JULY 2021

Things have been a little bit different over the last few weeks. At the beginning of July we left East Africa to spend some time in the USA. When we arrived in Kenya in November 2020 we had always planned to have a break in the summer; an opportunity to rest, recuperate and spend time with friends and family. Back in November we had planned for this time to be spent in the UK. We assumed and hoped that by August the COVID-19 situation would change and we would be allowed to travel. As we entered the new year and the months rolled by we kept telling ourselves "by August it will be fine". Obviously it wasn't, and Kenya still remains on the UK travel Red List. The prospect of a 10 day quarantine, nearly half of our planned holiday time, in a hotel room with 2 young children did not fill us with excitement. Then having to pay for the privilege... no thanks. So we ended up booking a trip to America instead. With various friends and partners in different states we planned to visit as many of these as possible. It has been great so far. We feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to travel and spend time catching up with friends. So far we've been in Connecticut, North Carolina and South Carolina. Currently we are in Texas and will be here for another week before we head up to Pennsylvania for a few days, then we spend a couple of nights in New York before returning to Kenya.

We return to Kenya in mid August and hopefully by then we are ready to return. Honestly, right now I'm not sure any of us are ready to go back. We didn't quite realise how much the last 8 months have taken out of us. We have been told that the first year is the hardest so it is our hope that as we get ready to head back and finish our first year that things start to get a bit easier.