Meaghan the Mzungu: Photo Catch Up (December

I've been feeling that itch again, recently. The itch to type and get my words and experiences out. How have I been so horrible at blogging this time around? So many missed opportunities to hole up in my room like Dougie Howser and write it all out. So many totally awesome experiences!

In order to get back on track, you'll have to indulge me as I do a bit of a photo dump. Hopefully soon I'll be able to write out longer entries for some of my more extensive travel (Zanzibar in May, Uganda in July, Zambia and Botswana in August) but for the smaller things, this will have to do.

On December 24th I hopped on a Qatar Airways plane and headed home for the holidays. It was wonderful. Tons of family time, got to see quite a few friends (though I was there for only a very short time and was incredibly sick for much of it), threw a baby shower for my sister-in-law, etc.

So very nice to be home for the holidays.

The zebra chair was perfect, and happened to already be owned by my aunt and uncle.

The theme was "posh safari" because...obviously.

Cupcakes!

Red velvet with cream cheese frosting and vanilla on vanilla. So good.

Caramel popcorn anyone?

Those could be lion prints. Use your imagination.

And the necessary advice station.

Let's talk about how baking cake in a jar is not as easy as Pinterest makes it look.

Thank god Jo Anna came up from Delaware to help me!

Pink pink pink drinks.

Obviously so pumped to welcome the little one.

The cupcakes really were pretty.

More food spread.

Family from near and far.

Ella and Sophie. Basically our Mistresses of Ceremony.

They were so excited to do every challenge.

In this one, you had to take however much twine you thought it would take to go around my very pregnant but size -3 sister-in-law.

My brother over estimated.

Playing games.

Lovely to have the family all together.

Then, all too soon, it was time for me to come back for a last few months in Nairobi. One of the big things that I looked forward to was a dumpling party that Steph and I threw at our apartment in celebration of Chinese New Year. Dumplings from around the world was a ton of work, as always, but also a huge success, as always. I'd love to show you pictures of my ex-roommate during the process, but she's a crazy person, so that's not happening. You'll have to imagine a short Asian girl rolling out dough at our kitchen counter.

Butta and onions, all ready for the pierogies.

Mashing up the pierogie filling.

And the pork filling for the Chinese dumplings.

Squeezing out the excess water from the cabbage that goes in the fillings.

Tiny pan, perfect for test batches.

Jess gettin' down and dirty with some potatoes for Scandinavian dumplings.

Reason number 42 that TJ is an awesome roommate: perpetual party dish duty.

Brittney and Ben stuffing a billion pierogies.

Mmm, all ready to be fried and sauteed.

When you make the first 10 dumplings its all fun and games.

Gooey balls of potatoey goodness stuffed with HAM and CHEESE.

Lia cutting pineapple for the empanadas.

But once you get to dumpling 101 or so you start hating it.

Sauteeing up some pierogies.

Emanuel and Tyler rolling out the empanada dough.

We ate SO much, and drank SO much, and had a fabulous time.

The next big event in February was camel camping. But that deserves a whole post of its own, so that's coming.

The last week of February we had a huge company party in Nairobi National Park. It was good food in a really awesome setting, and just really great to kick back and relax with the whole company.