beautiful locks of kinky mixed hair!! I hope on that day, they will say "MOM, let me do my own hair". I will joyfully put down the brush and pass this long suffering job over to them and let them take a turn at taming the infamous mixed FRO that God so gloriously gifted them with when my white self decided to marry a black man!!