Old faces and a new face

The weekend prior to the graduation ceremonies of the Rift Valley Academy heralds an annual pilgrimage back to the old stomping grounds for many RVA alumni.  Luke endured an all-night bus ride (Thursday night) from his Mombasa Swahili Program in order to attend "RVA Alumni Weekend 2012".  Customarily, the weekend centers around the class which graduated two years prior.  This year, the Class of 2010 (Luke's class) was the center of attention.  The schedule masters of RVA manage to fill four days with "alumni-v-varsity" games of every variety for both genders (soccer, volleyball, basketball, field hockey, and rugby) as well as other social dinners and teas.



Luke played for the Alumni in the big football (read: soccer) game.  Evenly matched, the teams traded goals and the game ended in a 2-2 draw.  However, rather than leaving the result as a gentlemanly draw, it was considered a Championship Match, which demanded winner.  So, like the recent Euro2012, five players stepped forward to take Penalty Kicks, Luke among the brave volunteers.  Who would claim the Thrill of Victory and who get stuck with the Agony of Defeat.  Alas, despite the fact that Luke made his penalty kick in glorious style, ricocheting off the underside of the crossbar into the rear of the net…the RVA Varsity prevailed.  Had Caleb been around, I probably would have been pulling for the Varsity, but since he wasn't, I, too, shared the Agony of Defeat with Luke's Alumni.  Of course, it could have easily been argued that the final was "fun-to-fun." 


We also hosted most of the Class of 2010 who returned to Kijabe for the weekend for pizza Sunday night.  A "40-cups of flour" dough recipe and 6 pounds of mozzarella, made enough pizza for the thirty ravenous alums… and a few other stragglers.  While Luke's classmates have chosen to attend college in the USA for the most part, they hail from the Netherlands, Brazil, England, Korea, Japan, Germany, Australia - as well as the USA…Among the returnees was Laura Tabb, daughter of our Bundibugyo bible translating colleagues, Waller and Mary.


The show-stealing star of that evening, indeed, the entire weekend is the newest member of the Myhre family….Introducing, Chardonnay.



She's a 8-week old Labrador Retriever-Golden Retriever mix known to some as a Golden Labrador or Goldador.  Her color - a light buff, sandy, pale, fawn….chardonnay.  Her demeanor - a gregarious, party, playful, affectionate…chardonnay.  She's a absolutely beautiful.  The offspring two RVA-based parents.  There seems to be a truth in our family that our kids learned from Jennifer:   if you talk about something frequently enough, you can basically talk something into reality.  I guess that's a sort of biblical concept.  God spoke Creation into existence.  So, too, Julia, Jack and Acacia basically spoke Chardonnay into life in our household.  While the timing has been the foolish end of the wisdom spectrum (Jennifer gone for the first 6 weeks of training a puppy?), the frisky frolicking play of Chardonnay is a welcome distraction from my loneliness.  Twenty-four days down…thirty-nine days left until I see Jennifer again.