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Snow Day

This set is from the “snow event” last week.   A couple of days after we arrived a system came through and dropped 7 to 8″ of snow.  A perfect amount.  Not too much that everything shut down but enough for beautiful scenery.   Kai and Nora had fun with snowballs and snow angels and we even started a snow fort off the front deck.   We originally used a snow shovel to move the snow but quickly switched to a 4-wheeler with a snow plow on the front to mound up the snow.   We had a great little fort for a while but since then temps soaring into the 30’s and a patch of rain have turned it into a dirty mound of snow strangely out of place.

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Natural Bridge Caverns

One of the side trips that we took in Texas was to Natural Bridge Caverns.  We took the “easy” tour with the kids but it was still a fair trek and a stunning.  It was a chilly day up top but warm and humid year round in the caves.  Stunning display of all things subterranean.

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Cub Scout Campout

This last weekend was the annual Cub Scout campout for Pack 3253.   Even though the campout was right on camp a lot of work and planning goes into it – especially from Den Leader Crystal.   The kids had a wonderful time though and I know that it is an event that Kai really looks forward to.   Siblings were allowed to join starting at 4pm so Nora was there playing flashlight tag and sleeping in the tent overnight as well.

This year Den 14 was in charge of the opening flag ceremony and Kai’s name was drawn to be the US flag bearer.  He took his role very seriously and it was one of the best executed flag ceremony I’ve ever seen 3rd graders do.

Enjoy the photos!

 

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Halloween 2012

We weren’t expecting a very busy Halloween night given that so many people were still away on holiday.  However, we were still well-stocked with 600 pieces of candy which we figured would be more than enough.   Lance and Deb Riley brough pizza and joined us for a very pleasant evening of sitting in the driveway and handing out treats.   There were a lot of Saudi visitors and most even had some sort of costume.   All of the trick-or-treaters were fun and courteous with only one exception – a young boy who was really set on getting a double helping of candy.

Things started out slow a little before 5pm and by the time the sun was down we were mobbed.   The candy we had on hand gave out around 6:30pm and Ben ended up doing a run to the Quicky Mart in his “Reneaisance Man” costume for more.   By 8pm the trick or treaters had slowed to a crawl and we packed it in.   I didn’t keep count but clearly we had more than 600 stop by.

Kai and Nora ended up doing some local loops on their own and then made an far loop to the other side of the school with some friends.   I was glad that they showed some independence and I’m also struck by how lucky we are to live in a place where I can let my 3rd grade and KG kids run around trick or treating on thier own.    Security was out in force with foot patrols at major intersections and cars driving by every 30 minutes.   I can only speak for the area of camp we were in but I think they did a great job of ensuring a safe and kid-friendly evening.

Enjoy the pictures…

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Koh Samui 2012

The Eid Holidays are our major chance for travel during the school year and because they align with the Hijra lunar calendar they move up about 11 days each year.   This year the break fell at the end of October which made the time right for a tropical island trip to Koh Samui, Thailand.   We stayed at Rocky’s Boutique Resort which was just perfect – small and private with a great staff and a wonderful beach.   For the most part we simply alternated between beach, pool, massage and food in various combinations each day.   One interesting side trip was dinner at the Tree Tops restaurant – only 7 tables and nestled in the branches of a huge tree and overlooking Chaewing Bay.   Amazing dining experience complete with a “salt guru” who visited our table to recommend the correct type of salt to use with the various dishes.   The other highlight was hiring a boat for the day to take us out for some “snorgling” as Nora calls it, fishing and some time on a tiny island that was all beach.

Enjoy the pictures ((Some of these pictures were also posted on facebook during the trip itself but I’m didn’t take the time to weed out duplicates))! Note that I’m still fiddling around with the new gallery format on the site since I upgraded – hopefully everything is working.  Drop me a line if things don’t seem to work or you have a suggestion for improvement.  I’m keeping my web photos on Flickr now and just linking a gallery onto the blog.   You can use the “view in Flickr” link to just to my photostream and view even more images.

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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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The County Fair

Though we’re back to the heat in Saudi there are still a few images left to work through – here are some of the Post’s visit to Danbury and our visit to the Sibley County fair.   Kai was allergic to something there (or maybe all of it) so he was a watery eyed mess by the end but both he and Nora still really enjoyed it.

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The New Boat

The day after we arrived we scheduled delivery of our new Pontoon.  The nice folks from Hayward Marine showed up right on time (though so did the thunderstorms).   We got the run down on the boat operations in heavy rains though they cleared enough later for a nice ride.   We’ve been out daily since.

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