Milestones

I am taking a detour and not posting about all the trips we have taken.  Instead, I will post pictures of Antoinette's Junior Prom and Alyssa's First Communion.  Antoinette's prom was Saturday night Memorial Day Weekend.  Alyssa's First Communion was Sunday.






Processing into the church




There were only four children, Alyssa said, "I am the only white person."  We are a minority.



Egypt Part. 3

Sorry this is so late, I have a part-time job now and hardly find any free time.  I need to post some more Egypt pictures before we go to Sicily in April.  The last time I posted we were notified we got two of our luggage.  Surprise!! We arrived at the airport and  All four of our suitcases were there.  They made it through the Egyptian uprising and the clothes were clean and folded.  They weren't touched...  God is good all the time.



They had a nice New Years Eve dinner for us on the ship in Luxor.  The kids weren't that impressed other than the tomato that was on fire.



 

 

Saturday morning we visited the Karnak Temple ( a photo of what it might have looked like.  The complex is huge.

This is the base of one of the columns

You can see the cartouch (family name) in the circle.  Also there were all these columns, if they were closed on the top like a lotus flower  that meant it was night

The top of this column lotus  is open so it meant day.  There were so many columns the kids started getting bored with the tour so we took a break and played "hide and seek" around the columns.  It was fun.

 





Doesn't this look like the Washington Monument?  They had quite a few of these at Karnak Temple

We visited one more Temple the Luxor Temple before we went on our 4wheel Safari that evening.



Sunset on the Sahara Desert

We didn't take any pictures of us 4 wheeling in the desert because they made a DVD for us that has it live.  That sums up the cruise in Egypt.  We boarded a plane and we were off to Cairo next.  That will be part. 4.

Egypt Part. 2

Great News!  I got a call today, they have two of our luggage at the airport in Tunis and we can pick it up on Saturday.  I am hoping the other two will show up and we can pick them all up at the same time. 

I left off with the city of Luxor.  We arrived at the port a little late because the Nile River was choppy due to the wind so they had to go slower.  We had lunch and by 1:30pm we are docking our first stop was going to be Edfu Temple.  We had a horse and carriage ride to the temple.  The carriages outnumber the cars in the city.  They are everywhere.

Here are  pictures of the Edfu Temple



Inside wall at Edfu Temple



Notice the size of the entrance



symbolic statue of King Ramsey II

One of our drivers

In the morning, we went to the Valley of the Kings.  We could not take pictures at the Valley of the Kings but on the way there we saw some hot air balloons.

Egypt

This is for real, before the Egypt Revoulution and before the Tunisian Revoulution we went to Egypt for a cruise on the Nile River and spent two days in Cairo.

We left on the 28 of December and returned the 4th of January.  We packed four suitcases that we never saw the whole time we were gone.  A matter of fact we still have not received our lost luggage.  Do you know how difficult it is to travel with only one change of clothes?  It was a big bummer for the kids because the cruise boat had a pool and they weren't able to use it.  Luckily, we did lots of sight seeing and they didn't have a lot of time and we spent time on the boat eating and sleeping.

I won't mention the reason why are luggage got lost was due to our flight into Egypt was delayed and we missed our connecting flight and we had to fly standby.  Myself and Alyssa got on a morning flight and the rest were stuck in Cairo.  What I have learned in living in Tunisia is that exspect delays and always prepare for the unexpected because it will happen.

Despite all the problems, we did enjoy our trip to Egypt and would recommend Mephis Tours when things return back to normal.

Komomo Temple- Alyssa & I visited this site while Jim and the rest just made the boat that morning before it cast off.




Egyptian Calendar- Komomo Temple



What the cruise boats looked like.

I will post more pictures on another blog, the pictures are taking to long to upload.  I will try on a different date.









Christmas Time



We spent Christmas in Tunisia.  Zachary kept saying it didn't feel like Christmas because there was no snow.  We had Christmas early when all our stuff came about two weeks before Christmas.



The Whole gang including Goliath



Zachary smirking thinking we don't own a wii and his Aunt bought him a wii game.

Jim and I bought the kids a wii while we were in Germany.  We decided wouldn't it be funny if we didn't wrap it up under the tree and to wait until they were done opening all the gifts that they received from their Aunt & Uncle's that were wii games.  We told my family that we were buying them a wii and that some wii games would be a good gift.





Family Night Board games for the wii, great if we only had a wii...







Wow really a wii!!!

There were also tears, Grandma made a stuffed cat, Jack who is back at my Dad's is missed by Ariana.

The hunter to bad there is no place to hunt.

Halloween

Zachary was very determined to be Avatar even if it meant shaving his head

I apologize that it is almost Thanksgiving but October was a very busy month.  I don't know about you but as school and Fall approaches the days seem to go by quicker.  The kids had fun "trunk or treating" at the Embassy.  They got way to much candy...  The kids had a Halloween party at school, they played games and got dressed up.  The pictures are mostly from the School Halloween party.  All the Halloween events happened on Friday and Saturday.  We actually were at home Halloween night, watching tv and feasting on all the American chocolate bars.



Meet the Flinstones...

 Jim and I even got in on the fun.  I had to permanently dye my hair red because they did not have temporary hair color here.  I redyed it brown and now I have auburn hair.

Fall in Tunisia

Fall pretty much looks like summer, the temperatures are cooler.  We got our van on Friday so Saturday we went sight seeing.  We visited a park that had lots of beautiful flowers.  For all those who like flowers here is what we saw.

I also have to post a picture of their "desert fox"  to me it looks like a mouse with huge ears.  This is there mark for keeping the environment clean.