Anubis

Thomas' class is studying ancient egypt.  A few weeks ago they had their class assembly.  Thomas played Anubis, god of death.  

He was, predictably, awesome.  Below is one of the musical numbers where the class builds the pyramids.  Turn your sound way up.  More.  Ok, lean in.  Ready?  Here you go:

Sorry about the poor sound quality.  Something's wrong with the speaker on my phone.

Here is another Thomas poem:

In Emmett'c class, each child takes home the class stuffed animal, Floppy the dog.  Then you write a little journal entry about what you and your family did with Floppy that night.  The kids draw a picture or illustrate the text with a photo.  This time we illustrated Floppy's adventures with a photo.

In this picture he is battling a lego man mounted on a robotic dragon.

I never did hear what the class thought of our Floppy entry.

Fall album

Some shots from summer and fall:

arriving in nyc at grand kath's studio:

Dinner with Grandpa Peter and Grandma Susan after circus camp.

Visit with Aunt Carola

Ok-- now skip ahead, arriving back in Cairo in August, and being some of the only expats there:

After the Rabaa massacre, in Tel Aviv: 

Our first beach with waves

Tel Aviv is a great, interesting city right on the beach!

Spelunking in a stallegmite cave near Jerusalem.

Back in Cairo, alhumdillallah.

First maadi house birthday of the season:

Fall Eid camping trip to Fayoum and the Whale Valley:

When they said there are ancient whale skeletons sitting out on the sand, this wasn't actually what I pictured:

Staying at the Fayoum Auberge Hotel, which was the former hunting lodge of King Farouk

Dave takes on hordes of children:

That's Fayoum Lake behind Emmett.  Its a giant oasis. 

And then off to London, and a ride on the giant "London Eye" glass ferris wheel.

We didnt get to meet the Royal Baby, but we did feed some ducks.

Thomas antics

Ok- not quite Tel Aviv yet:

Here Thomas and Emmett perform the hit song from two summer's ago, Call Me Maybe

Emmett started signing it out of nowhere, and then Thomas came up with the routine.  He would only allow Emmett to join in for the chorus.

Here is another Thomas poem about Rain.  It was originally written as a "shape" poem with each sentence filling a drop of rain.

rain is slippery and shiny 

dripory and tiny.

raindrops 

splash and 

roondrops 

sploosh.

splish splash splosh 

rain dish dash 

dosh.

Fireballs and raindrops

Fire falls 

and danedrops

silver from 

the sky to the

ground gold 

from the sky

and

nothing to the ground.

what cools

the sun in summer

But ruins

your day

In other news, someone shot a rocket propelled grenade at a satellite near our house.  this is the first time the bubble of maadi has been touched.  Im pretty sure it wasn't Thomas though.     

Cairo Battles

Dont worry- we're not talking about the police and the Islamists or anything.

We're still clearing out shots from last spring.  Here Thomas and his friend Max ready the living room for an epic battle of all the toys:

Here Mommy does battle at the Four Seasons with some Egyptian entrepreneur-types seeking to license intellectual property from the American University:

And here is Thomas at the MBIS swim gala, emerging from a race:

 

 Next up: New York, Vermont and Tel Aviv.  And then the present-day, we promise!

Summer Pics

Courtesy of Grand Kathy:

That's the hat we need for "International Day" at MBIS

And here we are checking out the L Train.  Its just like the Cairo metro except for the promiscuous display of faces.

We had a great time at Emily's wedding.

Grand Kathy taught us about what happens inside churches.

We had some picnics and parades.

But nothing really could compare to simply soaking up the cool at 682

Selfies

Here are some items from the vault that have somehow been neglected.  We'll start with some self-portraits, with a loose circus theme:

Here Thomas films himself doing a favorite trick.  Please excuse the gratuitous profanity at the start.  This was early one morning last spring while the rest of us were sleeping.

Here we are at circus camp, waiting for the "pie day" activity to start.  Emmett evidently grabbed the phone, and realizing what he had, began a selfie photo shoot until Mom realized what was happening.  I think Uncle Arthur has a similar series from Emily's wedding.  After this is a self-portrait I took after being "pie-d"