Traveling * Awards * Shopping * Communicating

Blog About Fall 2020

The week after the hurricane, we headed the other direction to Brownwood, Texas.

The house where we stayed had a lot of dress-up clothes for grandchildren, and Keira modeled no less than 7 outfits one night.

October 17, 2020

When we returned to College Station, we took Karis out to celebrate her becoming a member of the National Honor Society.

Since she attends an online school, there was no ceremony or acknowledgement. I thought back to my own induction, and told her to hold up a steak knife while she said the "pledge" (that we looked up online).

I would say this generally is not what you want to see your 16-year old daughter doing.

October 19, 2020

Two days later, my friend Shelley invited me to go antique/vintage shopping with her. I don't often get to do "girl trips," so it was so fun to spend the day with her.

One crazy thing about the day was so many reminders of Africa.

For example, this mannequin head is a similar replica of one in Kampala, Uganda, that we used to pass often and note how out-of-place it was there. I found a picture of another laughing one in Uganda that I posted way back in 2011

Also, these wood crafts, which were shipped in from Ghana, reminded me so much of all the times we went to craft markets anywhere in East Africa.

And this speaks for itself.  (the link is from Tanzania in 2010).

 

October 21, 2020

And this became our new normal in communicating with Kylie while she was at school.

What a blessing instant communication with video is!

October 20, 2020

And What A Fun Run it Was

We decided to run in the city's 4K fun run as a family. In year's past, it's always been a 5K, so we don't know why the distance was changed this year.  

We did some training at a local park, which is the only place you are supposed to run in this country...running trails, in parks, in designated areas/

Then three days before the race, we went to another park across the city to pick up our registration forms.

When we pulled up, there was a collection site in the parking lot for Syrian refugees being kicked out their homes.

Inside, we picked up our packets, and they took our picture.  The next day, one of my friends found this picture posted on a facebook page for the race.

We got up early and walked to the starting line, according to the map we were given. The 10K and marathon runners were at a starting line half a mile in front of us, and the marathoners had taken off earlier.

We saw that the back of our shirts said, "Run for a Clean Environment," however, the numbers in our packet had a peel off back, and there were no trash cans around.

This was the scene everywhere at the beginning of the race.

The irony is not lost on me.

I took my family's pieces of paper and walked to a water station to ask some ladies sitting there where a trash can was.  They stared at me blankly, and said, "There isn't one."

They kindly took my trash, set it on the table with the water and looked at me strangely.

Littering is such a common thing in this country. They are not taught about caring for the environment or picking up trash. Funny enough though, they like to keep their house, sidewalks, AND the STREET in front of their house clean.

This is the starting line.  You would think it is big enough that people wouldn't miss it, but...

Some 4Kers started at the 10K line and ran less than a 4K; some runners started at the 4K for the 10K and ended up running over a 10K; and some people started at the 10K, intending to run a 4K, but missed the awful-placed signs for the finish line turn off, and ended up running a lap of the city with the marathon runners.

 It was VERY well organized.  NOT!  And that's not the end of the "amazing" organization.  There was more at the finish line.

Here is my running partner.  She did great, but the heat did get to her a little over half-way through.  She finished, but I had to do a LOT of encouraging to get her to keep moving.

Guns and guards watched the running route.

The other four finished relatively quickly, and they waited to cheer Keira and I on when we crossed after them. Some news station put a camera in my face for an interview right after I crossed the finish line, and I have NO idea what I said.

We were told to walk through a partitioned-off walkway to a "celebration party" and awards ceremony. As we walked through, we were handed medals.  Kylie was handed two!  One by a guy on the right side and one by a guy on the left.

The funny thing was, one guy was handing out this medal that I'm showing below.

It's a medal for MARATHON runners!

The 4Kers received a different medal (or if you are Kylie, you received one of each).

All we could do was laugh.

We did not want to stay for the awards ceremony, so our family and some girls we ran with went out for a big Middle Eastern breakfast.

It was nice to sit and talk about the race.  And funny enough, as we sat we kept getting texts from some parents still looking for two of their sons.  They had apparently started at the wrong starting line, got ahead of their parents, and missed the turn off for the finish line.  They ended up running almost a half-marathon!

Their parents grabbed them when they finally saw them coming over a bridge to tell them what had happened, and they took them home.  They didn't even get a medal for all of their trouble :)

The next day, a picture of Keira and me showed up a bunch of places.  I just figured we must have been the only ones running slow enough for them to catch on film. :)

 But what a "fun" run it was ;)

While I was Away

Doug took care of everything and everybody while I was away.

He and I always share duties, but for the days I was gone, he was the lone ranger, arranging play dates for Keira, taking everyone to their respective ballet and soccer practices, and cooking.

A sweet momma had all of these girls over to play on a week's break from school.  Keira had such a good time, and the mom sent me pictures so I could see all the fun they had.

My brother was apparently on TV while I was away, and I STILL haven't seen the episode.

Caleb was awarded defensive player of the year in soccer, but before the award ceremony took place, a little boy was playing around the awards table and broke the trophy intended for Caleb.

Caleb was given this cheap one as a stand-in until the coach could order another.

I had a great trip, and the kids had a good time while I was gone.

Thank you, Doug, for being such a Super Dad!

The End of Things

Government schools and activities here usually run until the end of June.  Thankfully, the schools that my kids went to, ended in May, but dance and soccer continued through Ramadan and into the heat of summer.

The dance studio had end-of-year presentations for each class.  The class that Kylie and Karis taught took place at the exact time that Keira was also in class, so we didn't get to see Kylie and Karis' kids perform.

Here is Keira with Mrs. Natalia.  She is the wonder woman of the dance studio.  She teaches little girls' ballet classes, pilates, yoga, aerial yoga, and ballet pro (Kylie and Karis' class).

Her husband had trouble finding work here, so he had to leave.  Pray for this family as they are currently separated.  We really love having Mrs. Natalia here, but we also know she needs to do what is best for her family.  

When Keira was finished, I went upstairs to the older girls' class where they were posing for all the mothers.  You can see as the summer wears on that fewer and fewer come.  Their class usually had 11-13 girls attending.

I didn't get a picture of Caleb's last soccer practice, but this a handsome snapshot of him and his milkshake on his last day of school :)

Ballet Pro also did an open class performance, but our family was the only one who attended.  Four of the ladies are from out of the country with no family here, and the others say they would rather not invite anyone.

Award Time in March

 Thankfully, with Kylie homeschooling, we only had two science experiments to worry about this term.

And it didn't rain this year, so it was much nicer having all the displays outside.  

Doug and I didn't spend as much time at the fair this year, because we had a meeting with our teammates, but I got a few pictures before I left.

As I walked up to Karis' table, her teacher (not pictured) came over to me and said, "Congratulations!  Karis won second place!"  

I turned to Karis, and I said, "Wow!  Congratulations!"

And she said, "What?"

She hadn't heard her teacher, and she hadn't heard the news.

Apparently, one of the men from the US Consulate really liked her project because it was something he himself had done study a on.

We found the experiment on-line, and I'm proud of the work she put into it.  We started one month before, and the plants died within two weeks because of over-watering, but after a re-plant, I'm pleased to say that "Harold" (Karis' name for "him") is still doing well in my window sill in the kitchen.

 The Jr.  High Math Quiz Bee was also in March.  Karis shocked herself (but not her parents) when she won first place.  She didn't even qualify last year, but this year, she is rocking math and science.

**the picture is fuzzy because I took it off the school's facebook page.

I also borrowed the picture below off of Twitter.  Parents here don't have as much involvement at the school, so when I run across pictures online from their life at school, I try to download them.

This term, for the Honor Roll ceremony, the school took the kids to the US Consulate during the school day rather than have a parents' award night.

Karis said it took over 30 minutes to get everyone through security with their passports going two-by-two.  She was in the last group left in the cold outside, so she was ready to get inside.

Here's a zoomed picture of Karis and Caleb in the back.

It's kind of like looking in a "Where's Waldo?" book :)

Celebrating the kids

Usually awards for schools take place at the end of the year, but the school that our kids are attending, doesn't do any "honoring" in May.  However, they principal scheduled something for January 18th, and awards were given based on their first term's performance.

All three of our kids were given the same two awards.
One for maintaining a 90% average or higher, and one for maintaining a 95% average or higher.

It seems strange to me, because if they had just been given the one for 95% average, it would have covered both of them, but oh well.

The lower one was presented by the US Consulate General, and the higher one was presented by the principal.

This is the principal with all of them.

It's so rare that I get a picture of all of them, so even though this was taken in a cafeteria with some strangers in the background, I figured I would let you see it.

 Thanks.

Afterward, to celebrate, we visited a place that we had heard was in town, but we really weren't sure whether to believe it or not.

It used to be called "P.J.'s Pizza," but now...




This is pretty amazing!  The pizza actually tastes the same!!  The only "wrong" thing about the night was that they served garlic mayonnaise with the pizza instead of garlic butter sauce.

As I checked out, I asked the man if there was any chance they were ever going to serve the garlic butter sauce, and he said, "Yes!"  Apparently, the garlic butter sauces were "misplaced" in shipping.  He said in few weeks they might arrive.

We shall see...

Happy days