Somebody was tired!

For the Grandparents

This week's family night activity

                             After making an apple pie together....we decided to go camping!

Catching Up: The last 6 months in pictures

Here are some of our family activities that I've neglected to post from the last 6 months....

 

 

We had such an encouraging and fun visit from Grandpa and Grandma in June!

.... and from Granddad and Beth in July

... and visiting Ireland with Grandmomma in August!  We are so blessed with wonderful family.  Ireland was a quite a photographic trip, so here just a few....

This is a favorite!  Can you see Justice running under the rainbow to meet Brian coming in on the boat?

So beautiful

Back at home with one of our three pet turtles

Celebrating Eid al Adha with friends

Our neighbors tied their sheep outside our window while it was waiting to be slaughtered for the Eid

Our country has many 'hidden' canyons that are beautiful to hike through.  A dear friend came with us for this fun adventure.

Our neighbor upstairs loves to come down to play in our garden.

Christmas cookies!

 

Recent wanderings

I'm so behind in blogging, but I wanted to share some pictures from recent family days.  These first few are from a quiet 'forest' area not too far from home.  We were amazed to be there completely by ourselves, without hearing even one sound, except for a very faint call to prayer, and the sound of the wind.  What a contrast to every day life in our neighborhood, which is full of noises of cars beeping, kids playing outside, trucks with megaphones on the street selling fruits and various things, loud calls to prayer, the sound of a wrench whacking a gas bottle (to let you know that the gas truck is going by), fireworks on the weekends, neighbors talking, etc.  It was a wonderful break after a busy and tiring week.

 

These next ones are from a couple weeks ago when we visited a wetland reserve in the middle of the desert.  It is much smaller than it used to be, due to years of pumping water and bringing it into our city in order to have 'enough' water for the growing population of the city.  I put 'enough' in quotes because it is such a relative term.  In town we only have unlimited water one day a week.  We fill up our tanks on that day and then use that for the rest of the week.  We always have plenty but many others do not.  Anyway, although this wetland reserve is much smaller than it once was, it still is the only water around for miles and miles of surrounding desert.  It attracts many migrating birds.  We saw egrets, a bittern, bee eaters, hoopoes, gallinules, and others.  Justice really enjoyed using the 'venoculars.'

This evening's activity

Somebody is 4!

Everyone had big fun at the Racing Party!

Some of the crew

The Fam

 

-- Justice --

We love you so very much!

You are a delight and joy to us

We thank God that He chose to put you in our family exactly when He did,

exactly as you are.

Ramadan Kareem!

You know it's the month of Ramadan when:

The stores have entire sections for dates, nuts, candied apricots, and date juice.  (Our friends break their fast each evening with these foods.)

It is illegal to eat or drink in public during the day.

You've gotten used to not being alarmed at very loud, gunshot-like sounds (fireworks) going off every night on our street, late into the night.

Streets are empty in the morning and completely jammed from 11pm - 2am.

You can hear a pindrop at 7:40 each evening, as everyone is in their homes waiting to hear the sunset call-to-prayer signalling them to break their fast and begin eating.

Shops and stores are mostly closed during the day and open at night.

The streets in our neighborhood are sparkling with strings of colorful lights.

Did I mention the loud fireworks at all hours of the night?

It's a party!  We're having fun.

Cupcakes!

Handsome little guy with the finished Thomas the train cupcakes that a thoughtful friend gave us.

We are having a very full and fun summer here... Pictures on the way soon!