Season's greetings!

Happy belated Christmas everyone :)

Hope you all had a fantastic day filled with joy, laughter and fun with friends and family.

We had a lovely day here with a church service in the morning followed by Sunday lunch for 13 on the veranda of a friend's house and then pudding at another house in the afternoon. We ate incredible food and even managed cranberry sauce this year that Nai had brought over from England (she used to work here and has returned for the Christmas hols). No brussel sprouts still, but we did have fantastic turkey and ham and Rach was particularly proud of her tomato and red pepper gazpacho we had as a starter and the Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream Bombe she made for pudding... Turns out maternity leave has done wonders for her cookery skills :)

Josh seemed to enjoy his first Christmas. He enjoyed all his favourite things... milk, sleep and getting lots of attention. He wasn't very good at unwrapping his presents (they were all about the same size as him) but he's enjoyed them all so thank you Grandma Jan, Auntie Marian and Stitch.

We go away on Sunday to celebrate the New Year on safari in Amboseli National Park. It's famous for having hundreds of elephants so we're excited about that and hopefully seeing some cats too. Josh has still not seen a domestic cat so we're hoping he'll meet lions, leopards and cheetah first.

We've already had 3 weeks of Christmas hols and will be back in meetings this time next week. We enjoyed 5 nights at the coast at the start of the hols. We loved being back there in the sun, visiting our favourite places and trying to rest lots to recover from the manic term Dan had and a fair amount of sleepless nights. Here are some pics - the first is of Sails restaurant - our favourite place to eat in Kenya and the second is of Josh's first swim :)

Rach led a candlelit carol service here on 23rd December and really enjoyed working towards that, using some of the theology she's learnt from her Moore College Course. It's something she hopes to get into more in the future - possible chaplaincy work or children's work in a church, so she's gonna start pushing doors and seeing if anything opens up. She's looking forward to being back in the boarding house and teaching a few pupils this term but will still be mainly looking after Josh. Dan's enjoyed having lots of holiday time to spend with Josh, but also feels it's about time to get back to work. Hopefully this term won't be quite as manic as last but they definitely keep us busy here.

We're looking forward to Rach's parents' visit in February followed by hopefully a trip to South Africa in the Easter hols. I'm sure we'll do some work at some point too but holiday planning and cooking seem to be Rach's forte at the moment...

Love to you all. Hope to hear your news too and happy new year to everyone, wherever you are.

Love Dan, Rach and Josh xx

Home!

Hey all!
Just a small update to let you know we're home and well. We were a little daunted about taking a 3 week old baby on a flight but Josh was really well behaved on the plane, sleeping and eating lots, which kept him happy and quiet. The drive up to school was a little more challenging as he was more awake and demanding, but we made it eventually and are happy to be back. Dan's back at work today and Rachel's just enjoying catching up with friends and seeing all the kids. Everyone here was so excited to meet Joshua that we felt a bit like celebs when we arrived back. We hope that once the excitement settles down, we'll start to establish more of a routine and work out how to parent here!

Right, better dash but love to all. So good to catch up with so many of you over the past few months. Keep in touch,
Love Dan, Rach and J.J.
xxx

Baby Joshua Nathanael

Hey all,
Just wanted to give you an update of the events of the last 10 days...

Dan was due to arrive in on the morning of 11th October in time for baby's due date on 13th. I had not been feeling that well at the beginning of the week and so Dan asked for permission to leave a little earlier. He flew the night of the 8th instead and we enjoyed a day together before I started noticing signs of labour that night. Joshua Nathanael Jones was born on 10th Oct at 4.45am, weighing 7lb 5oz (3.3kg) and with awesome hair! If Dan had not changed his flight he would have missed the whole thing... We're so pleased school let him leave early!  

Here's a photo of our first day with Joshua

So we've had an amazing week learning the art of nappy changing, feeding and aiming to keep the baby happy. Many family and friends have managed to visit so we're feeling very loved and are enjoying our time in the UK catching up with people before we head home. We fly on 2nd November so please get in touch through email -`danojones65@hotmail.com or rachelclarejones@live.co.uk, Facebook or text if you'd like to see us before we leave and we'll try to arrange something.

Sending much love,

Dan, Rach and Joshua xx

What's going on...?!

Hey all,
Sorry it's been a really long time since last post but thought I should send a little update on what's been going on in the Joneses' lives over the last couple of months...

Baby Jones is due in just over a month - on 13th October - and after 'umming and erring' for a while, we eventually decided that he will be born in the UK. So whilst Dan's returned to Kenya, Rachel's currently flitting around staying with family and friends in England.

Dan's been working very hard at school, looking after lots of new pupils as well as guiding a whole new team of people through jobs in the Boarding House. He's got a bit more responsibility on management this year, which is fantastic experience for him and is keeping him very busy at Turi. He'll return in time (hopefully!) for the baby's birth and gets 3 weeks in the UK due to paternity leave as well as half term in October. It's all timed very well so that both of us will be here during St Andrew's Orchestral Weekend... which means Dan's got a lot to prepare before he comes home so that the weekend runs smoothly without either of us!

Rachel, meanwhile, is enjoying the calm before the storm on maternity leave with no child. She's enrolled herself on a distance-learning theology course with Moore College in Sydney and is also enjoying quality friend and family time with various people in England. The plan will be that baby's going to be born at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury so do get in touch if you'd like to pop by and see us all in October.

Do keep in touch - we love to hear your news as well and hope to see you soon,

Love Dan and Rach xxx

Nearly there now...

Hi all,
Hope you're well. All's fine this end and we're excited that 4 weeks today we'll be touching down in Heathrow. We've been working hard to prepare our pupils for their ABRSM exams and are now doing the final countdown to the end of term. All the musical events seem to have gone well and we're really pleased that the Music department seems to have improved this year. We have a VISO weekend this weekend so lots of music going on as well as a speech day service on Sunday morning. Rachel's looking forward to her pupils' string quartet doing their final performance of the year, which they've been working hard towards.

The baby is growing well and we found out last week it's a boy :) We got to see a 3D scan, which was very cool and impressive so looking forward to meeting the little guy properly in October. Rachel's much better now and is enjoying having a lot more energy without feeling so queasy all the time.

We enjoyed some time at the coast during half term, swimming and relaxing and enjoying the cheap rates in the low season. Rain-bathing and swimming in the rain were particular highlights and the food was delicious. The hotel we stayed at - www.swahilibeach.com - was incredible and we're hoping to go back again after we've been to the UK if all goes to plan.

Now we're just excited about catching up with people in England. Do let us now your holiday plans so we can try to catch up with as many of you as possible. We'll be darting round the country and so will hopefully be somewhere near you at some point.

Right, better dash but love to you all and hope to catch up very soon.

Many blessings,

Rach and Dan xx

BIG news!

Hey all,
Here's the latest from Dan and Rach in Kenya...

We're gonna have a baby! Rachel's currently 10 weeks pregnant and all seems to be going ok but obviously it's still early days. The baby's due on 13th October and whilst we'll be coming back to the UK for a couple of weeks this summer, we're still unsure whether the baby will be born here of back in England. Unfortunately, due to us living at altitude, Rach has been hit pretty badly for the last couple of weeks with morning sickness. Wow we're not sure why it's called 'morning' sickness though as it's pretty much most of the time... She's also pretty low in energy but trying to keep going til the end of term.

Other than that, we've had a couple of days back of school after an extended half term over elections. Praise the Lord, things have been peaceful til now but it's not over yet and Raila Odinga, the main opponent to President, has begun an appeal to look back into all that went on, essentially asking for a second round of voting. We just hope and pray that peace will reign and it won't unsettle the nation again.

We've had to change our Easter plans a couple of time due to different reasons but are now going on safari to Samburu National Park, north of Mount Kenya, with some friends. It's crazy that we've got more holiday time just around the corner but we're going to make the most of it while we still can.

Well that's all for now. Please do let us know your news and hopefully we'll catch up with you all soon.

Much love,

Dan and Rach xx

February already?!

Hey all,
Just wanted to send a massive apology for the delay in blog update.
All's well here though we've had a long half term and are pretty exhausted. We've got 2 and a bit weeks left now and then it's half term which they've moved so it falls at the same time as the elections.
We're still trying to work out what to do over the half term holiday as we're not sure how stable the country will be during the time, but we hope and pray it'll be ok and that we'll enjoy a little rest.

There's not much news here other than that we had a fab Christmas and New Year with the Joneses and have been working hard to prepare kids for exams, competitions and Viso weekends.
We're looking forward to a weekend offsite next weekend and then the following weekend Rachel's string quartet (4 pupils, not me!) are competing in Nairobi against other British schools, which she hopes they'll do really well in. House Music kicked off recently and all the houses are learning James Bond songs for a sing off. We've enjoyed coaching them on Goldfinger, the Man with the Golden Gun, Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die, which has been entertaining as a lot of the kids have never heard of James Bond and are far too young to understand the lyrics, let alone to watch the films.

We're looking forward to the Easter holidays, when we're planning to do a road trip round north Tanzania to visit the Ngorongoro crater, the foothills of Kili and the coast at Tanga or Dar possibly. This'll be our first long road trip so we're excited and have had lots of work done on the car to ensure we'll at least make it into Tz!

Well anyway, I'll love you and leave you but hope all's well in chilly Britain.
Do let us know your news too and hopefully catch up soon

Love Rach and Dan xx