Category Monthly Update

The Gem Playground: Construction Begins

Producing construction documents takes time, and I was able to complete them just before going on maternity leave last February! (Curious what those look like? I’ve included a small number of sheets below!) Thankfully once the drawings were ready so…

The Gem Playground: Design Process

Landscape architecture is a broad profession, but you can sum it up well by saying that anything outside the building is within the realm of a landscape architect. This means that your parks, trails, plazas, streetscapes, campuses and even zoos…

The Gem Playground

Aerial photo of the Gem Playground in the beginning stages of construction The months following our return to Uganda have been packed full of activity. After being away from our desks for 4 months you can imagine the work load…

Arensen Home Assignment Update

The past few months have been a whirlwind of travel across North America, providing us with invaluable opportunities to visit churches, connect with supporters, and share quality time with friends and family. I wanted to give you a glimpse of…

Friendships Old & New

We had some of our Ugandan friends over for dinner a few weeks ago. We made pizza, and apologized that we didn’t make them food. For it to be called “food” in Uganda, it needs to be a full meal…

May 2023 Update!

It’s been way too long since we last wrote an update here. I think we have a fairly decent excuse though.. The biggest news that we have is that we welcomed Jamie Esther Arensen into the world on February 22!…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December has been a month of extremes for us. The first 2-3 weeks were extremely busy: wrapping up the year meant a lot of celebrations, goodbyes, and work to get all of our various projects to a good stopping point…

What’s Hannah been up to?

Hello All! It’s been a while since I’ve written to you all and, to be honest, I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to pick up the laptop and take this all down. So much has happened in the last…

R&D Update: Solar Kiln

Hey everyone! I thought I’d take some time this month to talk about one of the main projects that I’ve been working on since we arrived here. I’ll try not to get too technical… I’m thinking about adding a section…