Nius blong Mitufala

Testing Video

Hello faithful readers...

I've been trying to upload video of Simon... CRAWLING!  Well, sorta.  He does the jungle crawl, arm over arm, while his legs lie useless behind him like a little paraplegic.  Otherwise, he gets up on all fours, moves his legs forward but forgets to move his arms and then face plants.

Anyway, I've been wanting to put video on here for a while but I don't want to use Vimeo or YouTube because I would prefer for the videos to remain in the private domain.  TypePad has just introduced an internal video feed that I'm trying to upload... with no success yet.

Stand by and in the meantime, Fred salutes you with a shell of kava...

 

 

Four Years and going strong...

Faithful readers will notice that Nius blong Mitufala has a new look!  I try to change it up every year on NBM's blogoversary.  Early October 2010 marks this blog's 4th year in existence.  It's amazing to think of all the changes that have been journalled here: car purchases, our first house, our pets, travels, pregnancy and Simon!

Fred and I have found this to be an excellent way to share news and photos of our lives, and so hereby commit to a fifth year of updating the blog on a regular basis.

We also love your comments and check them daily!  We both find them to be a source of love, support and humour.  Keep 'em coming!

Comments, comments, who's got the comments?

No one has anything to say about the last four posts that Fred and I have done?  Are our painting jobs really that bad?  Does no one care about our upcoming travels?  Is no one interested in the credit crunch in the Pacific (except Lindsey, thanks!) or Tongans in Texas?  Whine snivel whine.

Various and Sundry

For all you readers / lurkers out there:

• Enjoy some eye-candy and the fruits of our hard labors in my recent home improvement post


• Enjoy a translation of Fred's post about our upcoming trips - yes,together this time! - just scroll down to the bottom of the post, the English translation is in black


• Ever wonder whether or not there are Pacific Islanders in the US?  Yes!  And they're not only concentrated on the west coast in San Francisco and California... they've actually found their way to Texas!!!

Blogoversary

In honour of Nius Blong Mitufala's second blogoversary, the site has been given a new skin and a bit of rearranging has been done.  It's always good to change things up so that no one gets too complacent.  Hope you like it!

Albums photos ** Photo albums

Kendra a deja mis en ligne les photos de San Francisco avec quelques explications pour les plus interesses.

Un autre album sur notre voyage en voiture dans le Big Sur sera mis en ligne des demain.

*************************************************

Kendra already put on line the pictures of San Francisco with somme notes for the most interested.

Another album about our road trip will be put on line tomorrow.

A New Look for a New Year

In 11 days, Nius Blong Mitufala will celebrate its first anniversary.  Fred and I have really enjoyed keeping this blog and will continue to do so.  We both thought that a first year anniversary deserved a new look - hence the new, blue skin!  The set-up is more or less the same as the old one except there is only one column of extras on the left-hand side.  I thought that this would put more focus on the posts.

In reflecting on this past year of blogging, I found that blogging myself has made me much more interested in reading others' blogs.  I regularly start my morning with a cup of coffee (brewed lovingly by my husband - how's that for connubial bliss?), a bran muffin and a healthy dose of blog.  I really enjoy reading about others' lives - known and unknown to me.  It's almost like virtual reality TV without all the gimmicks.  I particularly like the fact that I can read excellent writers that I would never had had the chance to read because they would be writing short op.ed. columns for small, local newspapers.

Fred and I have both had the similar experience that blogging has brought us virtually closer to distant friends and families.  The wonderful response that we've gotten to our blog has really inspired us to keep on posting.  Many friend and family often forget to write personal emails to us because they feel like they know what's going on in our lives through the blog... this has its upsides and downsides, of course.  But all in all, this has been an excellent exercise that we're not ready to quit!

Where is the love? - Ou est l'amour?

Hello all!  Fred and I have been making heroic efforts to tell you in detail (perhaps too much...) about what we've been doing.  And what do we get in return?  No comments on our posts!  We look forward so much to reading your responses to our posts in addition to general emails from you.  So please don't hestitate to post a comment!!!!

Salut tout le monde!  Fred et moi, nous avons fait un grand effort de vous raconter en detail (peut-etre trop de detail...) ce que se passe dans nos vies.  Et qu'est-ce qu'on recois en retour?  Une manque de commentaires sur nos postes!  Nous attendons avec impatience de lire vos commentaires ainsi que des emails que vous nous envoyez.  Donc, n'hesitez pas a poster un commentaire!!!

Blog Organisation

Yes, I am a trained "Information Manager" or at least that's what it says on my diploma.  And as an Information Manager, I'm expected to organize information in a user-friendly way.  So, I have made some executive decisions about the organization of the information in this blog.  Here goes:

Categories
You will have noticed that each entry (post) in this blog is slotted in to a category.  All the categories are listed in the right column of the blog.  All you have to do is click on a category, and you can read all the posts associated with that subject.  Here's a quick list of the categories so far and their subjects:

• Au francais - information in French for French readers / information en francais pour des Francais
• Chez Derousseau - information about our personal lives in Vanuatu
• Communication - advice and information about calling and or visiting us in Vanuatu
• Friends and Fun - stories about our adventures and friends in Vanuatu
• Kava - stories and information about everyone's favorite beverage
• New Additions - notices about new photos and uploads added to the blog
• PacLII - info about Kendra's work
• Vanuatu Life - cultural information about living in Vanuatu
• Weblogs - technical information about using the Blog

RSS Feed
Added to this blog by popular demand (thanks Cath), all you have to do is subscribe to the feed and you'll get automatic updates about new additions to the blog.

If you click on the "Subscribe to this blog's feed" link directly, your browser may prompt you to download or open the file. Feeds aren't designed to be viewed in a web browser so you can obtain the feed URL by right-clicking on the "Subscribe to this blog's feed" link, going to "Properties"and copying the URL. Then it can be pasted into an aggregator (a small program that runs on your computer and picks up new items in the blog). 

The best and FREE aggregator for Windows is: http://www.sharpreader.net/  It's easy to install and use. 

Otherwise, check this site for other ideas: http://blogspace.com/rss/readers 

For those of you that might not be familiar with RSS feeds or aggregators, look at My Yahoo's excellent FAQ to learn more: http://my.yahoo.com/s/rss-faq.html

Posts en francais
Each time a post is written in French, the font will be a dark green.  This should help to make French entries a little more distinctive so that French readers don't miss them.

A chaque fois qu'un post est ecrit en francais, la police va etre du couleur vert fonce.  Comme ca, les posts en francais devraient etre un peu plus visible parmi tout l'anglais!

Technical questions ** Cote technique

For all of you who might not be familiar with blogs, you are welcome to comment on any entry. You can also read the comments of others! Just click on the hyperlink "Comments" under each post and write in the comments box provided. When you click on "send," your comments become available for everyone to see.

Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas des blogs encore, vous etes les bienvenues de laisser des commentaires. Vous pouvez egalement lire les commentaires des autres. Il vous suffit de cliquer sur le lien hypertexte "Comments" en dessous de chacun de mes postes et puis ecrire dans la boite texte. Quand vous cliquez sur "send" ou "envoyer" vos commentaires sont publies sur le site et ils sont visibles a tout le monde.

PS

If you click on a photo, you'll see a full-size image!

Si tu cliques sur une photo, tu verras une version agrandie!