No rhyme or reason...just life.

I took the kids to Abu Hammad again (the 1950's look-alike retreat) and didn't get lost on the way there OR the way back, so I am feeling pretty good about myself:) I was reminded again how entertaining and stressful driving in Egypt is. We saw some CRAZY stuff on the roads, including a truck loaded with bales of hay, 3 x as tall as the truck itself, almost tip over. A big gust of wind came up and it tipped really far, but amazingly did not tip all the way over. I laughed...AFTER we were safely past!

The picture is of Rebekah on the way to her piano lesson. There are no zoning laws here, so you have a music studio right next door to someone's apartment and laundry hanging from the windows as you walk in to take lessons. That is the way it is when we go to the dentist as well. Pretty funny and a bit weird.

Brent is still gone....he emailed yesterday and said he was going to probably have to extend the trip for an extra 2-3 days, so that puts him gone from Sept. 28th to Oct. 14 or 15th. LONG TRIP! I think he is doing well and teaching a lot of good things to people. He sounds optomistic in his emails to us. Josh is in charge of taking care of his fantasy football team while he is away. Josh says he finally got the team to start winning some points:)

Kids are going back to school tomorrow. I have plans to sit in a darkened room with no sound or busy-ness and just breathe.....well, for a minute at least...in between all the catch up work I have to do to make up for all the time I spent teaching school the last 2 weeks. One thing for sure: all the kids are really grateful for the educational opportunities they have and for the chance to even go to school. I am much more appreciative of the time and efforts teachers put in on a day-to-day basis to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Here is a picture of our boab Sa'id (on the left) and the neighbor's boab (I don't know his name, on the right). Boabs are hired by the landlord to take care of the buildings/tenants. The tenants all pay him (or her....surprisingly there are some "her" boabs!) a bit each month. We pay about $50 a month. The boab helps carry stuff, keeps the steps clean, clean your car and just watches the property in general. The boabs usually live away from their families, with the family back in the village while the man works in the city. Our boab's wife just had a baby a few weeks ago. He took a couple of days off to take the 6 hour trip to see her and the new baby, and his other 2 children. Then, he came back. I feel bad for their seperation, but he does bring home better money than most farmers, so I guess that is why they do it. Today Said saved my parking spot for me, for which I was very grateful. We have a parking carport underneath our apartments, but no cars can really fit into it.....it is too narrow and the beams are too wide---good planning, huh! Since we live right across from a hotel and 4 restaurants, we deal with parking issues a lot on our street. Sometimes the boabs get into yelling matches over it, but usually it works out. I would just park around the corner and walk, but the boab likes having the car close by because then he doesn't have to walk very far to do the daily car wash/wipe down. I guess it is up to him to fight it out then, right?!

We watched the first session of conference on each Sat. and Sunday, on the internet from 6-8pm and then I put the kids to bed. I was able to stay up from 10p-12am on one of the nights, so I only missed one session. I am still hoping to download and watch the RS session, as it was on in the middle of the night. It is great that we can access the sessions and feel part of a whole for a little bit.

We missed you all and thought of you a lot durning this last weekend. Love ya and hope all is well!

Oh grass, how we have missed you!

We drove about 35 minutes to the outskirts of Cairo to visit a friend. She lives in this amazing, grass-filled, groomed, community. It is very quiet there, in fact a little too quiet. That would be because almost all of the surrounding houses are empty, uncompleted shells! Out of hundreds of houses in the community, only about 20 of them are finished and have people living in them. We walked around the beautiful pathways and didn't see a single person! In a city of more than 17 million, that is unusual:) In all the months we have lived here now, this is the first time we have seen such beautiful grounds and so much grass in one place. It was refreshing....even the air seemed cleaner.

Twister Fun!

Since school has been cancelled until Oct. 7th (and maybe longer....but PLEASE NO!) we have been doing a full curriculum of classes at home, including P.E. We have been looking for indoor activities because, again with the school closed, there is no track or big field of grass to play in. At the commissary one day I noticed a game of Twister and realized that it was a great way to be active inside. We now play about everyday and it is super fun!

Lots to Catch Up on!

Well, we got really busy with the beginning of school and are just now catching our breaths....just in time for school to be cancelled for the next 17 days by the Egyptian government. Like I said before: I miss democracy...and yes, I will miss the newly aquired and never-taken-for-granted quiet time that I HAD. I am excited to have the kids around and find some fun stuff to do. I already looked into Alaska trip, Disney world and cruise around the Meditteranean, but all out of price range for now(Alaska tickets for 6 of us was about $8,000.00!) so we will just have to "settle" for good 'ol Egypt stuff:)

Oh, and we had planned a Israel trip, but had to postpone because of Brent's changing travel plans. He is going to Kuwait for about 10 days, but the timing keeps changing.

We will now go to Israel in early December. I am very excited, especially since I am reading Gerald Lund books about Christ's time in Israel. There is so much history, both spiritual and political, in that area.

So here are some things that happened while I was NOT blogging----sorry about the long dry spell:)

Rebekah became a Young Woman at church.

Sarah's 5th birthday (pictured with Rere, our now famous housekeeper).

All the kids got USA shirts from Grandma House....and send an "I LOVE YOU" message back.

Sarah got bangs, much to my sorrow.

Brent had to qualify to use a pistol (and we thought the "target" was a very interesting, potentially political statement.....lets put it this way: the target looked a lot different when he qualified for pistol in DC.

I went to a wrought-iron store and all their displays had drooping candles in them....hot and no a/c in stores here. So funny!

And finally,After 13 years of marriage, I finally got 17 pictures framed that I have been "collecting". This includes a beautiful print from Gustavus, Alaska that we got as a WEDDING GIFT. I feel so much better about life now:)

Full stomachs and hearts: Iftar Feast

Warning: no pictures....sorry. We didn't even bring camera because we didn't want to be rude to our hosts in any way.

One of the men that work in Brent's lab invited our whole family to his home for the Iftar (break the fast) feast, which occurs every night of Ramadan at sun set (6:30 or so). We didn't know what it would be like, but the man is a kind person and Brent felt like it would be a good thing to go. He met us at a central location and then we followed him through TERRIBLE traffic to his flat, where his wife and 3 daughters had been working all day (and possibly longer) to prepare an amazing feast for us. Only he spoke English, but we were able to communicate ok. Brent knows a lot more Arabic than I do and I was impressed at how much he can speak. We basically ate food from 6:30 until 10:30p. They had all 7 of us sit at their table and use their best dishes (nice china and crystal ) while their daughters ate sitting on the ground around a little table. The food was just incredible! The meal started with a drink of dates that had been pitted and soaked in water overnight. The juice tasted like grahm crackers:) After that, we sat down to about 8 different dishes including: okra in tomato sauce, stuffed grape leaves, green peppers, zukes and eggplant, chicken, pasta in bechemel sauce with a layer of seasoned beef in between, molekhya soup (texture of snot but wonderful flavor), risotto soup, freshly made green olives (WOW), and an assortment of raw veggies. We ate and then they filled out plates again and then we ate more, and they kept filling our plates. Then they served 3 different dessert courses, all followed by a tangerine sodapop chaser! I haven't eaten that much ever before in my life, but I couldn't say no----it was such a gift for them to provide us that much food.
Their apartment/home, in total, was about the size of our livingroom. It was very clean and well taken care of. They had 2 small bedrooms, kitchen, 1 bathroom and a balcony off the bedroom. The 3 daughters shared a bed and one of the rooms. They are not considered poor but probably upper level of the middle class---they had a nice computer, meat with their dinner, and 2 used cars. They didn't have A/C, they didn't have screens on the windows, their small flat looked out on garbage and falling down buildings, they saved everything and reused it (like the styrafoam containers you get when you buy meat or cheese) and didn't take "things" for granted.
They were kind, funny, sharing, and it was such a pleasure to meet them and be invited into their lives. We told them we would love to have them for dinner to our house as well.....I wonder what they will think of our living situation?

Happy and Sad, Kazikhstan and Ramadan

Kids are all officially in school now.....and I am at home alone. First morning when they all got on the bus, I sat on the floor in the dark and listened to the quiet.....then I started to cry. But, then I stopped crying and got a LOT done in a short amount of time:) They are all doing great and enjoying school. Elisabeth is sure she got the nicest teacher in the whole school. Sarah and Emma are becoming so grown up and can make their own lunches. Rebekah and Josh are both in the middle school now and are able to "hang out" during breaks and tried out for the MS drama production together. I am planning my schedule for the year and am hoping they call me to sub at the school a couple of days a week. Also, I hope I can finally finish my one (and only) quilt and catch up on the scrapbooks.....and get a lot of great exercise in:)

Here is a picture of the first day:

Brent got back from his trip to Kazikhstan last week and this time he took lots of pictures. Here are some:

Ramadan started on Saturday, August 22nd. It is really interesting how this changes the day to day life here. The muslim people fast from sun up to sun down, so basically they reverse their schedule of life. They eat all night, then sleep in and do very little all day, then RACE home at sun down to the iftar (break fast) meal with their families. We went to mall on Saturday and most of the stores were closed. A lot of the places are closed most of day and open later in the evening. Funniest thing of all that I have seen is how completely dead the streets are at about 6 pm (normally rush hour) because everyone is eating:) Now, I could go into a deep analysis of the cultural vs. the spiritual ways of fasting for Ramadan and how some people really are devoted to the true Islamic reason for the fast and others do it because society has forced them.....but I won't. I will however includea couple of pictures---Ramadan lanterns (it is a time of celebration and not unhappiness---one child told me they "LOVED Ramadan--they get gifts, eat sweets, and don't have to go to bed!") and one of something I found written on an electrical box down the road:

Spain pictures at last

Along the port in Barcelona.


One (of many) of Gaudi's structures in Barcelona.



My favorite shop:) Homemade pastries of all kinds. The meringue was really wow.



The street fair in Barcelona (note the gargoyles and amazing "bridge" in the nearby cathedral).


The temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Madrid, Spain.


An example of the amazing architecture in Madrid.


The meat section of the local grocery store in Madrid. I think they eat a lot of ham (jamon)!


Statue of a Spanish conquistador in the Plaza Mayor at dusk in Madrid.