We have Arrived

Felucca ride

Our family on the Felucca

Me and Nick in front of the Nile

In front of the sphinx- the boys

the sphinx- the girls

Me and mom on a camel

Camels again

again

pyramids in the background

us compared to one stone

the pyramids

jonah holding up the pyramid

nick pushing them apart haha

as u can see its very tall

The kids on one of the stones

Us at The Great Pyramid

We arrived in EGYPT
After a long 14-hour journey with one layover in Frankfort we arrived in Egypt on Tuesday July 22. We were worried that Pepper, our dog, would not be able to come with us because it was hot on the day we left but luckily the airlines took her. She arrived safely with us as planned but some our baggage was not so fortunate. Only 6 out of 11 bags made it on time. Fortunately the others arrived the next morning ☺.
The dad of our host family was there at the airport to greet and welcome us to Egypt. We arrived at our house with Pepper 30 min. later. The house looked great but soon we realized that one of the rooms, soon to be Bekah’s room, was furnished as an office, so Bekah had to spend a few nights sleeping in the same room with Nick. Our first official day in Egypt was an Egyptian holiday! (National Day) Our host family took us to the commissary, the American military grocery store. And we stocked up on our favorite items. We were happy to find frozen pizza, Bagel Bites, and Cocoa Puffs along with many other good foods. After the commissary we discovered the Maadi House. The Maadi house is a community center where they not only have a swimming pool and restaurant but they also teach sports and have wireless internet!!! Because of the Internet Bekah spends a lot of her time there.

Our host family has been great and we have been over to their house for dinner several times in our first week. They are good cooks and we also love their Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies.
On Friday, because the weekends in Egypt are Friday and Saturday, we went to church. Church is held in a converted two-story house and the branch is very small compared to the wards have been to before. It is a branch of about 60 people but because it was the summer there were only 40 that attended. There are 2 new families beside us both have over 4 kids. The next day, we went with our host family and another family on a Felucca ride on the Nile River. A felucca is a traditional Egyptian sailboat. The weather was beautiful, the food tasty, the company was marvelous, and the view was extraordinary. When you come to visit us we will be sure to take you on one.
On Sunday we walked to our new school, Cairo American College (CAC). It is a nice campus and Jonah and Bekah were excited to find out that they have a 20 break between each class, a hour and a half free period every other day, and Bekah can go off campus for lunch or use her cell phone to order food in. Jonah is excited to be able to play basketball in between each class. Mom starts school on Sunday August 3.
We had an orientation at the embassy, which was very boring. The building in nice and very big, in fact it’s the second largest embassy in the world, the first being Iraq.
On Monday July 28 we wished Jonah an official happy 13th birthday (we celebrated unofficially about 3 times before we left) we ate a delicious dinner at the Chili’s restaurant that is about 10 min. from our house. The food and prices were just like in the United States. For his birthday he chose, to our surprise, a carrot cake. We also had another birthday party for him with our host family but instead of a cake we had a mound of chocolate chip cookies.
Nick met some friends at that party and ended up spending the night at their house and then the next day their mom took them to a resort hotel with a water park. He came home a little sun burnt but had a great time with his new friends.
While he was at the water park Mom, Jonah, and Bekah met a new family from the branch and went to the GRAND Maadi Mall. The mall was 7 STORIES HIGH!!!! We had Egyptian food and walked around the entire mall.
Lately we have been watching a lot of movies because we do not have our stuff yet. We have not yet received any of our shipments but we hope to get out air shipment soon.
Mom’s notes: We are all adjusting fairly well to life in Cairo. We like our house and are enjoying our new friends we are meeting here. Bekah is starting to set her cell phone down sometimes now. She would look at it longingly for the first couple of days. Jonah’s basketball team in Fairfax won the regular season and we are proud of them playing in the finals for the tournament. Jonah looks forward to your emails so please keep writing to him. Nick misses Matt and his friends and also looks forward to Matt’s emails. Our thoughts and prayers are with Aunt Gayla and her family as she is dealing with her news of lung cancer. We appreciate being kept up to date on your progress. We miss you all and will be relieved to get our internet and phone setup so we can communicate easier. School starts on Aug 12th for the kids. Right now many people are visiting the states so life is quiet. We are glad to hear that Emily, Mike, Kort and Lindsay arrived safely in California and that Kort is recovering from his pneumonia. We are looking forward to the Olympics starting soon and hope our TV will be hooked up and running by then.
Few days later
Now that school has started we have made a lot of friends. Moms work invited us to 2 dinners one was catered and the other was at a nice restaurant. Then they invited us to a Friday brunch at the Four Seasons hotel. It was amazing!!!
We went to the pyramids on Friday Aug. 15 it was a lot of fun but it was hot. We saw a lot of cool things including the sphinx. Mom, Bekah, Jonah, and Nick all rode a camel it was a little scary when they got up and down but other than that it was so much fun.