Baby Amin is here!

The latest addition to the Ghaly Family has (finally) decided to make an appearance.

Amin Ghaly was born 5 December 2007 at 12:20 a.m. weighing in at 4 K 460 g (9 lbs 8 ounces).

Everyone is home and doing well. Yousuf and Tabarak are having great fun having a new baby to fawn over. :-)

UPDATE - Finally

An update of what we've done this summer.

First, we went to the US for 2-1/2 months to visit family and friends. It was nice spending time with my grandmother and my brother, SIL, and nieces/nephews. It was good for the kids to get to know that side of their family as well. Being pregnant, I got homesick and we ended up coming back to the UAE at the end of June instead of at the beginning of September as planned. While there in the US, I "ran into" (online) a friend from High School. It was nice chatting and catching up. She has a lovely family and seems to be very well. I was really happy to know that as I had wondered about her often.

Of course when we got back to Abu Dhabi, the weather was *HOT* but that was expected. The kids were happy to be home and have their own space back. The weather is starting to cool off now, just in time for me to be a bit too tired to really go out much. Poor kids.

Now, I'm just waiting for baby to show up, hopefully will only be a couple of weeks or so. Assuming all is well and everyone is healthy, we are planning on going to Egypt about mid-January or beginning of February. I don't know how long we will be staying, probably for a few months. Then it is either back to the US to finish up my schooling or back here to the UAE depending on far too many factors to list here.

So basically life is rolling along, uneventfully, for which I am thankful and would be perfectly happy if it continues like that.

Will be back once there is something new and/or interesting to post. LOL.

Playing catch up.

OK, well obviously I'm doing a brilliant job of keeping up this blog. NOT! LOL. So now it's time to play catch up. Not that there's tons to report but still....

We went to a Astronomy Night a few weeks back with a group including 2 friends and families. It was really interesting, informative, and fun. We got to see the moon (Yousuf wanted to know why it was upside down), the Seven Sisters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(star_cluster)), and Saturn. One friend commented that Saturn looked like they had taken a decal and placed it on the end of the telescope. It was so perfect and clear and bright. Just really lovely and awe-inspiring. I'm not entirely sure that Yousuf knows that it was real and not just a picture.

Most of the time we are just doing the usual, going to the park, homeschooling (although in our case that means playing, doing puzzles, and answering a multitude of questions that I never thought possible to ask), and trying to get the house organized before leaving for the US for the summer.

I'm not looking forward to the "trip" which includes 8 hours between here and the UK, then a 5-ish hour layover, and another 8 hour flight to Chicago. Then luggage, customs, and a 2-ish hour trip on the bus to Milwaukee. But I'm really looking forward to seeing my friends and family. And I think the kids will have fun this summer. DH will be missed but the time will pass quickly and, who knows, we may come back earlier than expected.

The house is slowly, painstakenly making progress. They have put in the foundation and the columns and are supposed to be finishing the first "roof" (or second floor) about now. That means it only took 4 months to do a 1-month job. So, right on schedule! What is it about construction and construction workers? Everywhere in the world, they never seem to stick to schedule or get done on time. Ah, well, everthing in it's time I guess. :-)

I spend a lot of my time just in amazment of my children. I can't beleive the things my almost-5 yo can do and absorb. He just loves to learn and spends so much time in pursuing information and figuring things out and Tabarak is following suit. It makes me so grateful to be able to be here to see everything they do and say and sometimes I just feel like bursting. Sounds silly but it's really the only way to describe it.

On Vaccinations......

The Hidden Truth about Vaccinations:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8610554679207090010

By Dr. Donald Miller, Jr:

http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/user_friendly.pdf

Sigh.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7UmUomUX4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hc0WDaCqc8

There's just nothing I can add to this. :-(

John Taylor Gatto on Required School and the history of Schooling in America

In my opinion, this is a guy to listen to. I found some of the information he had to be a bit shocking and felt that I should post links to interviews and his website.

www.johntaylorgatto.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8404777388320594019&q=john+taylor+gatto&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3197707524036023590&q=john+taylor+gatto&hl=en

Building a house

Here are the blueprints of the house we are building in Egypt. The room names are in Arabic but I'm sure no one will have any trouble telling which room is which, i.e. the rooms with the beds are bedrooms, etc. ;-)

But I don't know how to rotate the pictures so everything is sideways!

Yousuf

And Yousuf is just coming out of that "terrible" stage as he comes up on 5 (July 2007). I think they planned the exchange though since he suddenly got much sweeter and easier to negotiate with at *exactly* the same time his sister became, well, let's just say, difficult.

Tabarak, age 2

This should have been my first hint that we were in for trouble. LOL. Now she's going to be three and she is turning into a Diva!

First Post

OK, so I really have nothing to say. I'm basically starting this blog because:

1. Everyone else has one, so I want one too.
2. I don't know how else to link stuff to my posts on other boards. :-)
3. I just like the word "blog".

So now I'm off to see if it's possible to link a file to this blog........