Wadis, Birthdays, Thanksgiving, ERs

This was Azeb's birthday. She is our nanny and house helper who lives with us. She is from Ethiopia and has been with us for almost two years. She is very much a part of the family and we all love her. She is a WONDERFUL addition to our life and allows me to do things other than just cook, clean and take care of kids....all wonderful things but I do want to do more while we are living out here! So we had a big celebration for her 30th birthday!

We have had several big rains out here. So a few weekends ago we went to a wadi for lunch. This picture above is a great one to illustrate a wadi....a deep valley cut through rock that water sometimes runs through.

Many of the roads were washed out for a few days or weeks depending on the area. Nothing is built to withstand rain so ANY rain means it affects life totally for a few days...cleaning up messes inside houses and out is a big job.

Just gorgeous (= 

Tom was gone for 6 days and returned home to a surprise birthday party! It was a week early and I had found an incredible grill as a gift. It was pretty beat up but we got it looking like almost-new and it was a huge surpise for Tom. He's been wanting a big fancy grill but we (I) kept saying no (= I found this one at about 85% off! 

And when daddy came home Ryan wanted to snuggle like this with his new quilt from Tutu Lisa's daddy. He loves to pull it all over his head. 

We don't always celebrate Thanksgiving and this year we only decided to do so a day ahead so it was a miracle we got it all put on the table.... 

....due in large part to Azeb's help (= 

This is Ryan wearing his Georgia Bull Dogs shirt pretending to be a baby bulldog and sitting under his daddy bull dog (= Ryan is getting very specific in his role playing and telling you how to sit and what to say etc etc etc 

This is Ryan and Iz who are both three years old. We were at the hospital while Isaiah's little brother got checked out for possible seizures or something. We kept him for the afternoon at our house after getting them settled into the pediatric department. His brother was sent home but they still need an EEG )=