Brent meets Ann Curry and Mike Mullen (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)

Admiral Mullen and Ann Curry (of the Today show) came to NAMRU-3 on a tour last week. Brent spoke with both of them and I am including a picture of Brent and the other officers with Ann Curry (you can hardly see Brent, but he is there) and Brent in formation while Adm. Mullen spoke to each one of the officers.

Brent didn't even tell me about it right away and we couldn't tell anyone else until a week had passed! Brent's trip to Azerbaijan went well and he said he had the best hot chocolate he has ever had while there (called Black and White---mix of dark and white chocolates). Also, said that flying into Vienna, Austria was beautiful.....we are going to need to go to the Alps I think:)

Date "farms", kids at church and funny Sarah

Egypt is the biggest producer of dates in the world, so they have "farms" of date palm trees and they use the dates, the trees, the bark and the leaves for all sorts of stuff. It is funny to drive by acres of palm trees...reminds me of the tree farms in pacific northwest, but a lot drier!!

Picture of kids on Sabbath (Friday) outside of the villa we have church in. It is nice to have a place to go and such great people to meet with. Next week our numbers will swell by 53 for sacrament meeting, as a BYU tour group is coming through:) Ahhh, sweet memories of summertime in Alaska and using ALL the chairs in the house to accommodate the visiting members. The numbers will rapidly decrease though----most expats leave all summer (June-Aug), so I think our kids will be the ONLY kids in primary for the whole summer!


Sometime when the kids don't want to do something they need to do (like their kitchen job, etc...) I say to them, "You can do it, you have skills and talents and you are a strong person. I know you can do it." Well, the other day I asked Sarah to clear the table. She said, "I can't do it." I said, "of course you can do it, you are strong and you have skills." I walked out of the room and I hear Sarah shout after me, "Mom, you should clear the table because you have skills too!"

Do you know what a pyramid smells like inside?

Ammonia....that is right and it is nasty! I think the smell comes from bat urine, and though unconfirmed, I definitely think I am right!
Also, it is extremely HOT down there, which is very weird considering the passageway and chambers are deeply embedded in tons of rock....none the less, it is hot and smelly and very very interesting!!! The ceiling is complex and terraced down from the "point" of the pyramid. The chambers were large and multi-leveled. The passageway down from the opening to the chamber was very small and very steep. We had to hunch over and hold on tight to the railing and carefully use the board slats as steps, so as not to "slide" down. Kids loved it!
Also, we entered a tomb of an ancient prince and saw detailed imagery of a hippopotamus hunt. VERY COOL!

We drove ourselves through rural Egypt to the Djoser "stepped" Pyramid---which is thought to be the oldest pyramid. We also saw the Red Pyramid, which is the 2nd tallest and the Bent Pyramid in Saqqara, Egypt. There were very few people there and we enjoyed seeing the inside chambers of the Red Pyramid. We didn't go inside the Bent Pyramid but we think it looks cool.....can you guess why they call it bent??

Here are photos of the trip:
kids in front of real, ancient hieroglyphics
the Bent Pyramid
boy driving donkey cart, pulling alfalfa
bustling market in rural Egypt....we had to drive right through the middle of this!
kids in front of the step pyramid

Driving

We got our van yesterday. I drove it today and only had two problems:) First, I bumped into the VERY NARROW car port wall (very minor, but unnerving!) trying to get out of the "garage". I use the term garage loosely and the boab (the man who is paid to "watch" the building, cars, open locked front entry, etc...) tried to tell me in broken Arabic that he didn't think I should park in there:) Well, after making my way to the grocery store and home, I was backing into the driveway to unload, with the boab guiding me. He told me to go and I backed right over his glass of tea!!! Of course he had set it on the curb and he was the one guiding me, so I feel he is partly to blame:) It was funny and all the men sitting along the street (5 or 6) all laughed. They probably don't think women should drive anyway. Well, I guess I will be buying a new tea cup, eh?!

Bread

Today I made bread for the first time since arriving in Cairo (sans powdered milk---they don't have that here!). It made me feel settled, normal and very happy....of course it was the maid's first day as well, which could account for some of the euphoria:)

Love you all!

Remembering Paul

Today, April 13th, marks the 1 year anniversary of the death of Paul House, Brent's older brother. We have been thinking about Paul and how we miss him, how we love him, and how glad we are that he is in a place where he can be free from his earthly limitations. This week seems a great time to remember these things, as we have been talking about the gift of the Resurrection. We miss you Paul and we can't wait to see you again someday!

Easter in Egypt

Easter in Egypt is a bit different from what we are used to....first of all, Easter Sunday is a normal day of the week (holy day is Friday). We used my "Having a Christ-centered Easter" book (I really like it---Deseret book by Joe and Janet Hales). We began our celebration on Palm Sunday (which was a school day of course) and talked every night about Jesus and what that day was like in during the last week of His life on Earth. We had a special passover feast, complete with bitter herbs, paschal lamb, wine of the vine (grape juice) and unleavened bread. We also ate other foods that would have been eaten during Jesus's time. We had olives, feta cheese, flat bread, yogurt, nuts, apricots....you get my point:) It was good. Good Friday we had church and then on Saturday we had our family traditional egg hunt inside the house. There was no place to do it outside and we are still finding little chocolate eggs every day, so that is a bonus to doing it that way:) Saturday evening, we attended a church dinner/get-together. Easter Sunday, Brent had work (they give him eastern Easter off, which is this coming Sunday) so we all slept in, went swimming, played in the sand, skyped with family and talked about the Resurrection that evening after our dinner of fish and honeycomb (ok, it was only honey, but I did try) and couscous. We like Easter, but will have to adjust to Sunday being like a Monday!

We are hoping to get our car this week....yipee! We got our Egyptin driver licenses this last week (and yes, bribery was used and was an acceptable form of policy!!) and both Brent and I have been driving a work van a bit. Brent is a little more stressed when he gets home from work each day now that he is the one driving the carpool!

Some pictures attached of the events and such. Love to all.

This week---pretty much just unpacking....but we got high speed connected!!!

pictures are:

nile delta fields (they have wheat and vegetables, etc..)and water buffalos and cows

nostalgic street in Abu Hamad

a muslim woman in full body coverage carrying basket on her head on side of road---I took this as we drove by

giant pigeon coops (white, rocket-looking things) for raising pigeons to be eaten (they are sold in the restaurants here)

the endless miles of desert (interrupted only by power lines!)

We got the ADSL connected today, so lets see how it does with uploading pictures:) These pictures are from our trip through the desert to the Nile Delta (growing area) where we stayed at Abu Hamad for 3 days (the place that was from the American 50's)

We got our stuff (but NOT our car) this week so we have been unpacking, cleaning and rejoicing in our expanded wardrobes:)

Today we went to a little Easter party at the Maadi House (place for expats to hangout, swim, play on playground, etc..) The kids have Sunday, April 12th off of school for Easter and then school off on April 19th for Eastern Easter and then school off April 20th for a Muslim spring holiday.....crazy! It was HOT HOT HOT today and I think I may need to turn the A/C on. The marble floors are a god-send in the apartment because they keep it cool. We went swimming, played and Brent took a taxi to go get the internet figured out (bless him for that!)
Well, another week is upon us and we will be in touch as we can. Love you all.