Cough cough hack hack

Its been a hard winter on our lungs.  The windy days have been few and far between which has left our city shrouded in a haze of dust and pollution.  When the wind rolls through we can easily see five or six kilometres but without the wind sometimes visibility is less than a kilometre.  Sure makes the lungs ache for some fresh air!

1st Loose Tooth

We had a pretty big milestone this week ... Ava lost her first tooth!  While all her other friends from school had lost several of their teeth she was still waiting to loose her first one.  It finally happened this week and she couldn't have been more proud.  Her sisters were pretty impressed too and were constantly asking if any of their teeth were loose.

Trip to the Zoo

A warning for animal lovers: you may want to skip over this post!

One of our outings during Christmas holidays was a trip to our local zoo.  We had heard that although the zoo was a nice inexpensive family outing, the condition of the animals and the exceptionally small enclosures could make it a heart breaking trip for any animal lovers in our family.  Although the condition of the animals was disturbing at times the girls were much more enthralled with beautiful tree filled surroundings and the freedom to run and leap and skip to their hearts content.

At first the girls were too afraid to feed the animals but after their friends broke the ice there were all for it.  

Feeding the animals was definitely a highlight for them

One of the strangest things about the zoo was how the stray cats out numbered the animals.  Every enclosure had at least three or four cats hanging out looking for scraps of food.

Some enclosures featured only stray cats

A warning sign at the entrance of the zoo.  My favourites are 'No fishing' at the top left and the obscure sign at the bottom left which could either be translated as 'No climbing' or 'No old people with canes.'

The park was another huge hit even though most of the place was a huge safety hazard with slides with holes in them and rusty, half broken playground equipment.  We thought it would make a great advertisement for a tetanus booster.  

#3 is 3!

Hard to believe our baby is 3.

As cute as ever!

Blowing out candles at a party at her nursery

Celebrating at home with some good friends

Jingle Bells

We had to post this video just because it cracks us up.  Iz and E dressed up as an angel and shepherd wearing cow and donkey masks while shaking some bells.  Merry Christmas!  

New Traditions

I'm not going to lie, last Christmas was hard.  Even though we happen to live closer to the place of the original Christmas and in a culture more similar, last year Christmas just didn't FEEL like Christmas.  We missed our families.  We missed roaring fireplaces and snow heavy branches.  We missed our moms' hot cider, surprise spread, and ham/cheese buns and the our church's potluck and concert.  We missed Christmas carols on the radio, everybody planning Christmas holidays and Christmas parties. We missed seeing Christmas decorations everywhere (even Dad's gigantic and tacky blow up Frosty on the front yard).  We missed Christmas gift exchanges with family (even the infamous 'Dancing Santa'), late nights up playing board games with family and munching on an endless table of snacks as the girls giggled alongside their cousins.  We missed putting a dash of egg nog in our morning coffee. Our Christmas was wrapped up in the nostalgia of the past.

Our first Christmas here we spent a lot of time mourning our lost traditions but we also pushed through and made some new ones in our new home.  The funny thing is that we didn't even realize we had!  Two weeks ago as we prepared to go to the annual Christmas Bazaar (a Christmas craft fair that supports over a dozen local charities), the girls were super excited.  They excitedly reminisced with each other all that they had done and seen last year and we realized we were creating new memories. It was a simple thing, but for us it was a moment of great encouragement to see our kids embracing new traditions and knowing once again we are going to be okay here.  In fact this Christmas season we are reminded that we we will be more than okay. We are not alone.

 Immanuel.  God with us.

 Iz with her face painting at the Christmas Bazaar

 Santa was a little too skinny but the girls didn't mind

They all wanted to put the star up together.

 A even found some great 'Real Plastic Snow' at the  'yard sale' portion of the bazaar.  It is now littered across our living room floor much to the amusement of our local friends!

The Christmas Pageant - REAL CAMELS! A wonderful new tradition for us to look forward to each year.

Christmas Pageant at our International Church

The girls had front row seats and loved it especially because they used a real baby.

The Village

I am a small town girl at heart.  It is partially because of this that I jumped at the chance to escape the city for a day and breathe some clean air (seriously, I have heard that people estimate that breathing in our city is the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day).  So off I went with a multi-national group from our international church here.  Our church works with a local organization to transform children and villages through child sponsorship.  Similar to and mentored by another large international child sponsorship organization, this local organization works with children, families and communities to provide education, food, sanitation and hope through holistic care to villages in the area.
We were able to visit several homes of sponsored children, visited with them and their families and distributed bags of food.  We were accompanied by several of the workers of the program who are also from and currently live in the same village.
It was such an encouraging day for me....stories of transformation, faces of joy, clean air, great people  and Arabic practice too!

Goat house

GREEN OPEN SPACE!!!  Such a beautiful contrast to our concrete desert.

Visiting one of the homes of the sponsored children.  This little girl is struggling with liver problems.  She was so happy telling us about how she is in school and doing well.

Plastics vendor.

A girl holding a bag of food for the food distribution.

One of the contaminated water sources for the village.  They are currently working on getting water filters installed in all of the villages.

This home housed this family along with about six goats and some chickens.

Excited to have their picture taken.  I was excited to be able to talk to them  (we actually understood each other!).  My Arabic is probably at about this age level!

We heard a lot of donkeys 'singing'.