ifrahu- افرهو

"Ifrahu firrabi wa'aquulu aydan ifrahu"

"Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!" Philipians 4:4

This was one our first verses that we had to memorize in school and it has been a great one to learn and a good reminder. To rejoice in the Lord always! He is good and so worthy of our praise. When I take times to sit and reflect on how good God has been to our family, I am definitely overwhelmed and filled with reasons to rejoice. I hope that you are able to do the same today! Rejoice in Him, because He is good.

Ugh....

I had been craving Papa John's pizza for awhile now, so yesterday we walked there and finally were able to eat some wonderful pizza. It was funny though because we got there and because of Ramadan,(which is over in a few days...Yippee!) they were only offering the buffet, which was going to cost $14 per person, or you could order take-away. Hmmm.....let's see which one we will choose. I think we'll go with the take-away for only $10. So we ordered our pizza and sat outside at their tables to eat. Not so bad, although within the last few days the weather has dramatically changed and it is a bit cold these days. So we were a little cold sitting outside, but not bad.
Anyway, I think today I have been paying for the pizza all day. I have had the worst upset stomach all day and have just been laying around. Ugh....it has not been fun. The rest of the family is doing well, thankfully....I even had to call our friend and postpone our dinner date because I just wasn't up for doing anything. An expat friend of ours here has asked me to come over and teach her a few simple meals to cook for when she has guests over. So today was going to be our first time, but I had to cancel. We were going to make chicken pot pie. I have developed a reputation of being a good cook around here, because we have had people over for our homemade tortillas and fajitas....so now I have a lot to live up to. Living in India, definitely forced to me to learn how to cook, because if you wanted something, that is just what you had to do. Now that we are here and if we try and buy something already made or store bought, it just doesn't do it justice. It will be fun to cook together with someone though and teach them some stuff....on a day when I feel like eating anyway....

Decoration Help

I need some help or ideas....anyone have any. I really want to decorate our apartment and make this place feel more like home, but I think I am challenged in this area. I want to paint, but am not sure what colors to choose, or even how to begin, or exactly how I could pull that off with two little ones running around the house. It doesn't help not having a car, or being 7 months pregnant, but this place and our plain white walls are beginning to drive me crazy!
Any help or ideas anyone has would be great!

Thank You April (& Eric)!!!!

Sometimes I think I have been blessed with the bestest friends in the world! Yesterday we got these two huge packages from our friend April in TN. What a blessing! The boys were so excited and Mike and I were so excited. She sent so many new clothes for Caleb, that he was actually excited to get dressed before school this morning. Which is very very rare! How fun it is to get packages from home. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Also, it was very cool because some friends we have met here that are with the embassy, let us use their address, so it was sent by US postage. If you are interested in knowing more, let me know......

But again, thank you April!some cute new maternity clothes that she sent me, that fit amazingly. I dont know how you did it, without knowing any sizes.Judah and his new hat

Caleb and one of his many new outfits

all is well....

So, life is going as usual here in the good old M.E. Ramadan is still on for a week or so, so we haven't seen too much of our neighbors. They seem to stay pretty quite during the day and then they stay up late at nights. The other day I had a doctor's appointment and got to see the baby, while Mike took a taxi home from school with the boys. Well, he forgot his key that day, so he was locked out. While he was outside waiting for me to come home our neighbor was leaving to go to the mosque to pray and gave Mike his key and told him he could wait at his place. Very nice.....
So, they go up there and Mike found an open can of Pringles and a bottle of Pepsi. Hmmmm.....somebody's been cheating..:-) We thought it was pretty funny. The same neighbor when he came home invited us all, kids and all, to go to the park at 10. When he first asked, I was wondering if I heard him right. Yes, he meant 10pm, and said " Yeah, the kids can run around and there are kids to play with and stuff. We can stay til about 11 or 12." Ummm.....well, thanks for the invite, but we all have school tomorrow, so we will have to plan another day for a middle of the night outing... Definitely a different culture!

We do see some of the women who normally sit out in the evenings, sitting out in the afternoons. Although there is not much visiting at that time because we are coming home from school and one of us either has Judah who fell asleep in the taxi ride home, and we are ready to get in the house and eat. So, hopefully once Ramadan is over, we will see our neighbors a bit more. At regular hours.

I have some cool news to share. We took our first oral test at our school and I found out my results today and I got 100%. Woohoo!!!! I thought I did well, but not that well. So, that was an encouragement. I know I am learning...
well, take care and we will talk more soon....

Happy Birthday Paige!!!

Ok, so we haven't been the best Aunt and Uncle, and I have come to the conclusion that just because we live so far away it is no excuse to not at least wish the special people in our lives a Happy Birthday. So, I have tried to get my act together and get all the dates down and our sweet neice Paige is the first one to have a birthday!

So, we want to wish Paige the Happiest Birthday ever.
We love you and miss you and wish we could be closer so we could share this special day together in person.
Sweet Paige! Is she not the most adorable thing.....One of my fondest memories of Paige is when I first met her, before Mike and I were married. We were visiting their house and Paige was somewhere around 3 0r 4 (I think...), but anyway, we were standing in their kitchen with her and her dad and she points to her dad and says, "We love each other..." It was the cutest thing!
Here is a picture of Caleb and Judah last Christmas with some of their cousins on the Crane side of the family

Crap Shoot Tuesday....

My good friend Maile, who I have been friends with for geesh......over 20 years now. (wow, that makes me feel old).....Anyway, she is an amazingly creative and talented person and she has started a game on her blog, called "Crap Shoot Tuesday", where you can share a picture that didnt turn out the greatest. (did I mention she is a photographer...) Anyway, you can see her site here.
So anyway, here is my "crap shoot"....I love this picture because it is of Caleb and a new little friend of his, named Madelyn. It is perfect of her, because she is full of energy and one kid that will put Caleb in his place and give him a run for his money. So, it is perfect that she is all out of focus, because she just doesnt sit still. And you can see the chaos all around them as they are playing together in this room. Classic....

some new pics

Here are the boys building a fort in our tv/laundry room.

Heather with the pregnant belly and Judah just after his bath.

Our little music lover....isn't that the sweetest.....

Having fun in the bath....

Mr. Bubble-man!

Life in the M.E......

So, life has been going on as usual....or I guess it seems usual to me anyway. It is amazing how living in another culture you can get so used to the random and different things that you see, and then you think about how things are in your home country and realize how different things really are here. Ramadan is still in full swing and it has been interesting to witness what goes on. The other day we decided to walk to "the beloved Safeway" and do our grocery shopping after we had finished dinner. So that put us out walking at around 6:30 and the traffic was crazy. Cars were buzzing by at lightning speed to get to their destination so they could eat. It was actually pretty funny.....Seriously, you could tell people were driving like maniacs because they had to get home before 7pm and the call to prayer went off. Then we get to the grocery store and this was the time to be there. It was pretty dead, other then the other foreigners who had all probably eaten before they came as well.
Another evening we went to a restaurant right around the corner from our house and it was dead. We were the only ones in there, although there were many people taking food out. But legally you are not allowed to eat until the call to prayer, so we had to wait a few minutes when they brought our food out. You will see that often too. People will be sitting at tables with their food all ready to go and then they wait for that call to sound and first eat a date and then their meal. Oh, a funny thing happened in the restaurant when we were there. I took Caleb to the bathroom and in most bathrooms here they have a bidet(not sure on the spelling...), or a sprayer of some sort to clean off the bum. Well, Caleb has become accustomed to this and likes it, but it just so happened that the one on this toilet, he thought he would push the button and see how it worked. Well, the button got stuck, and I am right in the line of fire being squirted to death, before I can get over to turn it off. Caleb and I had a good laugh, and luckily I was wearing a black shirt, so when I came out of the bathroom you couldn't tell that I was soaked. It was pretty funny!

cranky taxi drivers....

So, since the majority of the nation is not eating or drinking anything from sun-up until sun-down, people tend to get a little cranky. Especially since it is so hot here and they are technically not even supposed to drink water. Ugh....We experienced it first hand tonight when coming home from the grocery store. We had to make a trip to the grocery store, which you would think might be kind of deserted, but was crowded as ever and lots of things were out of stock. I guess it makes sense, because when you go to the grocery store when you are hungry, I am always more likely to buy more then I would when I am not.
So anyway, we catch a taxi for our ride home and load all of the stuff into the trunk. When we get to our house, first the taxi driver gets out and wipes down the seat where Caleb was sitting. Ok, I understand, he is a messy little kid. But then he tells us, "yah-la, yah-la..." which means "go, go..." because we were taking too long to get our groceries out of the car. While he is also rambling on about some complaints about Safeway. Who knows what he was saying, but Mike and I realized that he just needed to get something to eat. He only had one more hour until he could break his fast, so he was definitely cranky.
It has also been a very interesting thing to observe, that when the call to prayer goes off at around 7 pm, the streets are dead. Everyone is somewhere eating....So for about 20 minutes to half an hour the streets are very quite and you dont hear much of anything, although I imagine in a more crowded neighborhood they say that you can hear the noise of forks and plates clanging. Very interesting....

Ramadan

Many of you may already know what this is, some may not. Ramadan is the month of fasting the the Muslims observe and today is the official day that it has started. They withhold from any kind of food or water from sun-up until sundown, and then after that they can eat. From what we hear, it is not only a month of fasting, but also feasting. Once the sun goes down they have big feasts. We have been told that more food is consumed in this month then the rest of the year, but I am not sure how true that is.
So, it will be interesting to learn more about this observance. One really interesting thing that we have learned here is that you cannot eat anything outside during sunlight hours or you can be taken to jail. Apparently as a pregnant woman though, I am exempt, which is nice. Also, any restaurants are closed during the day and don't open until 6 or 7 in the evening.
Just some interesting things that I thought I would share.....
If you are interested to know more, you can read more here.