The Chronicles continue

I am having a really hard time putting words down on properly with what unfolded at the hospital this morning.
This morning the puss was going to be squeezed out of the infection site, it was discovered that is can't be squeezed ( anonymous commenter on the last post...... sorry no squeezing was possibly). This morning the doctor cleaned out my infection by scraping the puss out with tweezers and a thin piece of gauze as well as cleaned the inside of you hole.. The hole goes about 1.5 inches down and is really wide. This was done without any pain medication at all, it was unbelievably painful I cried, screamed and bite Evan's hand ( sorry Evan).
I will maybe post more and maybe add pictures in a couple days, I am pretty traumatized..... the pain was unbelievable! I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about it!

Hopefully I am on the road to recovery, not sure I will be able to return to the hospital tomorrow but I might just start cleaning and wrapping it myself at home from this point.

update on "Fred"

Well there is no BOT fly in my leg, I have to admit I am a little disappointed about that one. My other wish would be that a huge gob of puss would fly out and hit the doctor in the eye and that didn't happen either.
This "thing" is doing some serious leaking but the doctor was still unable to pop it this morning, he is hoping that tomorrow morning it will be pop-able.

This is what it looked like right after the doctor took away the gauze this morning. The picture isn't a great one ( it is a picture taken of the picture on Evan's cell phone). I actually have a hole in my leg that is fill with puss but like I said will not pop. the hole is probably a little smaller then a quarter.

So this is what I get to look forward to tomorrow morning. I will have not only one doctor at a time looking at it but they are getting together tomorrow morning and will be treating me at the same time. I could barely handle one of them at a time let alone 2! Could prove to be interesting! I just keep telling myself what I told my kids this morning when they asked why I let the doctors hurt me......... yeah doesn't make sense!
Sometimes you need to go through a "little" pain to get better.......... little in quotations!

Chronicles of "Fred" the raging infection

"Fred" is apparently loving his new home on my leg and not getting the drift that it is time for him to LEAVE! Day 6 of this infection, 2nd day on antibiotics and 2nd day of having it squeezed and poked. JOY !
Here is the run down on what has been happening with pics.

Monday afternoon, Evan took me to a little clinic that we have right near our house for all the GBE workers. She looked at my leg and immediately said I needed to go to the hospital for prescription medication.
I then went to CMM ( our hospital) and was seen by the doctor. Full recap on Monday is in the previous blog post, I will let you read that one on your own.

Monday morning, doesn't look bad in the picture but it really is!

Today I had to go back in, I will be going in every morning to be seen and treated until the infection clears up. I also needed to get blood drawn for tests. I had the typical blood drawn in the arm, and then I also had blood taken from my ear ( 2 pricks)! I have never had that before, very strange. It was to test how quickly my blood clots!
After blood work it was off to the see the doctor, well he proceeded to squeeze as hard as he could while I again writhed on the table screaming profanities in my head!
Then I was sent to another doctor in another area of the hospital where he cleaned it and squeezed it also. He cleaned it again and then dressed it. It was so tender and swollen at this point that it was incredibly painful just to have gauze touching it!

Tuesday after returning from the hospital

Tried to take it easy today but ended up building a fort, baking cookies and pushing the kids on the swings on 2 different occasions! Hmmmm, taking it easy didn't compute apparently.
I am not allowed to remove the gauze, the doctor will be doing it tomorrow morning. I am hoping for when he squeezes it again ( because we all know it is going to happen) a huge amount of puss will hit him in the eye....... awesome! Evan is hoping that I have something cool in my leg like a BOT fly, and I have to agree that would be frickin' awesome!

So I went to the doctor this afternoon, the pain got to the point that I couldn't sit properly and the swelling is making my thigh really tight.
No one speaks English at our hospital so Evan came along with me to interpret for both parties.

Well I was NOT prepared for what I was going to encounter at the hospital, that doctor was impersonal and very MEAN !
So laying on my stomach on the examing table and Evan says "He is going to squeeze it"! No warning, no asking, just squeezing!
SO there I am with tears streaming down my face, writhing on the table and does it pop...... NOPE! He used 4 fingers to try and squeeze it..... not 2 ..... 4!
I knew it wouldn't, the skin is super tight like it wants to pop in a horrible way but it doesn't.It only causes excruciating pain. Now my leg is even more irritated and swollen, walking is almost unbearable. It is a nasty infection that has already started to damage the tissue around it.
Plan of action, I have been given 2 different kinds of antibiotics, anti- inflammatory and cream. Tomorrow morning I need to go in and give blood and urine ( because that is what they do out here), also to check for any venom ( if it was caused by a bite) in my system. Tomorrow the doctor is also going to probably try and squeeze it again ( I hope not) and he will be dressing it. I will be seeing him EVERY morning until it is healed.
They really cover all the basis out here!

So that is my update, hopefully something a little more interesting to come soon!

Bodily Beauty

Check out this baby,

Nice, right?
That is the back on my right thigh, not sure what it is but I do know that it hurts like a bugger. On Thursday night I was lying my my stomach on our bed and Evan notice a bump that he said looked like a pimple or scratched mosquito bite. Evan poked it and it HURT! Did think much of it and called it a night. By Saturday afternoon I was in so much pain that I had to change out of from the loose jeans carpri's that was wearing into baggy lulu pants and that was still painful. We had company at the time so I sucked it up and then when everyone was gone I changes into shorts so no material was touching it.
The picture below was taken on Sunday morning, the pen is to watch the swelling and as you can see it has grown since Saturday night when Evan traced it.

Guessing it is some kind of infection, fingers crossed that it clears up before heading to the ocean at the end of the week.

Oops!

Lets look at this on the bright side, all before 9:00 am on a Saturday morning I managed to flood half of our house and make the house keeper upset!
Now that is what you call talent!

We have large blue bins in our bathrooms for when the water isn't working. We pour water from that bucket into the toilet to flush it. This water can also be used for heating up for baths and washing.
Anyway our water has been off more days then it has been on in the last 3ish weeks and this morning I noticed that the barrel was running low so I stuck the shower head inside turned on the water and proceeded on with my morning. About 1 hour later I needed to head into my room to change out of pj's and walked water half way up my toes covering all 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and our hallway!
Hee hee Oops!

Well our house keep had been sitting with the guards at this point for about 20 minutes so I was crossing my fingers that she would stay out and I could get it clean up. One hour and 7 towels that I had to wring out and re-use a bunch it was semi passable. I was just thankful that our house keeper at that point had taken an hour ish long break.
Well she walked in and headed straight for the hallway with a broom to stop dead in her tracks.
At this point I had hung my head in shame and tried to be invisible.
As soon as she walk into the hallway she stopped dead in her tracks let out a sigh and headed out to talk to the guards.
One word...... BUSTED !

What do you do on a Sunday night.......................

..... bring your kids to the bar!

Last weekend we were in town while Evan was checking out a job site. We ran into one of the guys who works for Evan and his wife, after the guys were finished checking out the bank that was being built Curt invited us out for drinks.
We were thinking a quick Coke and head home so we accepted and followed them to the "restaurant". A couple minutes later we pulled up to a bar.

So yes, we are the parents who take their kids into a bar on a Sunday night. The weirdest part is it is totally allowed out here and no one bats an eye. It is kind of like the fact that people can smoke everywhere out here, including in the restaurant at the table right next to yours.

So I was incredibly thirsty when we went to the bar on Sunday and ordered a bottle of water...... did they have water................NO !
You wouldn't believe how common that is out here, everyone sells coke, fanta, beer but not nearly everyone sells water. Drives me completely batty!

Week 8 Edition

Yesterday marked 8 weeks that we have been living in Kinshasa, initial reaction should be, no way really! It actually feels like we have been in Kinshasa way longer then 8 weeks.

My mind is completely blank............... hmmmmmm
thinking............ thinking............thinking.............thinking..................... you get the point! I just tried to recruit Evan's help but he is still working at 11:00 pm ( workaholic)!
Lets try another point form post, it maybe all over the place but it could be interesting! Yeah for little tid-bits of info that are not necessarily connected in anyway.

- Evan and I just recently started driving ( I think 2 weeks ago), mainly on weekends and some evenings. Traffic during the day ( Mon-Fri) is still a little crazy for my liking so I rely on a chauffeur for the week. I LOVE driving, I LOVE the freedom.

- We have yet to acquire a pet of any kind, chicken coop still isn't finished. Sorry Ari, no lion or giraffe yet!

- We have had 4 days of sun in 8 weeks, and I say sun very loosely. We will be heading into rainy AKA Hot season in the next 4 ish weeks. We are all really looking forward to some heat and some sun.

- Emmanuel and Micah are really looking forward to starting school, they are desperate to make friends and have someone other then each other to play with.

- Both kids are still very reluctant to speak any french in public. There have been a couple times when we have forced the kids to just say "Thank you" and that ended with tears, embarrassment, more tears and an even bigger wall up with speaking french. It will come, I have realized more and more that it needs to be on their time and NO ONE else!

- Often when I speak french in public I get laughed at, doesn't matter who is around people laugh at me. I am not being laughed at because I am speaking wrong ( most of the time), everyone is happy to hear me speaking french and it comes out through laughter. This is one of the main road blocks the kids have with speaking in public............. they HATE that people laugh "at them". I know I have tried to explain it!
Micah has cried when people have laughed "at" my speaking.
But my french is slowly coming along........ slowly!

- Evan is loving his job, it keeps him very busy ( 12:05 am and still in the phone, he did stop for supper though). He generally is in the office from 6:30 am - 5:00 pm Monday through Friday but gets phone calls on Saturday and Sunday.

- We found Smirnoff Ice out here! WHOO HOO
Crazy... I know! It has a slight different taste but it is still good and the alcohol percentage in not as high as what we get in Canada. The first one I had I was so proud of myself that I finished one and was starting on my second with little effect. That was until Evan pointed out that the alcohol percentage was lower.

- I ( Mel) have been shopping in town by myself ( aside from weekends) for about 4 - 5 weeks now. I can even order (in french) cheese and sandwich meat from the deli with little to no troubles.

- We all have good days and bad days, culture shock is still very relevant in our lives. We deal with it the best we know how and hope that the next day is better.
We miss friends and fam often and send you all our love.

Orphanage

This past Sunday morning while the kids and I were kicking back watching TV and Evan was answering work phone calls, Evan received a personal phone call from one of our chauffeurs. One of the chauffeurs that works for the same company as Evan was out visiting the orphanage. This particular orphanage has 26 kids under the watchful eye of 2 parents.
Because the orphanage receives no government help at all they rely on donations in order to eat, clothe the kids and send them to school.
Anyhoo, this particular phone call was to inform us that the orphans hadn't eaten in the last couple days and were in need of clothes. This shaped the rest of our day!
We managed to get some food together combining anything we had at our house, Evan's parents house and we bought a 50 pound bag of rice. Collected a bunch of clothing that Evan's parents already had set aside and headed out for the orphanage. We arrived with 5 shopping bags full of food and the bag of rice, that will be enough food to feed the orphans for 2 or 3 days and they will once again be out of food. At that point they hope for another donation of food or money to come along. All they can do is hope and pray!

We were welcomed like royalty, they actually made up a song for our arrival and sang it to us. They also sang to us when we left after a visit. As amazing as it was, some of us didn't receive it so well. Emmanuel was so unimpressed that we were sung to, he literally wanted to hide. He doesn't like to have any attention on him.

I was a great experience, one that I am glad our kids could see.

** for anyone interested the young lady on the far right side of the picture in the pick shirt is our nanny. I couldn't believe she wanted to come with us, even on her day off she wants to be around us!

Jobs and outlook

I have been struggling with my current job for a couple weeks now, for one I am not super experienced in teaching Pilates and I don't really enjoy it very much...cough....cough..... or at all!
As soon as I started teaching at the clinic I sensed a lot of hostility for the current members, a couple classes in I was actually told that my teaching was horrible, I don't belong here and some other things not worth mentioning.
Slowly my numbers started dropping ( some of this is due to a lot of people going on holidays) and eventually dropped down to no one. Let me tell you, huge kick to the self-esteem!
Long and short: this job was getting me down. This last week I also took a couple more unexpected blows with work and I was having a hard time seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.

On Wednesday I received an e-mail from the superintendent of TASOK, ( the school the kids will be attending in the fall) offering me a job. The e-mail didn't state what kind of job, just that it was a half time position.
I went for an interview on Friday morning and I took the job!
I am going to be teaching in the middle school ( gr 6-8); a program called Metamorphosis. It is a health class that touches on health, fitness, good study habits and a unit on your body going through "certain" changes and what they are!
I am also going to be offering some sort of fitness class 3x pr week in the afternoons to faculty, high school students and women in the community.
WHOO HOO !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!

I went to work that evening to teach at 6 pm and guess what; no one came! I quit right on the spot and I couldn't have made a better choice for myself.
I am trying desperately to chance my outlook on life, going 7 weeks unhappy is far too long and it needed to change.
My goal now is what is going to make me happy, I need to find my rhythm out here and find my place in a new culture.
I am looking forward to the next couple weeks off before I jump in head first on Aug 8th at the school with faculty meetings, class prep and BBQ's! Plan on spending a lot of time at the pool if the weather is nice!

Pictures

Here are a couple pics from a couple posts ago when blogger was not being nice.

proofreading

Okay, time to make a promise to all of our blog readers................ I am need to start proofreading my posts before hitting "post". That is my dirty little secret, time to go back to the days where Evan reads over my shoulder!

I am sorry if I offended anyone in my last post when I wrote that my french sounds like gibberish and "shit" talk. It was supposed to read, "gibberish and SPIT talk!"

Oops sorry!

hmmmm

I actually have very little to say right now....... surprised??????

Lots of changes maybe on the horizon for especially me but I don't want to get ahead of myself and starting talking about them. I can say that these will go fantastic changes and I hope that they will all work out. I have a job interview tomorrow at 9:30 am so I will blog after that and fill everyone in.
Thank goodness my job interview is in English otherwise if it was in French I would need to add to my resume that I excel in gibberish and shit talk!

I had a great day with the kids, I wasn't teaching today so I took the kids swimming for a good chunk of the day. Cancelled my French lessons and sent our nanny fruit shopping, just spent time with my rug rats.
I will leave you with a couple pics, I know Evan has a couple ideas for blog posts so we will see if we can good up with some good stuff before the night is through.

** okay forget the pics right now, blogger is not letting me upload any. I will try again later!

I would love to write a blog post but I have at least 2 and a half hours of French homework ahead of me tonight and it is already 10:19 pm.
Unless I stay on the computer and not do my homeowrk................. hmmmmmm!

NOPE, French then blog. Hopefully I will be back tonight with a solid update for you all!

Never a dull day!

I think I would get bored if our lives were ever normal........ yup pretty sure I would!

Today is a day to record in the history books.
First things first.............. I drove today WOOT WOOT WOOT, happy dance inserted right here!
I have not driven since leaving Calgary just about 7 weeks ago. Evan and I received our drivers licenses today and I drove home from work! Now doesn't sound like a big deal but it really is, driving is CRAZY out this way. No rules, no lines, no lights, no stop signs, no shoulders, just traffic in every direction and people walking out into the middle of the road. As much fun as it was to drive and drive standard at that it is totally sensory overload! It will get better when we get used to it!

Also we got to experience a little unrest in Kinshasa today. I was supposed to teach this afternoon from 1-2. Freddie dropped me off at the club and I walked into a completely empty clinic and studio....no one in sight!
Called Evan who was with Freddie to come back and get me, so Freddie left Evan at the Western Union and came and got me.
On our way to get Evan my phone rings and Evan is calling saying that he couldn't get out of the Western Union until now because they locked everyone who was inside in and everyone who was outside out. There was a huge protest march happening down the main boulevard in Kinshasa, hundreds of people marching and singing. After we picked up Evan we had to head to yet another Western Union and from behind us you could see tear gas going off to break up the protest.
I got home that afternoon and opened my e-mail to find a mass e-mail being sent out to everyone who works at UN, us-aid and a couple of the other larger companies that a lot of ex-patriots work for stating that they are not recommending any unnecessary travel into the city due to tear gas and shots fired.
I still went to work but no one else showed up........ oh well!

We are all safe and sound, as crazy as it sounds I thought is was a pretty cool experience and never once worried about our safety.

All in a days work.

scrambled

What a huge stretch it has been for the kids to have a french nanny for me, but aside from that she is AMAZING ! ! ! ! ! !
Right now the kids and Nene are playing at a huge play center in Kinshasa will blow up castles and stuff like that. Why is it a stretch? Nene doesn't speak any English......... at all! I need to be able to tell her information which has drastically forced me to dig deep inside and pull any french out that I can remember! I was explaining to her where we leave money for her in case she wants to take the kids out and she stood there and LAUGHED at me........ she got the point but busted a gut at the same time!
It has shocked me because I seem to know a little more then I thought but it ALWAYS sound better in my head the out of my mouth! In order to get this communication down I just upped my french lessons by 2 more hours a week, let hope it pays off!

When speaking a new language I find myself making LOTS of mistakes, yesterday I told Nene the kids could play pretty...... who knew!
Today, I told Julee my french tutor that I go to work on paper and that I am a difficult friend. Apparently I am learning a whole new side to myself! :)

I just finished 3 1/2 hours of solid french lessons, my brain is shot but I have Pink cranked so all balances out.

Bonobo adventure

We went to visit the Bonobo Chimps on Sunday this past weekend! It was a great experience especially for the kids. Really the only down side to the day was me stepping in a fire-ant hill! Lets just say that their name serves them well!
Both Evan and I had the opportunity to feed the chimps which was incredible, the kids also had the chance by they both turned it down.
We had to stay arms distance away from the fence because it was electric and the vet standing by way paranoid! Also the Bonobo's are known for grabbing anything they can get their hands on.


The first thing you notice is how much they bonobo's are like humans. They walk upright for the most part and they actually part their hair in the middle and smooth it down. These chimps are super playful , fairly gentle natured and settle all differences with sex! There is very little fighting with in the Bonobo family just a whole lot of lovin'.

Gonna let the photo's speak for themselves!

Mom and Baby.

Another one of mom and baby.

A cutie, this little one was abandoned and is now thriving in the nursery.

We have so many more pictures so hopefully over the next couple days I can do another post or to of pics.

Answers

Sometimes it takes snapping to realize how certain situations in our lives and not working. I snapped today.......... WOW!
We pay a nanny to take care of our kids, to show them love and have fun in our absence. I had french lessons this afternoon outside on our patio. When it was just about over I could hear Micah crying in the kitchen, I waited it out until my lessons were over and then walked inside to find our nanny sitting on the couch watch TV! I went into the kitchen and found Micah so upset because she was having trouble making a Nutella sandwich. Where was the nanny??????? Oh ya watching TV!
I made Micah's sandwich and dried her tears but it was the last straw. I walked into the living room and LOST IT........ yelling at the top of my lungs for the TV to be turned off. The remote was right beside her and she didn't move.
In the last month she has not made my kids a snack once, Emmanuel had made Micah her snacks and that is not right! There are so many more issues but I am not going to get into them so I like to think my "snapping" was warranted.

Evan and I just got off the phone with his parents and we have decided that the nanny will be fired tomorrow morning. We have another nanny lined up, she is our housekeeper and she LOVES the kids. The only down fall is she doesn't know English but our head guard does so if there is a huge problem he can translate. I am super pumped by how fast the kids will learn french with her around and it will push me to learn faster.............. not like I am not trying! :)

This is a huge but great step!
On a completely different note Saturday night we had the privilege of playing soccer with one of the guards. You could tell at first that they were unsure of what to think about playing and the one guard that agreed to play was very careful around us. Not to kick to hard or throw his body into it. 1/2 hour in and all walls were down, he ran us hard............. seriously danced circles around us! SO MUCH FUN !

Problems with the nanny STILL, crazy children, frustrating french lessons, intermittent power failures and now no water has left a foul taste in my mouth. Top that off with already feeling off and grump for the last couple days....................... NOT good!
Lots of tears have been flowing today.

Hopefully I will snap out of it in order to put up a good post yet tonight!

Grand intentions

Well I had grand intentions to do a post about our trip to the Bonobo's today but I do not have the energy to upload all the pictures go through them and get a post together. I will make sure to do that tomorrow. I do have to say that the day was fantastic, we live in Africa yes but we spend Monday - Friday working, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in french lessons ( for 2 hours for each of us) and also grocery shopping on Saturday and grocery shopping take hours. Sometimes on Sunday it is great to feel like a "tourist", even just for an afternoon!
More on the Bonobo's tomorrow!

We have been living in Kinshasa for 6 weeks now and I can believe everyone of those days. It has actually felt more like 6 months instead.
Lets talk health and bug bites that we have acquired in that time.

We are all covered in mosquito bites, that's a given.... enough said!

A couple weeks ago Evan was bite by a nasty wasp, it was not a regular wasp. He said it hurt so bad and his arm got hot, red and swollen. IT took about 3-4 days to heal but about 4 weeks later you can very distinctly see the puncture mark and it is big. I wouldn't be surprised if it scarred. Evan actually tracked the wasp down after it bit him because it didn't die and killed it himself!

I decided to take one for the team on the bite front and stepped directly into a fire ant hill this morning, in sandals! I was taking pictures of Evan feeding the Bonobo a banana so I held it together as long as I could but very soon my sandals were flying off and I was hitting off as many as I could while choking back the tears. I was a sight to see.......I bet! My feet and up to the middle of my calves are covered in little red dots ( a lot that were bleeding) and they still burn a little but for the most part the swelling and major discomfort is gone.

What about on the health front? We have been fairly healthy since arriving. We do need to be very careful when we take our malaria pills because if our stomach is a little too empty then we get very nauseous. I actually thought that because I was running 24/7 for 2 months before leaving and then moving to a new country that I would get sick but I have be fortunate enough to hold all sickness off. Both Emmanuel and Micah complain of a lot of stomach aches but we are thinking it is one of 3 things;
1. Malaria pills taken on an empty stomach
2. anxiety as we try and develop a sense of belonging in a 3rd world country
3. Stomach issues ( we all have them). starts with cramping and is followed by a very fast run to the bathroom. Which goes together with getting used to new food.

Evan has had to go to the hospital though ( which is also our doctors office). Evan developed an "eye" infection about a week and a half ago. It started with itchy and irritated skin around his eye and turned into swelling, pus filled redness! it had nothing to do with his eye ball though. Evan went to the doctor and was given a prescription but just to be sure they called in a eye specialist (who know we had those..... it didn't). I couldn't believe they would call in a specialist! Evan's eye is all healed now and looking good.

Welcome to Kinshasa #2

I was able to get a couple more pictures today in our travels of the city and how it is made up, I hope this continues to give you a broader picture of our surroundings.
This is taken on the Poids Lourds, we live just off this road in a compound. The Poids Lourds take you directly into the city center.
Looking through the Truck window, the man in front of us is pushing a Pousse-pousse. A huge number of men push these carts for a living, a large number of things could be on them and they are often stacked incredibly high. You should see the muscles on these guys...... enough said!
Another pic of a pousse-pousse coming into the city center. This road you are looking at I take into work every time I go. It is packed with people selling EVERYTHING !
Fountains! There is often music playing here as well.
Looking down the Boulevard!
Apartment buildings!
On our way home along the Poids Lourds again!

Not sure how many more times we will take our camera to town because it is not really allowed but hopefully you got a small taste of where we live.

Tomorrow we are taking our kids to the Bonobo Chimp sanctuary to play with orphaned Bonobo chimps! Check back for a report and probably another post very heavy with the pictures.

Maluku

A couple weeks ago we went to a near by Village to hear stories about how the war and soldiers have impacted individuals lives in a negative way. we had the privileged of hearing stories from the teenage girl who were raped by soldiers and became pregnant. After sharing lunch with the girls and ladies who run the group that supports them we went to a near by military camp where the wives and family's of the soldiers live. A lot of these women are widows and these kids are without their fathers.
Not feeling a super heavy post tonight but I do want to share a couple pics with you.
Emmanuel and Micah were definitely a little unsure of the whole situation but it is very over whelming when so many kids are following you around and trying to push to get a little closer.
Over all it was a really good experience, one that I never thought that I would get to have but definitely one that I think Evan and I and our kid will not forget.

Welcome to Kinshasa

So, We decide that we would "bend" one of the un-written rules out here ( none of the rules in Kinshasa are actually written, I don't think), on Thursday it was Independence Day in Congo so Evan had the day off from work. In the afternoon we took the kids swimming at TASOK and brought along our camera.
Yup, we took pictures....... shame on us! the entire ride that Evan was taking pictures Emmanuel was freaking out..... put the camera away dad...... watch out there are police.....etc!

So here is a small tour of our new world, a very small part of it! Most pics are blurry and out of focus because Evan was concealing the camera and just snapping away.

and another

What about one more

Hopefully we can take some better pictures yet, these don't really do it justice but it might give you a small idea.
If you have any questions about any of the pictures just ask!