In case you didn’t know, I do take requests. My niece, Faith, sent me a video via email asking for “more videos of Camille.”
The girl is a genius with the ipad. She opens up Netflix, browses around the kid shows and watches things like Pound Puppies and Jem (which is Jem and the Holograms from when I was a kid). When the video starts, she’s lying down waiting for the show to load. Total pro.
Author: Robin Chartier
Henna Time!
For Barbara’s birthday, we went to a henna salon. Barbara had it applied to the back of her hands and the tops of her feet and I chose to have my palms painted. I like it on my palms because the back of my hands look normal and then I have the surprise of flowers and leaves every time I get a glimpse of my palms.
The henna is applied as a paste the way you would decorate a cake. The blue cone has a tiny hole in the tip and she draws everything freehand.
Meelie came along, but she didn’t want anyone coming near her with any henna. She sat quietly and watched everything and when we came home she wanted to draw on my arm with a pen just like the lady did.
Left hand — love the sunflowers, the details of the leaves, everything about it.
Right hand — rose style of flower. I love all the swirls and can’t believe she can do all this with such a steady hand and get this kind of intricate detail. I can’t even draw a good looking stick figure . . .
After she finished the design I sat in front of a heater to help it dry. It was so warm her cheeks started getting pink.
As it dries, the black paste flakes off, leaving an orange stain behind. The color will darken and deepen over the next 24 hours or so.
12 hours later . . . getting darker!
Days of Thunder
One of the fun things that the boys did with the grandparents this weekend was Go-Karting!
I was home with a napping baby (totally worth it) so these photos are from Josh and Barbara. There is a professional race track here (I don’t do NASCAR or anything, but I know it is big enough to hold Formula One races) and part of the complex is a Go-Kart track. They have separate tracks for kids and adults. The boys went through the short introductory video briefing and then they were ready to suit up!
Getting ready to get into the cars — Calvin is on the left, Carter on the right.
They drove in two racing sessions. Josh said you could see a big improvement in their driving skills from the first session to the second. The boys kept a tally of how many other cars they passed. Caleb was proud that he passed up one other car, but then admitted, “he spun out.”
My drivers!
Having a ball
My sister reminded me that I didn’t post any photos from this year’s Marine Corps ball. She wasn’t sure if we even had a ball since we were overseas. We did and it was a great night of dinner and ceremony (usually we dance all night, but the DJ and I weren’t feeling each other. Maybe next year.)
It was especially fun to share the experience with Josh’s parents at their first Marine Corps ball. It’s hard to believe we only have a few more of these while Josh is still active duty.
I only have fuzzy cell phone pictures, but it’s enough to get the idea. Some people get professional ball pictures taken every year (like at the prom), but I’ve never been that sentimental and the first few years we didn’t even have the $15 to spare for a photo. Right about now, though, I’m wishing I could go back and see photos of us from all our past balls: my $20 dress from the Ross clearance rack, the one where I was pregnant with Calvin and had a fat face, the bridesmaid phase at Ft Sill when I wore my sister’s hand-me-up dresses back when she was in a wedding every other month, the Vegas era where we were lucky enough to have family willing to come in for the weekend to babysit in the hotel . . .
The best part about the current state of our ball experience is that we got to go ‘babysitter free’ for the first time since the fat face ball 14 years ago. The hotel was nearby so our in-house childcare provider took care of things at home while the 4 adults went out. If you want to come party with us next year, just let us know!
You know you’re not in Kansas anymore . . .
Please don’t read this and freak out. These things are all true, but the risk to us is low.
. . . when you yell at your kids for walking on the side of the road and tell them to walk in the street with the cars because you don’t want them to stumble on any explosive devices.
. . . when you spend 20 minutes debating whether going to church would be considered “essential travel” since you’ve been told to stay put except for necessary outings.
. . . when it turns out that it doesn’t matter either way since church has been cancelled because police have closed the roads leading to and from church.
. . . when your 8 year old gingerly steps around trash lying in the street whispering, “that could be a bomb . . . that could be a bomb.”
. . . when you wake up to check the latest security notices and see that your house is now firmly planted in the middle of the red zone, making it “off limits.” (we can still live here, but are supposed to do all of our shopping, eating, etc outside of the red zone.)
. . . when you laugh at this warning poster put out by the government:
(not because I think bombs are funny, but who wouldn’t report the propane tank with wires hanging off of it? Hello, obvious!)
. . . when you ask your husband to check twitter before driving anywhere because you don’t want to be stuck behind a wall of burning tires.
. . . when you have to have The Talk with the kids and it’s not about sex, but explosives.
The big development this week was in addition to the normal protests, burning tires, and road closures, there were 5 or 6 small pipe bombs that were planted in and near the area where we live. The closest one was a few blocks away. They were either disguised as trash or planted on the ground near dumpsters. One or two of them exploded and killed 2 people, the rest detonated without any injuries.
My resident expert is not concerned for our personal safety for several reasons that I don’t want to share publicly, but if you want to know his theories of what’s going on, email me and I’ll go into more detail for you.
We are just as safe here as we are anywhere else in the world. If they offered a voluntary evacuation at this point, as much as I would LOVE to go hang out in California for a few months, I wouldn’t take it. We are fine. Things are fine. I miss Oman and I miss California, but that is more about missing the beach and the mountains than being worried that I’m going to get blown up.
I could have ignored this subject entirely because I know there are family members who don’t have a clue this stuff is going on (I’m looking at you, Kristy), but I know other people regularly get Bahrain news through Google Alerts and I don’t want you to be worried for no reason. I’m not, so you shouldn’t be either.