7 Quick Takes: Thanksgiving Week

I know, it isn't Friday. Roll with me, please!

1: The Cousins! 

(left to right: Savannah, Sophie, Lauren, Julian, Claire, and Emily)

The week before Thanksgiving, Brian's sister, Brandy and her family came to visit. It was so good to have some family come hang out and get to show them all our favorite places here in Egypt and even visit a couple of new ones. 

2: New Pyramids

 We visited some new pyramids. Actually, we stumbled upon these, while looking for the Bent Pyramid in Darshur. About halfway through our tour, our guide informed us that these pyramids are not open to the public. And this made our visit all the more fun. There wasn't anyone trying to sell us anything. No strangers were in our pictures. Just us, tramping through the desert, looking at pyramids. It was pretty awesome.

 This is Julian. Standing inside a sarcophagus. He was the only little boy in our group of little girlies and he held his own pretty well. I'm hoping his mad potty skills will rub off on Sophie. She can at least say "potty."


3: The Feast

With family came a suitcase of goodies. Chocolate for the girls Christmas stockings (shhhh, don't tell them!) And lots of yummy food for our Thanksgiving Feast. I think this has been my favorite Thanksgiving meal to cook. It was so easy cooking for just 10 people instead of 20... Everything came out of the oven and off the  stove at the right time, so everything was hot and very, very yummy!

We had carrot casserole, scalloped potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, rotisserie chicken, a veggie tray, and cranberry sauce. The chicken almost didn't make it. We were planning on buying a rotisserie chicken from a local guy, but at 11:00 when Brian and Tyler went out to buy it, the man was just opening his shop and sweeping the street. He had not even lit the fires yet. Dinner was planned for 12:30, so there wasn't time to cook one. Fortunately, the men hunted down another store and bought some very yummy chicken and walked back in the door around 12:15. Just in time :)

4: The Babies

(me: 30 weeks, Brandy: 24 weeks)

It is, apparently, an unwritten law that if one of us is pregnant, the other must be as well. Emily and Lauren are 5 months apart. Savannah and Claire are about two weeks apart. Sophie and Julian are one month apart. These next babies will be around 4 - 6 weeks apart, depending how early she is and my c-section date. 

It sure does make for some fun and busy family fun and I like it that everyone has a buddy. It was very sweet to see the girls walking through the streets of the Khan al Khalili holding hands. And I loved to listen in to the their little conversations. Sophie and Julian aren't to the "buddy" stage quite yet... but eventually, they will be. 

5: The Sad Departure

Tyler received an email notifying him of changes to their flights and requesting an immediate phone call. Turns out, their flight out of Egypt early Friday morning had been canceled and the next one was to be on Tuesday of the next week. Or Thursday of the Thanksgiving. Because of work and school, they had to leave after the Feast on Thanksgiving. 

6: The Christmas Bazaar

Today we attended a Christmas Bazaar... can you guess the tables to which my family was drawn to the most? 

Mmm hmmm, the book tables. Used books were selling for about $1 each and my husband and children were very excited to see new reading material in English. Brian walked away with four new books, trust me, he showed restraint. I'm so proud. The girls chose about four or five each and Emily has already begun devouring them. She has been needing some new reading material. The last new books she received were back at the beginning of June when we got our new school supplies and she has read through them each a couple of times already. 

I bought two wooden camel Christmas ornaments that I thought were really cute and two pairs of cute dangly Christmas earrings. 

7: Christmas Bazaar Funnies

The Bazaar was held in two locations across the street from each other. As we were walking down the street to the other side of the Bazaar, a man dressed up as Santa Claus walked down the street towards us. I motioned to the girls to be sure that they saw him and began chatting with him. He, of course, tried to get the attention of the girls, but they were afraid of him and hid behind Brian. My poor girls. Afraid of Santa Claus. Now, if he had been dressed up as the Grinch, they probably would have been more interested in talking to him. Perhaps we should consider adding a couple different Christmas movies this year. 

When we were waiting on Brian at the front entrance, the girls noticed a cardboard chimney that a man, wearing a Santa hat, was sitting behind. I explained to them that people could buy tickets and then go throw water-soaked sponges at him and try to hit him. 

Emily, in a very worried voice asked, "But Mommy, why would they want to do that?"

"Well," I said, "Because they think it would be funny to see him get hit with a sponge of water and get wet. Don't you think that would be funny?"

"No." 

"If it was Daddy in the chimney would it be funny?"

"I still don't think so, Mommy." 

Such a sweet girl, but I'm pretty sure that if Daddy were dodging water-filled sponges, she would think it was hilarious.