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Teddy’s First Birthday

Fair warning – this post is chock full of super cute pictures of Teddy who celebrated his first full orbit around the sun at the end of December. Celebrations included a traditional Spooner meal of pizza and cheese curds at Tony’s followed by cake and ice cream at the Jebel.

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Nora’s Birthday party and Halloween

In the spirit of clearing off the backlog of photos here is another gallery from the last few months.

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Nora’s 10th Birthday Party

Nora’s birthday was back in September but only this weekend did we get the stars to align to have an actual birthday party. Nora had the whole thing planned out including a picnic in a local park – treats like chocolate covered marshmallows and bobbing for apples. The bobbing for apples turned out to be wildly popular – who knew?

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Nora’s Birthday and Halloween

Here is an older gallery that included pictures from Nora’s birthday party back in October along with some Halloween pictures that never got posted. Enjoy!

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Mara Balloon ride

The first full day at Mara Bushtops we had booked a balloon ride in the Masai Mara. We were woken up with coffee and cookies well before dawn and then whisked in a land cruiser into the park. We arrived at the launch site just as dawn was beginning to break. There was not much for us to do as we stood out of the way as the crews scrambled to get the balloon laid out and filled with hot air. Once it started to become bouyant, however, then things moved fast and the had to scramble into the basket while the balloon struggled to fly away and a dozen ground crew members struggled to keep us on the ground.

Once we were airborne the most striking thing is the total silence (if you don’t count the occasional roar of the gas jets as the pilot put more hot air in the balloon). We drifted over the Mara for about an hour and then, after a controlled crash landing, the chase vehicle whisked us away to another omlete station that had sprung up out of the bush.

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Nora’s Pirate Birthday Party

Last weekend we held Nora’s 8th Birthday party.   Due to the holidays stacked up we just hadn’t had a chance before now.  The original plan was for a cowgirl theme and we had brought back red bandanas from the US.  At the last minute this shifted to a pirate theme which worked well since the bandanas could be repurposed.

We even managed to make a pinata in the short time between coming back from Disney and the party.  It was a very humid week so drying the paper mache was an issue – the final layer was dried just in time in the oven.

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Kai Turns 10

It is hard to believe that Kai has been with us now for just about a decade.   I can still recall the morning we brought him home to Tarut Street in Udhailyah.

We recently celebrated his birthday here a little early so that he could enjoy a sleepover with friends before we (and his friends) scatter for the summer.   For the first time we’ll be in a position to celebrate his actual birthday back in the USA with family!

The party was a sleepover with 5 friends where we did a trip to the bowling alley, pizza and cake and running around in the park after dark with glow sticks.   That last bit only resulted in 2 injuries and thankfully they weren’t enough to keep anyone out of the rest of the party.   The main event was a Minecraft LAN party that went well into the night and started back up before dawn the next day.   All 6 boys joined the same world and set about to complete a series of Minecraft challenges.   It was the first time we’ve tried something like that and it was a hit!

Enjoy the pics!

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Nora Turns 7

Where does the time go?   Nora turned 7 recently and, as is way with children’s birthdays, there were a range of celebrations.  There was the small ceremony at home on her actual birthday, a recognition at school and then, on a suitably open weekend, the bowling party with friends.   Enjoy the pictures!

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Nora’s Birthday and a Website Change

Nora turned 6 last month and it has certainly taken me a long time to get photos posted.   My previous webhost that I’ve had since I launched our family website many years ago was not delivering the way I had hoped and and I shopped around I saw that I could be getting more for less.   So I started the process of transferring almost a decade worth of blog over to a new host which was no small task – at least no small task for me who had never done it before.

The website is now hosted on another personal domain of mine shammal.net though the old address redirects and is the best way to get there – just type in bencrystal.net to get to the site as always.  I updated the software that runs the site during the move and a few of the plugins are currently broken such as the gallery.  I’ve got a work around for now and hopefully that will get better.

Anyway – on to the pictures – here are a few from the party…

 

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Kai Turns 8

We held Kai’s birthday party a couple weeks ago because some of his friends were already starting to depart for the summer.   I spent the last week in San Diego with lots of big plans about getting pictures posted in my free time outside the conference.   That didn’t happen so much but, on the way home, I did get some pictures posted of Kai’s birthday party.   Enjoy!