They look more like sisters than mommy with baby since they are both bald and chubby.
She also got some fun clothes from Auntie Amy to dress her baby and a baby carrier so she can wear her baby just like mom.
A few days ago we went on a desert adventure. Josh has this book called Off-Road Oman that has directions and maps to all these places you can visit that aren’t normal tourist spots and many of them require a 4×4 vehicle.
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to 1. Ride in the car for an hour and a half to take a precarious road that the guide described as “a little tricky” 2. sit out in 115 degree heat in the middle of nowhere with a baby. But, since I’m a good sport, (and because Josh bought good snacks) I went along.
On the way there Caleb kept complaining that he wanted to “go to Wadi Shab and go cliff jumping” instead. (that’s where they went last time. If you missed that post, go HERE.) One of the reasons Josh selected this place (it was called Wadi something-or-other) is because it was “family friendly” since we could drive right to the final destination, unlike Wadi Shab where you have to park and hike for a while to reach water.
Once we left the paved road we drove into the wadi (following tire tracks) past thousands of date palms. From a distance we knew there had to be water ahead because you could see a green patch in the middle of the desert from miles away. A wadi is a dry riverbed in the desert. During the rainy season you have to be careful because they flood without warning.
I haven’t figured out why some of the dates are red and others are yellow. Different varieties? Is one tree just slower to ripen than another? I’m too lazy to google the answer . . .
Normal Josh. Sunglasses and coffee. Even while four- wheeling.
Goats! Tons of goats. This village was actually on the edge of the wadi, off the main road. I wonder how often they get trapped by the flooded wadi.
Our destination: these pools of water in the middle of the desert. They didn’t look like much at first, but it ended up being a great spot to relax (for me) and to play (for the kids). We threw down our wadi mat and cracked open the coolers and ate, swam and hiked. Except I didn’t hike. Because of the baby, of course.
There were tons of these tiny little fish. The boys took off their shirts and used them as nets to catch them. They swam and “fished” for hours.
The water was the perfect temperature and depth. There were a few deeper places (maybe chest deep), but baby and I sat in the shallow water up to our necks and kept cool.
The boys all caught frogs. Calvin managed to catch two in one grab.
Patience and stealth: a fisherman at work.
Camille kept trying to drink the water. Yuck. So far she hasn’t developed a nasty bug so either her immune system is strong or much fun awaits. Hoping for the former . . .
Three days from now, we will be in Turkey (enshalla). Flying from here costs about $575 for each of the three “adults” (yes, Calvin counts as an adult now), the two boys are $475 and Camille’s “ticket” costs $50. She’s a lap baby, but we have to pay the airport taxes for her to fly. I’m writing all this down here because I know from experience that sometime soon I’m going to wonder how much it cost us to travel to Turkey and if I don’t write it down, I’ll forget. And if write it down somewhere else, I’ll never see it again.
Once we finish our week in Istanbul we’ll be flying to the capital city of Ankara to visit friends for a few days. We were going to take an overnight train until we found that the domestic Turkish airlines are really cheap. It’s less than $40/ticket for us to fly, which seems rather crazy in a country where gas costs $11/gallon. I’ll just have to make sure I have my special yellow pills with me since a $40 ticket probably means a tiny, rickety, puddle-jumper of a plane. The reason we were able to get such inexpensive tickets is because Josh booked them using a Turkish website. Yes, in Turkish. When he looked at flights via the US websites they were much more expensive, but he google translated his way to success.
After a few days in Ankara we will rent a car (we figure it will be $100/day, 5 days total) and drive a few hours to Cappadocia. I haven’t figured out gas costs yet — I just know it will be A LOT. If we were complaining about $4/gallon gas in Monterey, how much is it going to hurt when it costs 3 times that much? I can’t even imagine. One of the good things about living overseas is because we’re paying in rials, durham, turkish lira, or the currency of whatever country we happen to be in at the moment, it all feels like play money so it’s less painful handing over a handful of brightly colored “Monopoly” money.
This is the part of the trip I’m most excited about: Cappadocia. It’s in an area of the country that was formed by a volcano so there are tons of caves, ancient cave cities to explore, and our hotel is in a cave (it has windows, so no worries about feeling claustrophobic). We’ll be staying in a family suite that is made up of 4 caves joined together.
From there we drive back to Ankara (expensive) and fly south to the beach city of Antalya (cheap). We were originally going to drive to the coast, but found the same $40 fare so it will cost much less to fly. And, I would assume, be much less painful than a many hour ride in a small European car on country roads.
After a few days at the beach we fly back to Istanbul ($50/ticket) and change planes to fly home. One of the reasons our tickets to and from Turkey are less expensive is because we leave at the crack of dawn and head home in the evening with a middle of the night layover. I wouldn’t normally be ok with that kind of itinerary, but after being evacuated where we spent many hours in many airports, it has to be easier than that.
There have been a few mishaps along the way: a hotel reservation that was accidentally booked for the correct dates, but the wrong month. Thankfully our mistake was caught by the hotel when we emailed them with a question about our arrival and they were able to change our reservation to the correct dates. That could have been disastrous. And last night when Josh was checking on airline baggage restrictions he discovered that the charge for one leg of our trip hadn’t cleared with our bank. It initially showed up as “pending” but then dropped off without actually being paid. He was able to rebook all of us and get a confirmation this time — it just took an hour and wading through lots of Turkish again. Hopefully everything else will come together without a problem.
I saw this in a local magazine today:
Man, those before and after shots are AH-MAZING! Look how much smaller her . . . hmmm. Check out her toned . . .? I guess her eyes could have a more defined shape. Maybe her nose is a little slimmer? Way to show off your weight loss!
Notice the Egypt mug? We finally found Oman mugs after looking for them for months. All the Muscat Starbucks got them in at the same time and they were cleared out within a week. In other news, I’ve finished my Christmas shopping. I bet you can’t guess what you’ll be getting from us.
