The Same--And Different

It would be too overwhelming for me to try and catch up all that has happened in the last 2+ years. So we will start where we are at and go forward from there. If time allows we will later include some flashbacks and highlights.  Here are a few things that have happened thus far in May. 

One thing that never changes is that the kids are always busy and growing.  

Josh

Josh has played in a school jazz band since we moved here.  He pretty much self-taught himself to play the bass, thanks to some basics from cello.  His claim to fame now is that he can play 7 instruments:  bass, cello, guitar, (every day after school with the amplifier), tuba, piano (most recently learning Moonlight Sonata), recorder, and mouth harp.  

Josh on the bass.

Joseph

Joseph wore purple socks (something great from the Sock Outlet in Logan) to one of his baseball games.  One of his coaches bet him he wouldn't wear pink ones to the next game.  So he raided my drawer and found pink and white striped ones.  The greatest earning from the bet was the satisfaction that "real men wear pink."

Joseph in his baseball uniform.

Joseph's pink socks - not standard issue.

Each year the grade school has an art show.  The kids' art work is displayed throughout the halls of the school so people can come and look at it.  Here is Joseph's "Picasso self-portrait".  Can you tell which one is the real one?

Joseph or Picasso?

Jordan

As you can see, Jordan now sports some cute glasses.  She is farsighted, which she inherited from her mother, who also started wearing glasses at age 4.  She is headed to preschool, which she loves.  As also shown, her favorite color is pink.

Take a curtsy.

Another day at preschool--this day they were celebrating letter "Z" by catching some "zzzzzz's" and wearing their pajamas.

Pajama Day at Preschool.

All over camp are posted these coolers of water with paper cups.  It's great to have it whenever we are out and about.  Jordan and I had gone this day to feed the ducks and fish, ride her bike and play at the park.  It was hot already at 9:00 am and she ended up running in the sprinkler. Then these "things" started moving towards us.  I had never seen these ducks and they freaked me out a little.  At first I thought they were some kind of wild turkey.  Then I realized they were wanting the bread we had been feeding to the fish.  We gladly fed it to them so they didn't attack us.

Besides the ducks being different, here are a couple of other things we have adjusted to.

We fight cockroaches off and on. This was one of the on days.  I found him in the morning, on its back waiting to be saved.  Sorry, off to the toilet with him--that is after I compared his size to a  double AA battery.  Sometimes I just have to close my eyes and flush!

Nasty cockroaches!

Here in Saudi, when they don't want you to see something offensive in print, they simply black it out. We see it in magazines and on product boxes. Any pictures of women with any skin showing, particularly in bathing suits, gets the magic marker treatment.  The arms, legs, and chests are colored in with black marker. (Wouldn't that be a fun job for someone?!) Of course, pork is outlawed here. (The Arabic term for it is "haram".) As a result, we don't get pork bacon. We get if from some other animal than pig, in this case turkey. The funny thing is that what they are censoring in the photo below isn't the pork itself, but any reference to pork! As you can see, they have tried to black out the word "pork" in the sentence, "Less fat than USDA data for pork bacon."   

Turkey bacon

Don't even think about p***.