Month: May 2015

A Visit to a Sri Lankan Turtle Conservation Project

Posted By: Mitch, , One comment

Last December when we were in Sri Lanka on vacation, we were able to visit the Coast Guard Turtle Conservation Project near Mirissa Beach.  It was a quick stop as we were traveling along the southern coast of Sri Lanka from Unawatuna to Mirissa.  It was such a cool experience to see such a variety of sea turtles up close.  We got some pretty cool pictures, that we would love to share with you.

Before the pictures though, a little bit more about the Coast Guard Turtle Conservation Project.  The project was launched in September 2012 with the purpose of preserving and raising the awareness of sea turtle conservation.  Apparently there are 8 different kinds of sea turtles, and  Sri Lanka is home to five of the eight species, including: Green Turtles, Leatherbacks, Olive Ridleys, Hawksbills and Loggerheads.  All five types regularly visit the sandy beaches near Mirissa Beach to lay their eggs and build their nests.  Once the eggs are laid, the Coast Guard moves them to a safer area so that predators (especially humans) don’t get their hands on them.  Apparently, over 800 eggs are buried at the site of the hatchery! Once the eggs do hatch, the Coast Guard then releases them back into the sea.  They also house a couple of older sea turtles that have been injured and wouldn’t be able to survive back in the sea.

Here’s a few of my favorite pics:

This is a picture of one of the hatcheries.  They put little signs by each set of eggs to keep them organized.

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Here’s a closer look at the signs in the hatchery.  You can see that it is not uncommon for a sea turtle to lay over 100 eggs at a time!

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Once they hatch, they look like this:

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Here’s another fun picture with the little sea turtle lifting his head out of the water to check us out!  They were so tiny and a ton of fun to watch while they were swimming around.  I could watch them swim around for hours!

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Here is an adult sea turtle who is missing one of this front flappers.

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Another injured adult sea turtle:

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I really like this super close up pic of this turtle!

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Here are a few fun facts that I learned about sea turtles during our visit:

  • Out of every 1,000 eggs that are laid, it’s believed that only 1 of them will grow into a mature, adult sea turtle.
  • Female turtles could lay eggs up to 5 times a season.
  • Adult female turtles are believed to lay their eggs on the same beach where they were hatched when they were a baby.
  • About 80-120 eggs are typically laid on each nest.

We were hoping to do some volunteering with the Conservation Project during our visit, however volunteers were not needed during our time at Mirissa Beach.  It was still super fun place to visit and we highly recommend that people check it out during their next trip to Sri Lanka.  It is an excellent place to witness such amazing sea creatures!

 

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 25

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Happy Monday Tuesday Everyone!

For the second week in a row, we are meeting for our Monday Happy Hour on a Tuesday . . . . . my apologies!  I’m sure all of you are anxiously waiting to see what kind of blah blah blah Mitch is going to come up with this week (*end of sarcasm)

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  • The weather is definitely warming up here in Kuwait!  The highs each day have been 110+ degrees with the lows overnight in the upper 80s.  Next week they are forecasting a high of 118 degrees!!!  It is kind of crazy though how quickly you can adapt to it.  When we arrived in Kuwait last August we instantly experienced a 40 degree change in temperature overnight, from when we left Minnesota to arriving here.  It was miserable!  At least now, we can ease into the heat from spring into summer.  The other day I realized that I have officially become acclimated to the weather here in Kuwait.  I was standing outside waiting for a ride about 5pm, and was thinking to myself, “wow, it’s really nice out right now.”  I was standing outside for about 10 minutes or so, just playing on my phone, when I stumbled across the weather and realized that it was 104 degrees out!!  We keep joking with friends that we are going to have to buy a winter parka when we get back to Minnesota for the summer, because the weather is going to be around 70-80 degrees.
  • A buddy and I have officially started a new Saturday morning tradition . . . . watching the Minnesota Twins game!  We wake up early, get the game fired up online, and enjoy our morning coffee while watching some baseball.  He is from Minnesota too, so he’s just as big of a fan as I am.  I love watching sporting events here online.  Even though a majority of the games we watch aren’t live, it’s easy to avoid the scores to see who wins.  Then you can just watch it online whenever you want!
  • Last week Rachel and I crossed a BIG item off our ‘To Do List’ . . . . . we ordered a car seat and stroller for Baby J!  We have been researching the different brands a lot over the last couple of months and finally decided on which ones we wanted.  Unfortunately though, they don’t sell either of the brands we wanted here!  We got super lucky though, and were able to get them shipped here to Kuwait!  We ordered a total of 4 pieces (stroller, car seat, adapter, and an accessory) but had to order each item from a different website.  Certain websites wouldn’t ship certain items overseas to us.  So we had to kind of manipulate the internet a bit to get all of the stuff shipped.  Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that it all arrives!
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  • Last weekend I crossed another item of my ‘To Do List’ by backing up all over our photos onto an external hard drive.  A lot of the photos were candid shots that we had taken on our iPhones from the last year or so.  I stumbled across the pic from above and my mouth started watering!  It was a photo I took last summer, the night before we left for Kuwait, for a little “going away party” we had with some friends and family.  Only a couple more weeks, until I can enjoy an ice cold beer on the lakes of Minnesota!

The Countdown:

  • 9 more days of school with the kids
  • 16 days until we arrive in Portugal
  • 22 days until we arrive in Minnesota

Cheers everyone!

VIP Treatment at the Cairo Airport

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Earlier this winter when we decided to go to Egypt for a long weekend, our buddy Adam (who traveled with us) was telling some friends of his that we were heading to Egypt.  As he was talking to his friends about Egypt he soon found out that they used to live there, and still had some great connections in Cairo. They were so excited that we were visiting their home country and offered to help us plan our trip to Cairo!  We were all pretty excited to have some help from people who knew the country so well.  They asked for copies of our passports and flight itineraries, then assured us that everything would be taken care of.  We were so surprised and grateful for their help!  A couple of weeks before our trip, they told us that they would have a driver for us at the Cairo airport, and that everything was taken care of for us . . . . . . . we all thought hmmmmmm . . . . . . I wonder what that means?!?

We all just figured that we would be looking for a guy at the airport holding a clipboard with our name, and that he would give us a ride to our hotel.  We were super excited about it, but then this happened . . . . . .

When we landed in Cairo, I was a bit disappointed when there wasn’t a gate available for the plane to pull into.  Instead, the plane had to park on the runway, and we would be shuttled to the terminal in those cramped busses, like cattle going to the slaughterhouse.  Rachel and I got off the plane first, with our friends Adam & Lauren a few rows back.  We were approaching the bottom of the rickety staircase from the plane, about ready to head towards the bus, when we noticed 3 huge dudes, in black suits and aviator sunglasses standing with their arms crossed, looking all tough.  One of the guys was holding a sign that said, “Adam XXX and friends.”  I thought to myself, holy crap I know Adam XXX and that means I’m one of the “and friends!”  We introduced ourselves to the guys, as they quickly grabbed our bags from us.  Adam and Lauren were soon to follow, and were just as surprised as us, to be greeted on the runway at a major international airport!

Once we were all together, the three dudes led us AWAY from the packed busses and the crowds, towards two luxury cars parked on the runway next to the plane.  These weren’t just two  regular cars, they were brand new Jaguars!  Adam and I kind of looked at each other like, “WTF, are these for us?!?!”  We were correct, they were!  Rachel and I hopped into the back seat of one car and Adam and Lauren had their own.  The next thing we know, the driver is hauling ass across the tarmac!

I’m sure the grin on my face was from ear-to-ear. I kept whispering to Rachel, “this is so awesome!”  I didn’t want to talk to loud, so the driver knew that this is how I “always” travel.  We were able to sneak a quick selfie in:

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After a high speed ride around the tarmac, we pulled into a special VIP entrance at the terminal.

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When we walked in, we were the only passengers inside this special area, and it was so fancy and nice inside!  There was a little security checkpoint inside and when we tried putting our bags on the conveyor belt, the worker started laughing at us and told us, “no, no, no.”  We walked through the metal detector (as it was beeping like crazy) and were ushered through to this super fancy terminal area. They even laid out the red carpet for us!

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Then they led us into our own private waiting room!  The room even had a butler, who brought us complimentary food and drinks!

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After we got cozy in our own private hang out area, a worker took all 4 of our passports and said he would be back soon.  He ran off with them and headed to Immigration/Customs to get our visas for us.  We just sat there giggling, enjoying the moment, living the life of the rich and famous!

After about 20 minutes our guy returned with our passports and we were all set to leave the airport.  He walked us through towards an exit, where another driver and a tour guide were waiting for us.  We soon found out that they were “assigned” to us for the next four days!  They would do anything we wanted, at anytime, and take us anywhere.  They had a four day itinerary jam packed with things to do.  All of this was arranged by my buddy Adam’s friend, who’s main focus was to show us a good time and to make sure we enjoyed their home country!

All weekend in Egypt, we just chuckled about the whole experience.  We wondered if we would have the same VIP treatment when we departed Cairo, but we didn’t want to get our hopes up.

The day we left Cairo, my fingers were still crossed that we would get to ride in Jaguars.  When we pulled into the airport, we quickly realized that our driver wasn’t going to the Main Terminal.  I held my breath, and sure enough, we had arrived at the special VIP entrance at the airport!

We were greeted by a butler and led back to our special private waiting room.  We didn’t have to check any of our bags, stand in long lines, check-in, or deal with any of the other hassles of airports.  A worker grabbed our passports and told us he would be back with our boarding passes soon.

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As we were enjoying our morning in the lap of luxury, we soon realized that our plane was departing in 45 minutes, and our guy still hadn’t returned with our passports or boarding passes!  We were getting a little nervous so we double checked the status with another worker, and they said, “no problem, have a seat” as they pointed us back to our room.  Next thing you know . . . . . 30 minutes until departure . . . . . . 15 minutes until departure . . . . .

About 10 minutes before our plane was scheduled to depart, our butler returned without any sense of urgency with our passports and boarding passes.  We were practically freaking out and thought for sure that we were going to miss our flight.  However thankfully, they had two cars waiting for us outside to escort us directly to the plane on the runway again!

After our high speed cruise across the tarmac, we approached the plane and could see all of the other passengers getting off the crowded bus and boarding.  The driver pulled right up to the staircase, but wouldn’t let us out of the car until all of the passengers were on the plane.  As we got out of the car you could just tell that everyone was starring out their window thinking, “are these people rich celebrities or something?”

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Perhaps we gave it away though when we walked past all of the First Class seats on the plane, and cuddled into Coach with all of the other middle class people!

Until this trip, I had no idea that services like this even existed!  It is something that none of us will probably ever experience again, but it sure was fun and makes for some fun stories!

Baby J a Boy or Girl?

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Disclaimer:  This post contains inappropriate words like penis, vagina, sex, crotch, and genitalia.  It also has a few funny pictures that some people might think are offensive!  If you are my grandma, someone who is easily offended, or someone who doesn’t enjoy humor, please don’t read this post.  You will hate it and it will probably ruin your day!

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As soon as we found out that Rachel was pregnant, and that we were having a baby, we knew that we wanted to find out the sex.  Neither of us are big fans of surprises, and we are both planful people.  We anxiously waited for the baby to develop it’s genitalia so we could find out!

At our doctor’s appointment last weekend, we knew we had a good chance to see if there was anything growing between the legs, depending if the baby would cooperate.  About a minute into the ultrasound the doctor said, “whoop, there it is!”  We were so excited that the wait was over!

We decided to have a little Gender Reveal Party to find out the sex.  We invited a few friends over to share the excitement with us and to have some ice cream sundaes.  To reveal the gender, we ordered this huge balloon and had it stuffed with the appropriate colored confetti (blue for boy or pink for girl).

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Before we popped the balloon though, we decided to have a vote to see what our friends thought it was going to be.  Rather than doing something lame like writing it on a piece of paper, we decided to have some fun with it.  We decided that in order to cast your vote you had to make a headband, and draw the genitalia of the sex that you thought it was going to be.  It was a ton of fun (even though it was a bit inappropriate) to see what people came up with.  Here are a couple of pics of some of the artwork that people were proudly displaying:

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Allison wanted to draw a vagina but got scared, so she drew a penis because it was a lot simpler to do.  Jooles also voted for a girl, but opted against the crotch region and went top shelf.

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Our buddy Ethan went all out on his drawings. A for effort bud!

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Adam should win an award for his artwork, and perhaps another award for the amount of confidence he is displaying while wearing a penis on his forehead!

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Once the votes were cast and the ice cream was gone, it was time for the big reveal!  We each grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and began the countdown:

3 . . . . .

2 . . . . .

1 . . . . .

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POP!!!!!!!!!

 

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Yes, ladies and gentleman . . . . . . . . . Baby J is a BOY!!!!!!!

Now we can comfortably refer to our child with the proper pronouns like: him, his, he, and himself.  It really didn’t matter to us if we were having a boy or girl, as long as they are healthy.  We feel a sense of relief since finding out the sex, because now we can eliminate half of the names in the world, as we begin to narrow our search for the ‘perfect’ name.

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A couple of weeks ago I heard a funny quote from a friend of ours:  “If you have a baby boy, you only have to worry about one penis.  However, if you have a baby girl you have to worry about all of the penises in the whole wide world.”

Now we are just continuing to keep our fingers crossed for a healthy baby and a smooth pregnancy for Rachel!

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 18

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Happy Monday Tuesday Everyone!

If we were meeting for Happy Hour this week, here’s what we’d have to share:

  • This weekend we enjoyed an extra day off on Sunday for the Muslim holiday Isra and Mi’raj.  Isra and Mi’raj marks the Prophet Mohammed’s journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and his ascent into heaven.  The holiday was on Saturday, May 16th, but about a week ago, the Kuwaiti government announced that it would be observed on Sunday.  As a result, all schools were closed and we enjoyed a nice 3-day weekend.  The majority of our weekend was spent relaxing, hanging out with friends, and reenergizing our minds as we begin the home stretch towards summer break.
  • A lot of the teachers who are leaving Kuwait at the end of the school year have started to sell a lot of their household items.  We have purchased a few odds and ends over the last few days, but I’m most excited about my new coffee maker!  Now you might be thinking to yourself, “you’re excited about a used coffee maker?”  Well . . . . they are actually pretty expensive here and rather difficult to find.  It’s been so nice to have the last couple of days and is so much more convenient to use rather than my old french press.  There are a few more “garage sales” around our apartment building this weekend, so we’ll see if I score a few more treasures.
  • The last couple of weeks I have been able to get back on the basketball court to ref a few games.  I’ve been doing both the boys and girls 5th grade teams from our school.  It has been a ton of fun to officiate again, but even more enjoyable to cheer on the students from our school as many of them explore a new sport.  Obviously soccer is #1 here, but it is great to see them stepping out of their norm.
  • Since our doctor’s appointment was canceled last weekend because the doctor was sick, we were able to reschedule it for this weekend. I get so excited for each of these appointments, and wish we could go everyday!  It is so incredible to see our little Baby J on the ultrasound, and the growth between each appointment.  I find myself starring at the monitor and just watching and observing, in complete amazement.  This weekend we got to see a nice profile view of the face, with the little nose and lips.  We even got to see a big ‘ol yawn . . . . . it was soooo cool!  We also got to see the arms, legs, vertebrae, and genitalia!!!  We still have some family and friends we want to share the news with, but stay tuned to the blog this week to find out if we are having a boy or girl!

One month from today, we arrive back in Minnesota for the summer!

Hope everyone is well and we will see you next week for Happy Hour!

 

More Photos of the February 20th Sandstorm

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A couple of months ago during one of my weekly Happy Hour posts, I mentioned that we had a pretty nasty sandstorm (you can read about it HERE).

Here are some additional photos from that sandstorm:

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Photo courtesy of Ethan Schultz

No, those aren’t clouds . . . . . it’s sand coming our way!

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Photo courtesy of Nasser Ali DjNas

The sandstorm off in the horizon, coming our way.

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Photo courtesy of Gabe Massine.

It is coming right at us!  It was kind of like a tsunami wave . . . . you could see it coming, but you couldn’t do anything about it.

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Photo courtesy of Niamh Dickson.

Here it comes!

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Photo courtesy of Gabe Massine.

A view from our rooftop, as the sand is starting to take over the buildings:

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Photo courtesy of Niamh Dickson.

Here is a cool aerial photo of the storm coming in:

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Photo courtesy of kuwaitup2date.com

Besides leaving a thin layer of dust all over our cars and apartment windows, the dust storms don’t cause much damage.  It’s like a thin layer of fog that settles in, but by morning it all cleared out.  I would rather have a dust storm every few months rather than 6 months of winter back in Minnesota though!

 

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 11

Posted By: Mitch, View all 2 comments

Happy Monday Everyone! If we were getting together for happy hour this week, here’s what we’d have to share:

  •  Exactly 1 month from today, we leave Kuwait!  We’re headed back to America where we will spend the summer months.  It is so crazy how fast the time has gone here.  It still seems like just yesterday we left our lives in Minnesota and moved to the Middle East.  With a month to go, we’ve decided that we can officially start our countdown until we can see our family and friends from back home.  We leave in a month, but the kids only have 19 more days of school, so they are getting excited for summer vacation too.
  • Last weekend we were scheduled to have another routine doctors appointment just to check up on Rachel and Baby J.  The doctor thought that there was a pretty good chance that we would find out the sex of the baby at this appointment, but . . . . . . . our appointment got canceled because the doctor was sick!  We were a bit disappointed, but we knew that it was best for her to stay home if she was ill.  Hopefully we will be able to reschedule the appointment soon, so we can find out if we are having a little baby boy or girl!
  • One of the major oil companies here in Kuwait is called Chevron.  All of the employees and their families live on a compound, south of Kuwait City, and a majority of their children attend our school.  To show their appreciation to the staff, last weekend they invited all of us to their compound for a beach party!  We went with a bunch of friends and enjoyed the afternoon swimming, tanning, and just hanging out.  Chevron provided a complimentary BBQ lunch for everyone, and we had an absolute blast!  It was so kind of them to host us for an awesome day at the beach.
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  • Kuwait has a majority of the stores that we miss back in America, (except Target of course!)  However we were delighted last week when we found out that Kuwait’s first Old Navy was having their Grand Opening!  We checked it out over the weekend and were pleasantly surprised how nice it was.  It was exactly like a store you find back home, and it even had the old blue truck in it!  It was a pretty big store, spread out over two levels.  Rachel was pretty excited because they had a decent maternity section, which has been pretty tricky to come by here.  We browsed for a bit and found a couple of treasures.  I picked up a couple short sleeve shirts for work and we bought a couple of baby outfits for our friends who just had a little baby boy.  Clothes everything in Kuwait is pretty expensive, just because they have to ship everything from so far away.  We were pretty pumped though, because the prices were pretty decent, plus everything was 20% off for their grand opening sale!
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  • One of the jokes here in Kuwait, is that the official bird is a plastic bag!  Unfortunately, it is pretty common to see them blowing around.  The other day, we were driving home from school when suddenly, BAM!!  A plastic bag got caught on the antenna of our car.  I couldn’t help but chuckle, and just thought to to myself, “only in Kuwait.”  That wasn’t the only thing going through my mind though, of course I was yelling, “quick, take a picture of it for the blog!”
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  • Yes, that is a picture of a monkey. Why you ask? . . . . . . It was on the loose at our school last week!!!  It wasn’t a “wild” monkey, but someone’s pet!!  It’s a long story, but first, a little background of exotic animals in Kuwait.

You can find/buy just about any kind of animal in Kuwait.  I have heard stories from colleagues of the crazy pets that there students have at home.  Even the kids aren’t shy about telling you that they have pets like monkeys, deer, penguins, lemurs, or even lions! Last December, there was a big news story here in Kuwait City about a family’s pet lion killing their maid.  Apparently it got out of it’s cage and attacked her . . . . . . . SAY WHAT! Fast forward to last week at school . . . . . . I was waiting in the classroom for another teacher to drop off her kids.  They are always on time, but that day, they were about 5-10 minutes late. When they finally showed up, the teacher said they were late because they were looking at the monkey.  I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just thought to myself, “ok, no problem.” Well later that day I found out that indeed, there was a monkey on the loose, running around our campus!  Apparently it escaped from a nearby house, and the family was out chasing it, trying to capture it.  Luckily, the monkey clung on to a fence for awhile near our soccer field, until the owner was able to catch up to it and offer it some food, so that it would come home.  The kids at school got a kick out of it, but all I could think of was, “only in Kuwait!” That’s what we are up to this week, see you next Monday for Happy Hour!

Just a Typical Day

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We live in the Middle East, but sometimes it seems like we are still living our old life back in America, our days can be so typical.  Let’s take Monday for example.  Monday is our evening together, no one is tutoring, no one is coaching soccer, no commitments after 2:00pm.  It is glorious.  So what do we do with a free evening together?  Without thinking about it, we had an evening like many of our friends and family could have on a nightly basis.

  • After work we headed to the mall to run a few errands
  • We picked up a new curling iron for me, as mine decided to stop working that morning with my hair half way curled
  • We sat down at PF Changs for dinner
  • Ran over to Steve Madden to grab some new sandals for me.  Side note: living in the desert is extremely hard on your shoes
  • Stopped into the North Face store to look at clothes for Mitch
  • Headed home and caught up on last weeks episode of Modern Family

It wasn’t until we were laying in bed that night and I pointed out how crazy typical our evening was, that we both realized that as much as our life has changed in the last year, so much of it is still the same.

Egypt Through the Eyes of Mitch’s iPhone

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The other day I was going through the pictures on my iPhone, reminiscing about the memories of the last few months, when I realized . . . . . I have some pretty crazy photos on here that people would like to see!  So here are a few from our trip to Egypt last February:

  • The main reason we decided to travel to Egypt was to see the Pyramids.  For some reason I assumed that they would be located out in the middle of the desert, but boy was I wrong!  The city of Cairo/Giza is basically built right around them.  I was surprised when we were driving down the road to check-in to our hotel, and BOOM . . . . there were the Pyramids!
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  • We even had a view of the Pyramids from the pool at our hotel!
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  • Cairo isn’t one of the nicest/cleanest cities we’ve ever been to.  Here is a view of one of the freeways in the city.  *Notice the garbage along the center median and the amount of sand along the emergency lane.
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  • One of my favorite things to do when we travel is to buy food from street vendors.  In Cairo you could find just about any type of fruit or vegetable being sold alongside any street.  We bought some of these bananas from a guy on a bicycle and they were DELICIOUS!
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  • Cairo isn’t a very rich city, so one of my favorite things to see were the different types of transportation.  Here I was able to snap a picture of a tuk tuk (like we saw in Sri Lanka) and also a donkey pulling a wagon down the street.
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  • This guy was nearly breaking the speed limit with his 2 donkeys!
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  • We also saw horses pulling wagons.  This one was right in the middle of the city, with tons of speeding cars going by.  The engine size for this wagon is 1-horsepower (insert charity laugh here, for my lame joke!)
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  • When you did see a vehicle, chances were that it was overloaded with either goods (or even people).  By looking at this picture, I would assume that this little truck is slightly overweight . . . .
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  • Even when the trucks got bigger, they still seem to find a way to overload them!
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  • One day my buddy Adam and I ventured out to the desert to visit some secluded ruins.  I love this picture, with the lush palm trees going right in the middle of nowhere.
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  • Inside one of the ruins we found these awesome hieroglyphics.  They were so precise with such outstanding detail.
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  • It’s kind of hard to see in this photo, but it is a zoomed out view of the hieroglyphics in the previous picture!  The walls of the ruins were completely covered in them!  Every single image was as precise as the one next to it.  It was incredible to view such large areas of them, it must have taken them years to accomplish!
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  • We also saw lots of graphics like this one.  This one was about 6 feet tall, and right outside the exterior door of one of the ruins.
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Sometimes I wish I had our big fancy camera along to capture high quality images, however sometimes the images you are able to capture in a moment’s notice with your iPhone, are just as special and memorable.

 

 

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour – May 4

Posted By: Mitch, , Leave a comment

Happy Monday Everyone!

If we were getting together this week for Happy Hour, here’s what we would have to share:

  • It is officially getting hot here!  All of a sudden last week, as if someone flipped a switch, the heat just cranked up.  It went from the low 90s (which feels great) to temps over 100!  The good news is that we only have about a month left in Kuwait before we head back to America for the summer months.  The bad news is that it is going to get much hotter here before we leave in June!  From what I understand though, we are pretty lucky this year with the temperatures.  Typically the heat arrives at the beginning of April, so we’ve dodged it by a whole month.
beach
  • Due to the increased heat, we’ve had to bump our “weekend walks” to early morning strolls.  Last weekend, we left about 7:30am, and the temperatures were already at 95 degrees!  It was a bit warm, but we knew we knew that this would be the most enjoyable part of the day.  We found a nice little walkway along the beach pretty close to our apartment.  The best part about going so early, is that there was hardly anyone out-and-about at that time of day.  Our “weekend walks” are one of the most enjoyable parts of my week.  It allows us to kind of get away from everything, and just talk!  We discuss life, work, future plans, and just kind of reflect on life.
Early Bird
  • After our walk along the beach, we decided to treat ourselves for breakfast at one of our favorite little cafes here called The Early Bird.  It’s just like any cafe you would find in North America, with a menu consisting of eggs, pancakes, french toast, etc.  They have bacon and sausage too, but unfortunately it’s beef, so not as delicious as we are accustomed to.
Mtka
  • At breakfast I was wearing a t-shirt from our hometown back in Minnesota, pictured above.  While eating breakfast at the cafe, a guy at a table next to us asked me, “are you from Minnetonka?”  I was a bit surprised by the question, and responded hesitantly with a, “ya, have you heard of it?”  He smiled, and said he was from the city of Golden Valley, which borders Minnetonka!  It is such a big world out there, yet small too.  Encounters like this definitely put things into perspective.
100

Photo courtesy of: tetontenkara.blogspot.com

  • Last week we published our 100th post!  While our posting has slowed down a bit the last couple of weeks, we are still dedicated to keeping this blog up to date, especially with the arrival our first baby soon!