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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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Halloween Parade 2012

Today was the annual Halloween Parade at the Hills School.  It happened very early this year since people were scattering for the Eid holiday it was now or never.    As is usual, the day of the Halloween Parade was unusually warm and humid.   Also as usual Kai looked like he couldn’t wait for it to be over and Nora loved the stroll in front of her adoring fans.

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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 Siren Fly- In

Recently the Burnett County Airport in Siren help a fly in air show.  There were several vintage military planes as well as personal aircraft and firetrucks.   The most interesting thing (at least for Kai)?   The abundant grasshoppers on the grass fields.

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