Tuesday 16. Aug 2005

July 18, 2004

Tomorrow is the beginning of school once again for the kids and me. The vacation went by way too quickly. It seems like I was only able to get part of what I wanted to do done. The kids got to go to Bali for part of their vacation which is what they really wanted to do; I ended up staying here to take care of Apple and watch over all the junk that we have stuffed in this container that we call home. For the first three weeks of the break, I did a lot of swimming with Apple just down the beach where we get some good waves. During the last week, I've had a chest infection and have spent most of the time at home coughing and taking antibiotics.

Merediths had a good birthday. She invited her classmates so the party was small compared to the usual enormous ones that she and Rebecca have. Rebecca is having her own party this year and although I'm really hoping that we can have it at the new house, I really doubt it. The photos this week are from Mercedes' party. It was interesting watching the girls at the party as they were dressed in regular girl clothes for the party, but when you see them at school, they wear the traditional head covering as well as a dark formless uniform. There's something about that form of dress that seems to set some Westerners off, although I don't see that it's all that different from what Catholic girls wore when I was a kid. The girls, anyway, don't find the dress particularly anymore restrictive than the school uniform that they wore in Bali which was somewhat less covering. Well, more about clothing and Islam at another time.

Supposedly the roof is going up tomorrow, so maybe we'll have some photos of the house next week.

I put a little guestbook here so you can leave a message here for us if you are having trouble reaching us by email. Thanks for the messages in the guestbook. I like hearing from you all.