Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Day 2 Fun with Nana Yaw & Esi

I wanted to share some pictures I took of the gifts that Nana Yaw & Esi brought us from Ghana! It was so exciting to open these.....here is a picture of our new African place mats for the table.

They also brought us this hand carved table stand. I actually needed an end table for this chair, and it fits perfectly! Can you believe that Esi stuffed this in her suitcase?!

They brought jewelry for Jayla & JJ.

And, traditional African shirts for Jake. Shirts like these are called a Bu Bu.

I LOVE my scarf. This is hand woven and uses the traditional Ghanaian colors and patterns.

And, they also brought me a beaded necklace & earring set! They did such a great job of picking out our gifts!
Yesterday afternoon we all went to the gym so that Nana Yaw & Esi could watch some practices. Jake & Nana talked over what a typical practice with the highschool boys will be like.
Nana Yaw will have his first individual workout with Coach Julian tomorrow, and then he will practice with the 8th grade boys tomorrow evening so that he can get an idea of what the drills & plays will be like. Saturday is the kick off for all of Jake's highschool teams coming back, and that will be Nana Yaw's first day of practice with the team he will be playing with (17U boys team).
Of course, Jake had all of us fill out our NCAA bracket picks this morning, even Nana Yaw! Jake is already talking smack to all of us, but the funny thing is, I have beat him in the brackets each year since we started our little family competition! :)

This morning Jake took Esi & Nana Yaw to the Iowa State campus so that they could see what a typical University looks like. He took them to Hilton Colisseum so they could see the court! Here they are by the trophy case in the lobby of the basketball offices.

And, here is Nana on the ISU floor.
After the trip to Hilton we all met up for lunch at Hickory Park, and then Jake took Nana Yaw & Esi out to our church to give them a tour and to show them the expansion being built.
And, lastly, in a matter of 4 hours, the framing was up this morning in what will be Nana Yaw's room and our future guest bedroom in our basement. YAY!


It's been a busy day already! Tonight we are headed to the Jordan Creek mall to look around. Lucky for us, Nana Yaw & Esi LOVE chinese food, so we will be going to P.F. Changs for dinner! Y U M!!!!!!!!!

3 comments:

Renee said...

What an awesome experience for you and your family! I enjoy reading your posts and can't wait for little Solomon to get here! And the gifts...what wonderful gifts! You will treasure them forever :)

Farmgirl Chaos said...

What a fun day! How many people get to stand on the Hilton court their first visit to the ISU campus? Very few!
I think I might need to get some packing tips from Esi if she was able to fit all the gifts in her suitcase and still had room for her clothes!

Tamara B said...

What an amazing thing your family is doing... and to think of the cultural experience you're getting. How awesome! Makes me wish I lived in your area so I could meet them too.

I'm eager and hungry to learn about Ghananian culture. Reading your blog is quite the treat.