Visa's, Lego's and Ice Cream OH MY!

Hi, all! This is our last week before school hits full force. I feel ready - a good balance of inadequate feelings and excitement! ha! I know you'll pray for me when you read that though. Joshua is really looking forward to botany and history!! Woo hoo! Math....well....I'm not sure either of us will pass 3rd grade math! HA!! We'll do GREAT together! I didn't expect to get a call to spend today getting our visa's (me and the kids), but it had to be done...since...well...like our other ones had expired - oopsie!

6 Month Tourist Visa
Every 6 months, the kids and I have to re-apply for a tourist visa (or if we leave the country, we re-apply upon re-entry). Today Mr. Osama sent a driver and car for us as last time, but this time he met us at the enormous curvey government building. I sorta felt like cattle in there today - not sure if it was the smell of us all, the closeness or the irritation! ha!
It went very well. Much quicker and smoother...what with the 3-star general speaking to me directly this time....with lots of shock and awe from the on-lookers in the private office! HA!!
Mr. Osama had other business to do, but said the car and driver was mine for the rest of the day...what do we want to?

Lego's
Well when you're close enough to knock windows out of the Egyptian Museum w/ a baseball....YOU GO TO THE MUSEUM! who wouldn't, right? Well, it was 40 degrees - what is that? H-O-T! the sun is SO intense, I'm telling you - boiling point! ha!
(speaking of conversations, I went the wrong with meters - the pool is NOT 8 meters - tee hee! It's likely 4 meters tho - sorry!). Anyway, so Bakhiif dropped us off at the museum w/ his phone number programmed into my phone. We looked thru the Ramses II collection again then hurried off to the Children's area that we hadn't seen yet. Since no food or water was available to us and it'd been 4 hrs already..and we'd been sweating profusely.....I didn't want to do the WHOLE museum ;) But since we were there (NOT easy for us to get access to from our home).

Lego's! the children's museum had a neat collection of artifcats that were interesting and educational - enjoyable all around! Intermixed were GIANT LEGO STATUES OF ...... ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LIFE.....TUT ANKH AMUN'S MASK! all kinds of things! THEN a room with lego tables and millions (ok maybe only thousands, but STILLL....) of legos!!!!!!!!! Thankfully this area WAS air conditioned, so we found some respite while Joshua made a statue of Ramses II as well as King Kufu's giant pyramid in Giza (of course his were able to be held in the palm of a hand! ha ha)

Sadly, of course, remember the Egyptian Museum post? No camera's allowed. Only outside and we've already photographed the outside!

Man, did we ever guzzle the water nonstop upon arrival at home! Lunch at 2:15 was more of a quick feast...because at 3 pm today....

ICE CREAM

We took the kids to Amy's office, she went home and relieved her nanny to break the fast...and our 3 kids played together while Rob and I went out to eat. I of course wasn't really hungry, but to eat out something different...I had to do it!

I was skeptical if we could eat before the break fast.....we found a place called The Grand Cafe. We sat with 2 fans blowing on us, in the shade, upon the Nile - how nice it was!

Here's us...and what we saw. You can also see more of the RamaDaan decorations (correct spelling so that I pronounce it as the locals instead of the foreigners - ha!)








OH MY
We live in a furnished apartment. When we moved in, the landlord told me once I was settled in, to let him know if there was anything I needed to add and we'd talk about adding onto the furniture collection.

So I talked to him about adding a love seat and letting the kids each have a dresser. He let me do the shopping, etc, I sorta told you about it and you saw the love seat he agreed to. Well the dressers came 2 nights ago! They are VERY nice quality - wood, not this cheap flimsey stuff in America (and cheaper here too! woo hoo!). Our landlord is VERY pleased too! And we're glad he's paid for them THANK YOU!

Sometimes, I get so annoyed with my kitchen, i have to remember how many kitchens I've seen that are EVEN smaller here and even LESS counter space, I have to remember to be grateful that my plumbing and appliances always work too! So here's a pic of one of the more typical kitchens in the apartments like ours.....OH MY!

When I asked Jasmine to clean her room for her photo, I obviously didn't detail to make the bed....OH MY! ha ha ha! I still think it looks REALLY SHIP SHAPE! BRAVO!


Look at the scary pile I took from the big shelf and put on top to organize....OH MY!! Lauri B - see anything familiar? :)



Does Joshua SERIOUSLY need all of those shells? OH MY! tee hee!


Lastly.....I hurt my hurt ankle again - OH MY!

Joshua was getting out of control in the pool this week with our friends and he almost hit his head on the wall, I saw it coming, so I jumped in after him....and landed (in the shallows) on a BROKEN PC OF TILE!!!!!!!!!!!!! the pain of course caused my to "give" off the foot, TWISTING MY STILL HURTING, SLIGHTLY SWOLLEN ANKLE!

OH

MY!

Anywho - funny story ;) There was a LOT of blood. Rob and I agree it was due to the pool water, but my poor Canadian friend was woozy and I sent her to go play w/ the kids. Joshua was almost crying until his buddy Kai got him back into the pool (tee hee) and Jasmine didn't leave my side. I stumbled to a chair and 2 lifeguards sprang to action noticing first my wonky walking..then the BLOOD emitting from me!

One ran for the first aid kit, the other took stock of me.....but not before looking like a hurt puppy and saying so cute in broken English "I touch you? I only touch foot, I not touch you? ok, madam?"

He got the bleeding stopped and my foot/ground cleaned up. It's on the "knuckle" on the bottom where my big toe meets my foot - bleck! and the skin came clean off an area 1/2" wide/long and a few scrapes around it - doesn't sound bad unless you need to WALK ON IT! ha!

I'd say I took a few steps back in recovery (pun intended), but.....my head is still in the game and I'm still mobile! ELHAMDOLAYLAH! thanks be to God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for looking!! RamaDaan has been in full force for one week now, I've had 3 taxi rides that were MUCH more .... hmm..pausing to find a word.....without scaring my family! HA! the rides were much more.....exaggerated in response. The driver today only spoke Arabic, i had to explain that sometimes I get sick in the car, so I needed to ride in the front and the a/c needed to be ON (it's not natural for the Egyptians to just use the a/c? I'm spoiled!)

LASTLY - THANKS! for those who have been praying for one of our friends from the Sudan, after 2 weeks of really struggling medically, he was back to work this week....God has seen fit to reach down and miraculously touch him!! One of the men from the congo was struck a couple years ago with a brain tumor that they said would kill him.....the church prayed for him..and here is 2 years later WITH NO TUMOR!?? where did it? PRAISE BE TO THE LORD ALMIGHTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so glad to know our friend from the Congo..that God saw fit to keep him here!

Tomorrow is the dentist...even my teeth have the willies just thinking about it......