Noah in Petra

These are pics we got of Noah on my phone while in Petra. We realize that we didn't get any of him with anything interesting. After you've seen Petra a couple of times you forgot that it is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Noah in his backpack carrier.

Noah and his beautiful mother.

And this is how Noah spent most of the trip. He didn't even see Petra.

and this is a baby donkey. proof that even baby donkeys are still ugly.

All Drinks for a Dinaar!

We took Noah to Petra this week for a couple of days. I'll post some pics as soon as we get them, but I wanted to let you hear a little story.

We are walking through Petra and we here a guy standing outside of his shop hollarin', "all drinks for a dinaar, all drinks for a dinaar! Tea! Coffee! Pepsi! All drinks for a dinaar!" Then immediately after that, he switches to Arabic and says, "ربع دينار للعرب" which means, quarter dinaar for the Arabs.

So I walk up to him and say, in English, "I want a Pepsi."
"Okay, 1 dinaar please."
"But I want to pay a quarter like the Arabs," I said in Arabic

that's when it got interesting.......
here's what followed. This is me speaking in Arabic and him speaking in English. His grammar mistakes aren't me not typing correctly, it's what he said.

me: "but I want to pay a quarter"
him: "uh...uh....no, that price for arab students only:
"okay, I am a student"
"no you no student, you have baby on you back!" (I did. Noah was chillin' in the baby backpack)
"so? he [Noah] is a student too! he is learning both English and Arabic!"
"no you too old."
"but you didn't say that. you said a quarter dinaar for drinks!"
"but you no arab!"
"but then you said it was for arab students and I study Arabic, so i'm an arab student and so is my son, and so is my wife!"
"okay, okay" (he is shaking his head and my hand at this point. its the Arab thing to do after a well fought bargaining battle)

then he calls out to the boy by the drinks "hey boy, get a pepsi for Ahmed!!!" I guess, he felt like he had to give me an Arab name to give me the Arab price. Oh well, I gave the kid a quarter, and put the pepsi in my bag and forgot about it. The pepsi is still sitting in the bag on the floor in our house right now. I don't know if I'll ever get around to drinking it.

It wasn't about the pepsi, it was about being Arab....

I want to, too!

This morning I was brushing my teeth when Noah sees me in his walker and comes running over and wedges himself in the door until can't go any further and he just stares at me.

and he stares......

and I brush...

and he stares.....

Finally, B says, "He wants to brush his teeth. Give him his toothbrush." So I reach up and pull out of the cup his fat, stubby toothbrush and hand it to him. He smiles and goes running off brushing his 6.5 teeth for about 5 minutes. Then he throws the toothbrush on the ground and runs over it with his walker. He was done I guess.

How can you have a bad day with funny, little people running around your house?

Chicken Pot Pie Twice, Yet Not At All

Last Thursday we had made plans for a family to come and visit us and B was going to make her chicken pot pie from scratch. Good stuff, but it takes a couple hours of work, because B makes the crust from scratch and you have to cook all the veggies and the chicken.
They are coming at 5:30pm. At 3:30pm the gas on the stove goes out. The chicken is cooked, but the veggies were half warm in the pot on the stove. (We function here on butane gas cans similar to a BBQ grill in the States.) When you run out you call the gas guy and he comes and brings you however many cans you need. So I called him. "Okay, Mr. Clinton, I will be there in 10 minutes...."

30 minutes later. It's 4:15 buy this point. We are pushing getting everything done on time. No gas or gas guy. Call again. "Okay Mr. Clinton, I am on the way....maybe a half an hour."

5:00pm - No gas. We order pizza. It was good.

Friday is the holy day, so he ain't comin'.

Saturday - B says that if I want a birthday cake then I'd better get some gas for the stove otherwise it is going to taste rather funny. Okay. So I call again and finally get him here. "Mr. Clinton, I came by but no one was home!" (I know that stinks, but don't worry about it. This happens all the time. This is a typical Arab thing.) But we get the cake baked. Wait, did I say we? No. B baked the cake. I sat and played with Noah. So we decide for my birthday that we need to finish cooking the chicken pot pie that is half cooked in three pots in the fridge. I'm sorry, I keep saying we. I didn't do any of this. B got everything back out and on the stove and cooking when 10 minutes into it our friends called and the wife was in labor and needed to go to the hospital. So.......we left the chicken pot pie that wasn't really chicken pot pie yet, but more like veggies in a pot, chicken on a tray and a crust lying on the side; on the stove and went to the hospital.

Several hours later, we return home. By the way, Noah Luke was born at 11:59pm on St. Patty's Day. He is 51 cm long and 3.3 kilos. B finishes dinner and we ate it. And it was good. The pics are from my Happy Birthday Chicken Pot Pie Party....for all three of us.

Snow Pic

Here is a pic from later in the day when we were at KFC

Rules of Driving

Over the past week of driving here I've learned these rules on driving:

1. When at an intersection or entering a roundabout, he who hesitates the least has the right of way.

2. Always do what's best for yourself. If pulling a U-turn in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic works for you, it must work for everybody else.

3. Every car is equipped with "park anywhere lights" you just push this button and it causes your car's lights to blink in unison and that gives you the right to park where ever you want, whenever you want.

Noah's Mark

Family Pic

We borrowed a camera yesterday to shoot a family pic.

This is the family with Noah @ 8 months.

The HP407 is on the Side of a Milk Carton

I apologize for the lack of posts with pictures these days. I wanted to through up a post about our new wheels (well new to us) with pictures, but two weeks ago our camera jumped out of our bag and left itself in the back of a taxi and has yet to find its way home.

So we are camera less. For my birthday though I am getting a phone with a camera on it, insha'allah. It won't be a great hi-tech one, but at least it will take pictures. Once that happens I will try to get some pics up of Noah, life, and anything else I find remotely photo worthy.

Freedom! Brought to us by Hyundai

Today I went down to the Driver's License Department and went through a variety of lines and paperwork and picked up my driver's license. That's right. Today I joined the class of the frazzled-nerved, white-knuckled, half-craved, horn-happy, cussing, screaming, and the all around impatient drivers of the Middle East.

*I had to take the eye exam in Arabic. A bit nerve-racking. I have a hard time telling which way the little "E" is pointing in English, much less saying it in Arabic.*

But because we aren't sure what we are doing after language school we are in no position to get a car, BUT we have several friends who are traveling back and forth from the States and they agreed to let us borrow their car these next couple weeks. So we are in a little Hyundai Accent today.

We were cruising down the road on a way to a picnic and I flipped the "squirt water on the windshield" lever and the back windshield wiper went crazy and wouldn't shut off! So we drove around for an hour with the back windshield wiper smearing the dirt on the back windshield and nothing happening on the front windshield. "oh, great. We've had the car for 10 minutes and I've already jacked it up!"

Fortunately we get home and I pull the fuse out and replace it and everything goes back to normal. I guess when a fuss blows, the front stops working and the back stops stopping.

Oh well. Who cares? For now, we are free......

Driver's License Update

We three went to the random office that we went to last week to apply for an exception to forgo all the tests to get a license and picked up my copy of approval to take to the Dept. of License across town and we dropped off B's papers to be processed....(whew...that was a long sentence).

The Dept. of Licenses closes at 3:30pm. We pull up to the gate at 2:15pm. The gate is closed and everything is locked up. Oh well. We'll try again on Saturday.

Its the Middle East. What can you do?

Public Service Announcement

I realize that very few of you will care...

but I've finally updated all of the labels for our posts on the blog. You can browse by topic now on your right under "A Topical Guide."

Something also went goofy with all the old videos on the blog. I fixed those and you can see all the old videos that we've made over the past two years. They all should be up and running. I doubt any of you care, but I feel better. Being over organized kindof stinks.

Noah's Bath Time Video

Don't worry. We added an extra helping of bubbles, so this is a G video and suitable for all audiences. I apologize for the lighting. Our bathroom is just dark. There is no way to light it up.

To see Noah's Bath Time Video Click Here.