its been along time

Hi, everyone...I do hope you are well. many people have mentioned to us via email that they really appreciate viewing our blog. So frist, let me apologize to y'all for not updating it as regularly as we'd like. Things have continued to be very busy for us, and they will only get busier for the next couple of weeks. We are now in our last month of our first term at school. We find ourselves deep in the middle of research projects (thankfully we've chosen good interesting topics), and various other things. In three weeks time we will be studying for exams. We end on the 28th of this month, and then praise the LOrd, we can rest until the 7th of Jan. when term 2 starts. It, truly, has not been bad at all. We have really enjoyed our classes (despite the work load) and have learned a ton that will be useful in the future ministry God has called us to.
We have remained mostly well this term. Really the only one who has been sick has been me (Jeremy). I have had a cold on and off for about 6 or 7 weeks now. I finally have access to vitamin C so, that is starting to go away again,(I hope this time permanently).
Annabelle is doing very well. She has decided to start her terrible twos a bit early, and so now she thinks she can do many things by herself. Luckily for us, we taught her to ask for help if she couldn't do something, and she still does ask every once in a while. She is at the point of constructing two word sentences now. her usual repetroire is "mow nease" - more please, "down now" "nakk pease" - snack please, "ain uu" - thank you, "santi" - thank you (swahili asante), and "dizi" - banana (swahili ndizi). Yes she is doing pretty well at swahili...as is Junio. However, Junio is a bit embarrassed to speak swahili to his parents. We also have to remind him to speak American English when at home so I can understand him.
Both the kids have good friends. Junio has a good friend next door, named emmanuel (manu for short). They love to hang out together and play soccer with all the other kids. In fact, we don't see Junio very much during the day (you'd think he was 16), he's off kicking the ball with Manu or somebody else and having a grand old time (with the occasional disagreement in the middle, you know they yell at each other, maybe one throws the other on the ground, victory is declared, and then back to soccer). Annabelle also has a couple of little friends her age. One is the daughter of an Ethiopian family here. They love to play together and in fact share toys and food together quite often. Her name is Lydia, though everyone calls her Lilo, except for Annabelle who says "wiwo." Her other little friend is a little boy a little younger than her (Lilo is a bit older). His name is "wiam" I mean Liam. He is the son of another American family here, doing a PhD.
We have over the past month been attacked by swarms of ants coming from the trash bins behind our house. The first time they came they came in our room at about 4:30am, we had our bed next to the window and Jamie woke up with them on her head and all in her hair. She was combing dead ants (or alive ones) out of her hair for a couple days. Several times they came in the kids room, very scary in light of Annabelles allergies to bug bites, and once they visited the kitchen. We have things mostly in control now, but it was really stressful for a while there. We kill them with boiling water, and kerosene, and bug spray. I check behind the house every night before I go to bed to make sure we are safe. They have not come for about a week now, perhaps its the coffee grounds we put on the window sill (a friend of ours said that works, so we tried it, and it really seems to -something to store away for the next time you are in Africa.)