Month: February 2011

It’s a good thing we bought new luggage before our move to Egypt because it has been getting quite a workout lately. We returned home from Southern CA on Monday night and we are packing up this morning to head north for a few days. Thankfully San Francisco is only a 2 hour drive from here — less time for blood-letting and other bodily fluid incidents to occur.

We get to spend the next 5 days in one of the coldest places on the coast in the middle of a record freeze. They were actually predicting snow, in San Francisco, for tonight, but the rain arrived a day early (it has been pouring here) and the cold moves in tonight. Our Egypt clothes are sorely lacking in the warmth department, but we’ll make do.

I would go and buy some warm weather clothes for the weekend, especially since we figured out that Caleb only has one long sleeve t-shirt, but we are waiting on orders to Oman, where it is HOT, HOT, HOT. Yes, hotter than Egypt.

It looks like Oman is a sure thing. Josh says it is, but I’m waiting until we actually have the orders in hand. They could arrive today, next week or . . . ? Then we just have to purchase our plane tickets and we’ll be off on our next Middle Eastern adventure.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to blog from SF, since we’ll be busy having fun with Josh’s parents (and trying to stay warm!), but we’ll be back on Wednesday. Maybe we’ll have orders by then . . .

Not this one. Let’s wait 20 years or so. OK, baby girl?

My sister’s wedding was wonderful. It was so much fun being there and being a part of things. The day after we got home from Egypt, Wendy called and asked if I would be in the wedding and she was even able to find a bridesmaid dress for me at the last minute. She also asked Josh to help my dad walk her down the aisle.

Wendy was a BE YOU TI FUL bride! Her dress was incredible (and so tiny I wouldn’t have been able to fit one leg in it) and she looked radiant. Since we love Jeremy too, it was a happy day for all of us.

While we were flying home from Egypt, one of the things that we did was make a list of all the good things about being evacuated (extra frequent flyer miles, getting to see our friends in Monterey, being reunited with our cat Daisy, etc.) and topping the list was being able to go to Wendy’s wedding.

Carter was most excited about getting to dress up. He’s quite the clothes horse.(right Kris?) On the flight home he said to Josh, “I’m going to need a tux because I’m going to be in Auntie Wendy’s wedding.” We told him that he was just going to watch, not participate, but sure enough, Wendy had a special job for them. They got to ring the church bell after the wedding (it was a huge, heavy bell with a thick rope just like on Little House on the Prairie). So they all wore matching suits and rang the bell as Wendy and Jeremy exited the church as husband and wife.

(Carter was such a fan of his suit that he insisted on wearing it to church the next day. He and Caleb looked like the Blues Brothers had arrived in the OC when they strolled into service together.)

I have almost no pictures from the day since I was in the wedding and didn’t have my camera on me. Even during the reception, it was lit only by candlelight and white twinkle lights so my camera would have been useless. Thankfully someone in our family captured some of these shots of us on the dance floor.

Carter and Caleb completely surprised me with their willingness and eagerness to dance all night. Caleb asked Josh if he could make his shoes squeak on the dance floor and Josh said, “Go ahead” so the kid danced his heart out for the next 3 hours. Carter cut in a few times while I was dancing with Josh. The first time he came up I was so honored he wanted to dance with his mom, but it turned out that he really wanted to dance with Camille. Figures.

Camille spent most of the night on the dance floor too. I was wearing her in my wrap while dancing with Josh for a while and then she was passed around from brother to brother. She loved the loud music and all the people. When she got bored we’d give her lemon wedges since she is crazy and likes to eat them.

Off to dreamland. This is about where my feet gave out too. My heels were comfortable-ish, but 8+ hours in them and I was maxed out. Caleb was showing me how sweaty his head was from all his dancing – and then he went back for more! He even ended up in the center of a dance circle – the kid has moves!

Yep, we got baby girl’s ears pierced. And they look really cute. After lots of convincing by three persuasive little boys, we ended up at Claire’s. Mom wasn’t so sure about this . . . but the brothers were enthusiastically picking out their sister’s earrings. They decided that she should get June birthstone ones. I have no idea what stone they are supposed to be, but they are a very pretty light purple color, so I agreed. No, this is not after she got her ears pierced. The lady took the alcohol prep pad and wiped her ears with it. That’s why she’s crying. She wasn’t a fan of the drawing on the ears either until I gave her a toy to chew on. Then she was perfectly happy. I was a little wary of how clean everything would be, but the entire piercing gun is in a single use box, loaded with the earrings. The only part that is used again is the trigger mechanism that didn’t touch her ear. “Uh oh. Something strange is going on here . . .” All done! She only cried for a minute. Right after they were done I looked at them and was positive they were uneven – I even whispered to Josh, “I think they are crooked!” But he reassured me they were perfectly straight and when I took her outside and nursed her I could see he was right. What a relief. As far as caring for them, it’s been easy. Her ears haven’t been red or painful at all, not even immediately after. I just put some cleaning solution on them every now and then and twist the earrings daily. They haven’t bothered her a bit.

Finally, the long awaited end of our evacuation story. When we last left our heroes they had endured a a long day of airports and lines, and were on a plane to Athens . . .

We were told that when we arrived in Greece there would be someone there to help us make our flight arrangements for the next legs of our trip, but we didn’t know what else to expect. What I didn’t expect when we made our way down the airstairs (that’s really what they’re called) was the US Ambassador to Greece welcoming us with, “Congratulations! I know it’s been a long day, but you made it. Welcome to Athens!” He was accompanied by several photographers and videographers who were taking pictures of everyone.

 Right past the ambassador, there were several volunteers waiting to escort people into the terminal. We were greeted with a cheerful, “We’ve been waiting for you! Inside you’ll find food and drinks and let us know if you need anything.” After only having part of an MRE and a small snack on the plane, food was exactly what we wanted.

I’m not ashamed to tell you we were the first people to hit the food table. Big surprise, huh? Yes, Calvin was that excited. We felt kind of like movie stars — all these people excited to see us, free food and personal escorts.

After we had a few bites (grabbing some extra Pringles for the road), and filled out our evacuation paperwork, it was time to figure out when and where we’d be going. They had volunteers stationed all over the airport terminal (which was open only to the evacuees) and they helped collect our luggage, walked us across the street to our hotel and then headed back to help other families. We were treated like royalty.

Our hotel was fit for royalty too. It was so beautiful, but I was too tired to take any pictures other than this one of Calvin with naked David. Once we got to the room I threw myself on the wonderful bed thinking, “I should take a picture of the bathroom” because it was A-mazing, but I couldn’t move. Josh headed back to the airport to book our next flights and when he came home and told me we had to be back at the airport at 4:30 am (about 4 hours later) I was not very pleasant, but in hindsight it was the best move possible. Yes, I wanted to stay and sleep in the following morning, but it was better to push through the pain and get home instead of delaying for an extra 24 hours. Josh’s plan seemed extra brilliant once everyone started throwing up after we got home. I was so thankful that we didn’t have to deal with puking on the plane!

Us at the crack of night, making our way back to the airport. It was freezing!

Saying a very early good morning to our friends who were evacuated with us. We’ve been looking forward to spending the year in Egypt together since we met back in Monterey. They had only been there for 3 weeks when we had to leave. Now it looks like they are going to Morocco and we’ll be going to Oman.*sigh* We were all booked together on the 6 am flight from Athens to Franfurt.

 

On our way to Franfurt. We realized that we never saw the sun while in Greece. We landed after sunset and left before sunrise. Maybe someday we’ll get back there to see the country in the daytime.

 

Landing in Frankfurt. Exactly two months before we were in Franfurt on our way to Egypt.

We said goodbye to our friends and boarded the long flight to SF. Since we were booked only the night before, we were spread out in 2s in the back 1/2 of the plane, all in the center seats. Yep, 11 hours trapped between 2 dudes, me and the baby. Josh sat with Caleb and Carter and Calvin sat together. All the kids did such a great job. The baby nursed and slept, I only saw Calvin and Carter once when they got up to go to the bathroom and Josh handled Caleb. The boys ordered their own food and drinks and entertained themselves like experienced travelers.

Even though we didn’t want to come home, it was so nice to see my mom and dad at the airport when we landed. 

We all made it out of Egypt in one piece with our sanity (mostly) intact.

Happy reunion for a boy and his cat. My mom brought her to the airport because she knew how much Caleb had been missing her.

The End.
Or more accurately, The Beginning.

Josh stole the Kindle and is tearing through books 2 and 3 of The Hunger Games trilogy, so I have plenty of time to post. I started reading book 1 and loved it so I decided to share the joy and read it aloud to him during our L O N G drive back to northern CA yesterday. We made it about 1/2 way through the book by the time we got home and then he read ahead and finished it last night and has already downloaded the other 2 books – I’m guessing I won’t be able to find out what happens to Katniss Everdeen for a few days. *sigh* Back in the real world, while Josh and I were absorbed in a fictional reality show where kids fight to the death to determine a winner (yes, I know it sounds weird, but it’s a great read), our youngest son was creating his own bloodshed in the back seat of our minivan. I guess he was bored by the many hours of driving so he decided to pull out his Swiss Army knife and started carving a stick into a spear. He managed to significantly cut his finger and bleed all over himself and a towel that he found back there, but never told us. It was only once we stopped to get gas and his brothers noticed that his finger was still bleeding that we knew anything about it. I don’t know how Calvin, sitting next to him, managed to miss the huge bloodstain on the white towel, but whatever. One $6 box of Band Aids later and we were back on the road. This time, to help keep the baby from screaming bloody murder the entire time I sat next to her and continued reading. Until she started projectile vomiting all over herself, her carseat and even managed to spray it out of the carseat and onto my seat. Another stop, a change of clothes and 1/2 a pack of wipes later we were once again heading north. Just as the baby finally stopped screaming and fell asleep, youngest son had to pee. Since stopping always wakes the sleeping giant and we still had several hours on the road that we didn’t want marred by baby yelling, we told him he could  either hold it or pee in a cup. He chose to pee in a cup, but then spilled it on himself, dad’s suit, and the car, but didn’t tell us. It was only once we made it to the next stop (yes, we had to stop 43 bajillion times yesterday) and saw the huge wet spot all over the leg of his shorts that we put it all together. *sigh* We haven’t decided if Caleb wins the Covert Operator award or if his brothers win for being the Least Observant Car Passengers Ever, but the prize for all of us is cleaning out the car today. Ick.