haircuts!

All the boys were looking pretty shaggy, so we took them to get haircuts. We found the place by wandering around downtown while we were looking for a clothing store to buy a sweatshirt for me. Josh popped into a few places, bargained about price, and ended up at a place that cost a little more, but looked clean. The total cost for all 4 hair cuts was 150 LE, about $25. After adding a tip, we figure it cost about $8/person.

Usually the boys drag their feet about getting haircuts. But no longer. They were all happy with the experience. And why wouldn't they be? They were treated like kings!

 

Caleb in the chair, waiting for the scissors to strike.

 

After they had everyone settled and cutting, another guy (the one who swept the floors and prepped the supplies) brought out cold bottles of Coke and Sprite with straws so they could sip away.

 

Josh got his hair cut too. Camille was sleeping on his back so they just put the drape over her. When she woke up she looked like she wanted to say, "Where am I?"

After haircuts, then it was time for hair washing. Next they were spritzed with peppermint oil and then had their faces and necks massaged with warm towels. 

Then back to the chair for styling. Carter's guy spiked the front of his hair.

Caleb's guy not only blow dried his hair, but styled it using a round brush and then spritzed it with hairspray. He looks like he's ready to model in a catalog, doesn't he?

He wasn't letting anybody take that Coke away.

And they all got suckers at the end. Who knew haircuts could be so much fun!

This one is late today since I’m caught in the middle of a Bella, Edward, and Jacob love triangle and even though I know it’s not going to end in a way that makes me happy, I keep pressing on. *sigh* That might also explain why I’m having trouble stringing together coherent sentences – teen vampire romances kill brain cells.

Car Watch 2010 – no need for me to drive tomorrow since we are borrowing a different car instead. No Dirtmobile needed. Yea! Someone asked if “riding Egyptian style” meant car seat or no car seat. We still put Camille in a car seat, but it means that the people in the back seat have to share or go without a seatbelt.

 

Compared to some of the stuff we’ve seen, sharing seatbelts seems like safety overkill. Like the family riding on the freeway all on one scooter – mom, dad and little kid. And no one wears helmets here. The thickest layer of protection between anyone and the asphalt are their flip flops.

Sleep Watch 2010 – still deficient. I’ve decided I breed bad sleepers. I can’t tell if she’s worse than the others or if I just can’t remember how bad it was before. I’m leaning toward the “she’s worse” theory at the moment, especially since she keeps getting sick.

And yes, she’s getting sick again. Or maybe she never got better. I think this is her 3rd cold/fever since we’ve gotten here. Her brothers have also been passing around this nasty cough thing, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

And we have a tooth! I have nicknamed him Edward, since he is our nemesis. Edward is very white with sharp, fang-like points and he causes her lots of pain. He also gives her vampire like qualities of wanting to bite everything in sight and stay up all night.

Don't let the smile fool you -- she's out for blood.

Speaking of Edward, I have to get back to my stupid book.
Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. That is all.

****If a lot of this post didn't make sense to you, read Twilight. Actually don't. You've been warned.

my hard knock life

It's a hazy and dark day today. It looks like rain and in fact Josh said there's a 20% chance of rain today and tomorrow. But since it's 70 degrees out, I'm sitting at a table here at Maadi house, sipping a latte and watching Caleb in his tae kwon do class while I write this post.

After the boys finish class (Caleb goes from 10-11 and Calvin and Carter from 11-12) we'll order lunch and eat out here on the patio. While they're waiting for class to start, Calvin and Carter are playing with Camille.

You'd never know that she hardly sleeps at night.

This is her "Yeah, I'm awesome" face.

This is where the magic happens. Love, love, love my netbook.

It actually started raining so I had to move my operation inside. It's still warm so Josh is swimming laps while I'm waiting for lunch to be delivered to our table. Baby is now snoozing on my front in the Ergo. Later we are going to go for a drive to a street with lots of western-looking stores to try and find a sweatshirt for me. It's the one thing I actually need from our shipment, cause this wimp finds 65 degrees cold. So swimming, lunch, and shopping? Yep, poor me. 

a quick, clarifying note

I love it here, we are having the time of our lives and all the delays in our shipment/car/etc couldn't begin to diminish the shine of my smile. I find these twists and turns to be funny and ironic and I post about them as part of our "story," but all is well with us here in Egypt.

I'd still be a happy camper even if our stuff never arrived. I'd just take the insurance money and go to this amazing little furniture store that is a block away from my house and have them make me all sorts of wonderful things . . .a girl can dream, right?

See? Life is great.

It's all downhill from here

Now that you've seen the pyramids and the Sphinx there's no reason to keep reading. But just in case a few of you still find us mildly interesting, I'll keep posting. Here's our version of "the Egypt experience" for today.

Josh went to the embassy to check on the status of our stuff and our car. Our stuff has left customs and is now hanging out in limbo in the hands of some entity called "the Egyptian ministry." We had a To Be Delivered date of No Later Than December 20th, but when this was pointed out to the person "helping" him, it was met with an "oh well."

No word on our big shipment yet. Maybe it will arrive in time for us to turn around and send it home. Meanwhile, on the Amazon front, I had 7 packages delivered today. We now have new toys for the baby, an Egyptian pyramid for the boys to play with, new knives and cutting board for Josh to play with and I think I only have 2 packages that are still floating around out there, waiting to be delivered. It's about time to order some more stuff so the fun never ends. Take that, Egyptian ministry.

Now for car news. We had our car shipped from Richmond and it made its way across the country to sit at the port in Baltimore until we arrived in country. Once we arrived here then our car was put on a boat and it will arrive in Alexandria and then be driven to us. Or not.

Josh found out today that when he checked in on December 2nd and filled out the paperwork to send our car here, that the guy actually forgot to let the people in the states know that we had arrived. Whoops! So since everyone there is out of the office for the Christmas/New Year holiday, the process can't be started until everyone in America is back to work. Add on another 3-4 weeks for shipping and our car may be arriving right around . . . when we're in Morocco.

Now Josh was really irritated, but soothing his pain is the fact that we have a car that we are borrowing right now, so we're not stranded or anything. And when we have to turn that car over to our friends who are arriving in a week, we will have this beauty to drive:

 

 

It's a Pajero -- the European version of Josh's Montereo. But it's not actually sand colored, it's emerald green. You're just seeing 6 months of Egyptian sand that has embedded itself into the paint.

If you enlarge this picture and zoom in you can see the small line I made in the dirt on the hood so the green shows through. I have never seen a car this dirty before. It's been sitting in the commissary parking lot for 6 months, but surprisingly it started right up. We'll be riding Egyptian style since it only seats 5.

Stay tuned for my adventures in driving since I will have to drive to get it home from the commissary. I think the Egyptians will be safe for a few days though, since I need to mentally prepare before I attempt it.

The sphinx: little brother to the great pyramids . . .

If the pyramids are surprisingly huge, the sphinx is surprisingly small. It's large in its own right, but compared to the monstrosities behind it, it comes off looking more like a cute kitty cat.

You have to hike down a hill to get from the pyramids to the Sphinx, so that is part of why it looks less impressive, because your first look at it is from above. And I say "hike" even though it's a paved road because in Egypt all walking is really hiking in disguise. You have to stumble over rocks, sidestep to keep from twisting your ankle in the many potholes, leap out of the way of taxis that threaten to slam into you as the driver smokes and talks on his cell phone at the same time, hop over camel poop . . . There is no casual strolling here. It is human "Frogger."
 

In front of the Sphinx there is a stone building that you can walk through that used to be a temple or the house of someone who built the Sphinx. Or maybe not. I think that's what one of the kids was telling me.

Who needs Lonely Planet or Fodor's when you have me as your tour guide?
  

There is a stone wall and gates that surround the entire Sphinx, so you can't get very close to it. By walking through the building you can go inside the wall and get a little bit closer, but not much. However, you do get to see this very exciting version of an Egyptian wishing well: a dry pit that people toss money into.

We realized that Carter is quite the photographer. He took some of our favorite pictures that day, including this one of Josh and me.

and this one.

Poor Camille. Someday she's going to realize that she slept through all these once in a lifetime opportunities. Maybe we'll have to come back and do it all again 10 years from now. 

In case you couldn't tell, I don't know much about the Sphinx, except the boys told me that Napoleon and his men used to use it as target practice. Maybe that's where his nose went. I'm sure by the time we leave here, I'll know more than I ever wanted to know about Ancient Egypt, but this time it was fun to just go and look at everything.

Another of Carter's photographic masterpieces. He got us all centered in front of the pyramid and intentionally included the smaller pyramid next to it. Too bad he's not actually in the photo cause then this could be our Christmas card next year. Or not, since now you've all seen it. Let's just call it the Christmas card for this year since we all know I didn't send any.

"To view the pyramids, head left. To view the Chartiers, go right."

It would not be a stretch to say that we were quite the attraction at the pyramids. I don't know if it was the white skin, the light hair, or the baby, but we turned heads and had people trying to talk to us, wave at us, or touch us everywhere we went.

It was totally different than the past 3 weeks in Maadi. Walking around Maadi people will look at us, usually because of the baby, but we're not special. There are plenty of other Americans/expats around. Kind of like movie stars in LA. People notice Jennifer Aniston, but since they're likely to see Robert De Niro around the corner, it's not that big of a deal. At the pyramids, we felt like Jennifer Aniston in Des Moines, Iowa. We were the stars of the show.

It started before we even got there, as a bus packed full of preteen girls pulled up beside us as we were walking. All of them were hanging out the windows, shrieking and laughing and smiling and waving and pointing at us. Naive momma that I am, I thought they were looking at the baby, but Josh says they were all fascinated by my preteen boys. Uh oh. I guess I should have known when they were all calling out, "what's your name?" and "where are you from?"

We weren't any less of a spectacle up at the pyramid site. Everyone wanted to talk to Josh. Two different guys who must have gone to the same peddler school said, "Where are you from? Oh America! High Ho Silver!" High Ho Silver? Wrong generation buddy. All I know about Silver is that he/she is a horse that has something to do with either Roy Rodgers or Buck Rodgers. And I might even be wrong about that part of it. Now if he had said, "The tribe has spoken," then we could have been BFFs.

And once they found out that Josh spoke Arabic, he couldn't get rid of them. One guy was calling him, "my Arabic brother" and was trying to give him one of the headdresses he was selling. I think he's the same guy that was joking about buying me for 5 million camels. The nice thing about being a woman in this case was that very few people talked to me. I was happily trekking around, baby wrapped on my front and women smiled and young girls reached out to touch the baby, but none of the peddler people said more than "camel ride?" and took "la" (no) for an answer immediately. Meanwhile Josh had guys buzzing around him like flies at a picnic.

The camel ride people were particularly agressive. They kept following Josh around, introducing him to other camel-riding family members and calling out, "Hey, California!" After shedding a particularly persistent guy, Josh vowed that he wasn't speaking Arabic to them any more.

All that and we still haven't gotten to the Sphinx. Really? OK, tomorrow. I promise.

***reminder: you can click on any of the pictures to view them up close.

Wishing you were here

to have Christmas morning breakfast with us.

Santa pancakes for all!

The baby's non-sleeping is kicking my butt so we'll continue our tour of the pyramids tomorrow. So far this Christmas day I dragged myself to breakfast and then baby and I went back to bed for a 4 hour nap (during which she woke up 3 times, but at least she would nurse and go back to sleep). It's 3:00 pm and I'm still in my pjs.

Meanwhile, SuperDad made breakfast and took the boys on a hike out in the desert. Merry Christmas to me!

***I can't take credit for the Santa pancake idea. A friend of mine posted a photo of her Santa pancakes on facebook and I knew the boys would love it. It's cherry pie filling for the hat and nose, chocolate chips for the eyes, and whipped cream for the hat and beard. Our pancakes are made with whole wheat flour, giving them a very "Egyptian Santa" appearance that wasn't intentional, but very fitting.

Over the river and through the woods, to the pyramids we go . . .

We thought as a Christmas Eve adventure we would surprise the kids and take our first trip to the Giza Pyramids. The best part about our timing was that since it was a Friday morning, no one was out on the roads since most people were in the mosques at prayer services. Translation: virtually stress-free travel for me. I only thought I was going to die one time.

 

crossing over the Nile River

 

typical high-rise Cairo apartments

Yes, that is a weird, broken down ferris wheel sitting by the side of the highway.
No, I don't have any idea why it's there.

 

There are tons of half-finished and unoccupied buildings around Cairo, but they don't look much different from the occupied ones. The main difference is the occupied ones all have laundry hanging from the windows and balconies. 

So we get to the pyramid site and I don't care how big you expect the pyramids to be . . . they are even bigger than that. 

a lot bigger.

We came around the corner to see this massive mountain. Its size can't be captured by my pathetic photography skillz.

See, it doesn't look very impressive at all.

This Egyptian dude fits right into our family. And I bet he'd be quiet while I'm trying 

to get the baby to sleep

Hiking down to see the Sphinx.
You can see the back of its head in the background.

More to come . . .

Christmas Eve Eve

This is what our Christmas looks like:

 

a little fun in the sun

some swimming in the pool

 

Christmas cookie baking and decorating with friends

 

but with camel shaped cookie cutters, of course!

Another beautiful winter day in Egypt. Last week was too cold for me (it was in the 60s. I know, boo hoo, right?), but today was 75ish and sunny so while the boys were baking and decorating cookies with the kids at Maadi House I decided to take Camille for her first swim in a pool.

Now just like her mama, Camille loves to take baths and she likes the water to be HOT, so I was a little unsure if the baby pool water was going to be warm enough for the both of us, but I shouldn't have worried. The water was heated, so it felt like sinking into our own private bathtub. It had to be at least 90, maybe even warmer. They must have known how I hate the cold water dance: tip toe around until your legs are numb and then gradually get lower and lower until you decide it's not worth it and just get out. Oh, you actually take the plunge to get the pain over with in an instant? Ugh, not me.

But no need to worry about that here. As you can see, we're both loving it.

"Houston, we have wireless!"

Big day today -- Josh conquered the Internet. One final visit to the Etisalat store and he was able to buy a wireless router that accepts the chip/sim card from my little stick so now everyone can be connected at the same time.

He went in to ask about the package that he was trying to buy last week, but they were still out of stock. Then the salesman said, "but we do have this option" and pulled out the solution to our problems. Um, hello. We would have bought that to begin with if someone had bothered to mention that as an available option . . . lol. Such a simple solution, not so simple getting there.

The boys spent the morning at Maadi House at Tae kwon do class. Maadi House is a private club for Americans that are employed by the US government (military, embassy, etc). Because Christmas break just began, they have activities scheduled for the kids each day of the 3 week break. Today the boys all participated in Tae kwon do class that was taught by the guy who teaches my self-defense class.

The following videos are from Caleb's class. He was very enthusiastic!







After class was over, the boys played and we ate lunch at the club's restaurant.

 

 

soccer on the lawn.

Bob making friends on the playground.

top it off with our new wireless connection and it was pretty much a perfect day.

comment issues

I changed the comment format because several people had problems leaving comments. Let me know if this way works better or if it doesn't, email me and I'll try the 3rd option.

the Tooth Fairy and a little Egyptian dentistry . . .

the last 24 hours we've experienced two dental firsts -- the first tooth lost outside of America and a unexpected trip to the dentist.

Caleb has several teeth that are on the verge of dropping out of his head and he lost the first one of them yesterday.

He was very excited to find that the Tooth Fairy does make house calls to the Middle East and she even pays in Egyptian pounds! (he's holding a 5 LE note, almost $1 US.)

As for the dental emergency, the other night Carter said, "Mom, it feels like my tooth cracked in half." HUH?!! We looked at his tooth and sure enough, there was a big chunk missing from one of his molars.

We contacted the embassy and they said there were 3 dentists that our insurance would cover. Two of them we would have to pay out of pocket and file the paperwork for reimbursement ourselves, the other one would accept the insurance amount as payment and do the paperwork for us . . . hmmm. Tough decision . . .

Actually, before we decided to go with door #3, I did ask around and the consensus was that dentist 3 was great, excellent with kids and everyone who worked in his office was happy. He also went to dental school in America and lived there for a good amount of time before coming back to Egypt. Carter was worried that they were going to pull his tooth without any anesthesia, so he was relieved to hear that the guy was trained in America. I don't really blame him since the storefronts and medical "offices" around here don't inspire a lot of confidence that they contain the latest and greatest technology inside. My favorite is an ob/gyn office sign that sits right above this pile of re-bar and chunks of concrete. I'll have to get a picture of it next time I pass it.

So we called dentist 3, got an appointment for two hours later and Josh and Carter walked over to the office which was on Road 9. (of course!) When they returned home the visit was deemed a success by both and Carter said, "they were nice and their office smelled really good." High praise from a 9 year old.

It turned out that a filling had fallen out of his tooth and Josh/Carter/the dentist decided to re-fill it because the rest of the tooth was strong and healthy. It is a baby tooth that will fall out eventually so the other option was to pull it. Carter said it didn't hurt at all and that they were fast. Josh was impressed that they were really good with Carter and that the dentist showed Carter the x-rays and pointed out the part that needed to be filled and included him in the entire process.

I didn't expect to be dealing with dental stuff for another 6 months when everyone was due for their cleanings, but I'm glad we had such a great first experience. And if it had to be any of the kids, I'm glad it was Carter. He's much better at putting on his game face and sucking it up when he's nervous about something. Plus he came home saying, "it was easy" and "it was great" instead of creating a dramatic story like someone else I know. :cough: Calvin :cough:
It will make it much less emotional and scary when the others have to go for checkups. (I'm crossing my fingers that it works out that way!)

 

Right after returning from the dentist -- showing off his beautiful smile!

Where’s my stuff?

We shipped our “express” shipment back on November 5th. It is understood that express shipments take about 30 days to arrive so we scheduled it for several weeks before we left so that we would have important things like diapers and wipes and favorite blankets soon after our arrival.

Well every time Josh has stopped in at the embassy to ask about our shipment it “hasn’t arrived yet.” And really it didn’t matter if it HAD arrived, since we had to wait to get our diplomatic IDs before we could claim our goods. Well the IDs are finally here and “coincidentally ” our express shipment is now in Egypt.

**** side note: my spell checker wanted to change my misspelled version of coincidentally into “coin incident.” What is a coin incident? When you run out of quarters at the vending machine and can’t buy those Cheetos that you really, really want? ****

So yea! We get our stuff now, right? Um, not exactly. Now I guess paperwork has to be sent to get our crates from Lufthansa and then they will enter the Egyptian customs process and then monkeys have to perform cartwheels and pigs will fly and then maybe we’ll get them by the end of the month. And who knows when the slow boat from America will arrive with the second part of our shipment.

And really, the most ironic part of the whole waiting process is I know I’m going to get my stuff and think, “Why did I ship this [insert name of crappy item here] to Egypt?” to about 90% of the things that come out of the boxes.

Thank God for Amazon. I’ve been ordering everything I want/need and it’s arriving in about a week. I got a shower curtain and rings, I’m waiting on three knives (Rada brand), and I’m eyeballing a toaster, but I can’t decide if I want to get one locally with a European plug. Online shopping is so much fun. Everything is right at your fingertips, low prices, reviews to read, many, many options, AND you don't have to take your life into your hands by driving to the store.

Enjoying a few Christmas presents that have already arrived. Santa uses Amazon too!