Good bye Autumn, Hello Winter

Well, with the leaves all off the trees, our first snow flurry and COLD weather (no, it is nothing like Alaska or Idaho cold, but hey this is Maryland and it is cold for here!) we welcome winter weather with great Thanksgiving.....and some fun pictures:)

Josh--the football player

Josh has been playing tackle football for the first time this fall. It has been a real learning experience and he has seen football is very different from what you seen on tv.....it hurts more! Josh has worked hard, played hard and even froze this last few weeks at practice. His team made the play-offs and just moved on to the SUPER BOWL:) Cool, eh!

The UBER-Memory Game challenge

Yes, you too can play. All you have to do is combine every memory game you have and then take 2 hours of time to play till the end. Oh, I forgot, you need a big kitchen table or something in order to do it:) Don't let the length scare you away....this game is hilarious, funny and down-right mind-boggling:)

As requested: Egypt details

Thanks for all the positive comments. Who knew that starting a blog would result in such validation and praise! I should have started sooner :)

So here is the info on our Egypt move:
Moving to a place called Maadi, "suburb" of Cairo where all the DOD and American Embassy people live. We will leave around Feb. 16th and stay for 2 years (with potential of extending a year, but don't know about that yet). We will live in a "flat" which I am told is still large (like 4 or 5 bedrooms and big enough for our family) but is one level and is in an apartment building. The kids are going to a private school which seems awesome and all kids will be in same school, just different wings (a lot like Gustavus school...... but bigger....and with a swimming pool and tennis courts). Emma will switch to half-day Kinder and Sarah will still be home with me until she starts Kinder in Fall 2009, so we will have some fun together and Sarah will be glad to have Emma home so she can play with her instead of only with me!
Brent will carpool in a DoD vehicle about 20 minutes to work each day. All riders rotate driving so that all can experience the chaos-thrill that comes from driving in Cairo. I hear Maadi driving is a lot better, which is where I will be driving with our van that we are shipping over (have to ship it in early December in order for it to arrive in late Feb.).
We are hoping that we get a big enough flat to have a real guest room, which means we would LOVE any of you as visitors:) Come on, it really isn't THAT far:)

Well, we have been busy getting passports, visas, the big list of shots we all have to have, and cleaning out the house (4 different piles: to store while we are gone, the express shipment, the regular shipment (both counting toward 2,000 lb total which isn't much) and the get rid of pile). I do love cleaning out, but after all this time thinking I was organized and didn't keep junk, I am realizing that might be my ideal and not my actual:)

Have a good Sabbath. We are having Stake Conference with the new temple president, Elder Tingy, presiding. He seems great but we will miss Elder Hammond---he actually went fishing with my dad in Gustavus!

3 squeezes means I LOVE YOU

Emma (almost 6 and in Kindergarten) came up to me and grabbed my hand. She squeezed it 3 times. She looked up to me and told me that when she squeezes my hand like that, 3 times, she was saying "I Love You" to me without talking:) Since then she just grabs my hand sometimes and without words makes my whole day better!

Halloween Fun with Emma (smiling witch) and Elisabeth (girl pirate)

Deadlines and Arabic 101

Well things are rolling along now with the planned move to Cairo. Egypt. 16th is Brent's detach date (we found out today) and we will be packing up and flying out around that date. WOW.....still pretty weird to think about, but we are excited and starting to practice our Arabic.

Arabic 101: "laa" means no and "shukran" means thank you. It only took Josh a minute to put them together when I asked him to go and brush his teeth. He quickly said, "laa shukran, Mom". Kids are amazing at how fast they pick stuff up, especially when desperate to not brush their teeth!