SAM’S 14th birthday - Monday 17th March 2008

Sam was spoilt last night, Danielle organised a special dessert birthday cake to celebrate his birthday with everyone from the SOS team. Then the boys went to youth group and we had setup balloons, streamers and supper for Sams birthday too. He was given some neat cards from his friends (unfortunately the mail from NZ didn’t arrive in time so Sam had no cards to open on his birthday. It seems to be taking 5-6 weeks for some mail to get here. We received two letters from NZ dated 25 February and its amazing how excited everyone in the family gets when post arrives, its a real treat ) He, Zach and their friends had a great night, with lots of fun and laughter. Then the boys went for a walk to take Emanuel home, always fun to do in the dark down to the village!!!
We got up and had pancakes for breakfast, we had Simon and Alex back for the weekend, so they celebrated Sams birthday with us. We had made the decision when we came out here to not spend loads on presents, but instead to go out and have a day doing what the birthday peson wanted.
SO SAM’s choice was lunch at Spurs (great family restaurant at one of the Kampala hotels) and maybe either 10 pin bowling or the movies. We left home at 10am and headed for Kampala, did a little bit of shopping, went to have a look at some drums at the music shops, but too expensive, they wanted anywhere from 900,000 USH to 3.5millions USH (NZ$750 to NZ$2916) so that purchase was totally out of the question!!! A African bongo drum may have to surfice!
Anyway we headed to Garden City and the restaurant, we got sidetracked at Sparkles Salon and treated Sam to a birthday haircut, the first one since Jan Clark cut it back in early January, so you can imagine how thick his hair was. Anyway Deane and I also had our first haircuts, Deane was a shave (no2, short and prickly OK I could’ve done that for nothing, but they wash and give you a hed massage in the price, not my thing! So he can pay 5,000 USH for all of that ($NZ$4.20) . Unfortunately we were unable to convince Zach of his DESPARATE need of a haircut.
We headed for Spurs and a yummy lunch then off for a game at 10 pin bowling – OH no Monday is the only day in the week that they are closed! Oh well we decided we would head around to Cineplex and catch a movie, OH no the movie we had decided to see finished last week!!! What a disappointing birthday, but Sam ever so gracious, as Sam is was ok and glad that he had chosen the biggest steak on the menu, even outeating Deane!!!
We headed home and no dinner was needed, then went down for SOS games evening and fellowship which, as always, was loads of fun and laughs.