Only in Egypt

Guest post by Joe:

I figured I would write little updates occasionally to share our (mis)adventures with you. Egypt is a special place, and you see things and experience things here that you will never see/experience anywhere else in the world. For example, you can only see the Pyramids here (the only one of the 7 wonders of the world left standing). The longest river in the world is here. In addition, you can see donkeys pulling carts on the 8-lane freeway (known as the “ring road” locally) here.

Not only that, but here are many more things you can see “only in Egypt.”

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1044625/only-in-egypt

Jessie and I hope to start taking some pictures ourselves to add to our blog and emails. There are plenty of “interesting” things to take photos of, but sometimes they happen too quickly to snap. So that is part of the sport – kind of like deer hunting or something. It is not easy to capture the moments, but with some training and time, I think we will get good.

Enjoy the website and welcome to our new life!

Outside play

Here is a video of us enjoying our outdoor space at the villa.

Wadi Degla

The past couple weekends we have taken morning walks in the nearby wadi (a dried up river bed). Compared to the abundant nature of Alaska, there isn't much to report. But it is encouraging that Egypt has set aside this land for conservation and public use. Henry and Nathan love scrambling around in the dirt and rocks.

Pyramids of Giza

On the fourth of July, Joe and I went to see the pyramids! They are one of the great wonders of the world, and I knew that I could not face my family and friends if I returned without seeing them. First we checked out the big one and went inside it to the central burial chamber.

You can see that the original entrance to the passage way was uncovered later (upside down V-shaped rocks). Tourists enter the pyramid via a second entrance below it and to the right.

The guard took our picture at the entrance to the great pyramid.

Another guard insisted that I pose for this photo. For some baksheesh, of course.

Tourists riding camels in the desert:

Two smaller pyramids. Originally, all the pyramids had a smooth layer of limestone on them like the top of the pyramid on the right, and they had gold caps! The limestone cover rocks, as well as many stone blocks, were taken from the pyramids for building houses a long time ago.

Joe with the Sphinx:

The Sphinx and two pyramids:

And two videos:

Small Talk art

Here are a few examples of art projects that the boys have brought home from Small Talk.

Henry's jellyfish:

Nathan's penguin:

Nathan's girlfriend, Lily's, mermaid. Not sure how this ended up in our bag! :)

Sandbox

Nate and Henry have a new sandbox! It was custom built by Ahmed's brother (see photo at end of post). And very importantly, it has a wooden cover to keep the Egypt cats out!! H&N are in heaven. But now they come in the house completely coated in sand. Oh, well.

Mohammed (Ahmed's son), Joe and Ahmed:

Flowers

One day I just grabbed a camera and took pictures of some of the flowers in our garden. I'm not used to having so many flowering plants around. It takes a lot of work from our gardener Hassan to keep the garden green and tidy. I only know a couple of the flowers' names.

Jasmine:

Jasmine:

Nathan's favorite purple flower:

Rose:

Rose:

B-Day Party

We celebrated my 33rd birthday a few days late this year, but it was fun nonetheless. Joe and I had an outing to the pyramids, and we had our friend Ed over for a steak dinner. With cake! Nate and Henry picked out the birthday candles, none of which contained the number 3. Here we are having our first dinner outside on the back patio.

Fourth of July at Maadi House

Here are pictures of Nathan and Henry celebrating Independence Day.

Post from Joe

Guest post from Joe:

Just wanted to wish you a happy 4th of July. I took the day off and we went to the pyramids and actually climbed up inside the big one. That costs an extra one hundred Egyptian Pounds per person (is about $20 U.S. dollars). It was very hot and humid in there, and after climbing hunched over in a very short tunnel we made it to the burial chamber inside. After that we walked around the other large pyramid (didn’t go inside) and saw the sphinx as well. By 1:00pm we were parched and drove back home – which, the driving is even more breathtaking and adventuresome than the Pyramids!

We then celebrated the 4th properly at a place called Maadi House which is a club for the U.S. embassy employees. We got in as guests after getting turned away at the door (we are not embassy employees) and Jessie was frustrated. She asked a couple going in if we could be their guests and they said “sure!” It probably helped to have the twins whining and crying and saying “we are thirsty.” Once inside they had hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, music, stuff for the kids, a marine unit raising the flag and a small swimming pool.

So – we had a good day and life is getting better each week as we settle into our new surroundings.

PS – speaking of grilling, I got my grill from Alaska hooked up. Tougher than you think because they sell butane over here, not propane. Had to have someone help me retrofit the valve, get new tanks etc. to make it work. Now we can make our own hamburgers (I purchased some frozen meats off of a guy who is moving back to Houston).

Pool time

We have been hitting the JW Marriott pretty hard the last few weekends, splashing and playing. H&N are acquiring more pool toys like kick boards and Batman rings. Our kids are the safest ones in the whole place with their West Marine life jackets on. Here we are beating the heat:

Preying mantis

A few days ago, while we were walking home from a friend's house in the early evening, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. It looked like a leaf, but I knew it wasn't. It was a large preying mantis sitting on the hood of a white car outside the villa! A large one too - at least 5 inches long. As we viewed him (or her), he sat like this viewing us:

Henry and Nathan loved him! Everyday they want to find him, but we haven't seen another one. There was something very smart about this one. Not your average bug. It was pretty cool, I guess, if you're into huge insects.

Mangoes!

We have three mango trees in our yard! Every day we find 8-15 mangoes in the grass. We keep a few and let our gardner, Hassan, have the rest. Well, sometimes Joe hordes them all. He has been known to go outside early in the morning before Hassan gets here to pick up all the mangoes. They fall down pretty far, so usually one side is a bit soft from the impact. Once they turn completely yellow after about a day, they are so sweet and delicious. We have a stash of frozen mango slices in the freezer for smoothies. Yum!

PJs

Due to the heat, we have made some modifications to Henry and Nathan's pajamas.

Before:

During:

After:

They look so cute in capri PJs!