Saturday, September 19, 2015

Happy 10th Anniversary to our Blog

We never thought we'd be blogging for this long, but this month we are celebrating 10 years of blogging under the name MangoRains with Blogger.

Here is a photo from our first post back in September 2005


We were living in Laos at the time.  Our internet connection wasn't very fast, steady or reliable.  Some of our first posts don't have photos because they took such a long time to upload.  A few times we'd start uploading and then go for lunch and come back an hour later to see a photo just finishing.  Our first photo (above) isn't even very good quality, as you can see.

After almost 500 posts, we can say that we've had a lot of fun blogging over the years.   We've blogged about some of our activities -- both the good times and challenging times.  And it has been rewarding for us.  We are thinking of making a family memory book using our blog posts from the past 10 years.

Changes to Come
We are planning to make some changes to our blogging in the next little while.  Once we figure out what we are doing, and have it up and running, we will let you know through this site.  We will post instructions on how to keep following us.

Cairo, as seen from the Nile, at sunset....


Sunday, September 06, 2015

Guess where we went today?

The pyramids!  Our new people needed to see, feel, and experience the pyramids of Giza.

But first, here's another photo of us in front of the pyramids -- taken today.  We seem to be covering up Khufu's pyramid, but at least you can see part of Khafre's. 

Now for the group:

Some of us wanted to ride camels.  
Others felt that they DID NOT WANT to ride camels.  
There were very strong feelings both ways.


Our group of four camel riders off in the distance....


That was the last picture we took today because then the camera battery gave out.  So no photos of the embalming temple, the sphinx, our shwarma lunch, felucca ride on the Nile, metro and taxi ride or any of the other adventures we had.  It is a fitting last photo as they ride away...
-------------- BONUS PHOTO --------
Except I want to leave you with a photo of Arthur jumping.  Our guide went to great lengths to get some of us to jump on cue in front of the pyramids.  They counted "3, 2, 1, Jump!" We have such a slow camera that I had to click on "3"-- not on "jump".  Needless to say, the group jumping didn't work out, but I managed to get Arthur in the air.  He almost jumped out of the photo! 


(Yes, we are still having fun!)

Friday, September 04, 2015

You know you are back in Cairo when.....


... you can buy ostrich eggs in your local grocery store.  

Where are they?  On the shelf with all of the other eggs, of course.

How much?  About $4.00 each.

Did we buy one?  Not this time.  We'll wait until we have a lot of people coming over for brunch!

New People

We are happy to say that we have some new people joining our team.  They have been with us for almost a week and we are really enjoying getting to know them.


For part of their orientation, we stayed with them at the Guest Flats so that we could show them the ropes around the neighborhood.  One of them is only with us for 3 weeks of orientation and then he goes on to Lebanon.  The other 3 will be with us for 11 months.  They are part of the SALT program like Erik was last year. 
 

Canada Update

We've been too busy to post in the past while and sincerely apologize for that!

We were in Canada for 10 days and have some photo high-lights to share with you.

A  welcome picnic in the park on the day we arrived.  We were heading to a wedding and were already dressed up.

Family selfie in Downtown Winnipeg.  Together again!


There were other special events and activities with family and friends during the jam-packed days in Winnipeg.


Sisters!

Son, Nephew and Dad-Uncle


Friends....Notice how often food was part of the event?


Cooking Ethiopian food for a feast at our house.

We had a great visit where time passed quickly.  Thanks to everyone who made it such a special time for us -- espeically our boys who let us stay with them.  We really enjoyed that!