Medina, Belly Dancers, and More

Uh oh, guys - it's only Tuesday, and I'm just about out of wine. I didn't plan this well.

So yes, it's Tuesday, and things have been going well for both me and M., with only one small exception. Poor little Annie did, indeed, kick the bucket. We had a little funeral for her in front of the toilet. We sang. Lucy sobbed. Then we went to school and work. Finn took it pretty well, actually, even though she was his fish - probably because he's already seen so much fish death over the last year. He's jaded.

I didn't post photos from M. last night because I was tired and cranky. Not for any specific reason, though - the kids have actually been pretty good. So far. Well, Lucy's been a bit much, but that's kind of typical for her lately and nothing I'm not used to. My point, though, is that tonight you get TWO days worth of Morocco photos to look at, courtesy of M. No photos from me, mostly because I completely forgot to take any.

This was M.'s breakfast in the hotel courtyard yesterday morning:

Another pic of the hotel grounds:

See this tree with hanging lanterns?:

Here they are at night - pretty!:

This is a mosque M. passed on the way to the medina (shopping area). While he was in this plaza, a man put a snake on his neck! He did not ask first, because I don't think M. would have said yes! No photo, because they would have had to pay the guy:

Mosque/plaza up close:

On the way to the medina:

 Cool doors:

 More cool doors:

A shopping stall at the medina:

Lots of people and lots of smells, according to M. He said everything at the medina smells like camel, which kept him from pulling the trigger on any fabric related gifts like rugs or scarves:

Which reminds me - I need to ask him why he hasn't sent me a picture of a camel yet!.

Another photo of the medina:

The medina photos were all from yesterday, when M. had some time to do some sightseeing. Today he worked all day, and then apparently relaxed with a local beer:

While watching belly dancers. This was at the hotel restaurant/lounge:

M. said the belly dancers were just phoning it in. I'm not sure how he knows that...?

Sunday

Not much to report today. M. didn't make it to his hotel until about 4 pm Moroccan time, after a layover in Germany. The kids and I spent a lot of time in our jammies. I did take Finn to a birthday party and (pause)

Let me just note that M. is the one who picked out the birthday gift for this particular party, and he chose one of those Minecraft swords, because Minecraft is apparently THE thing to love if you are an eight year old boy. He nicely bought me some wrapping paper, just in case, so we could wrap the gift and be prepared for the party. But he did not actually wrap the gift himself before winging his way to Morocco, he left that to me. Have you ever tried to wrap a sword? Real or, um, flattened and foamy? It's not easy. I speak from experience.

(unpause) we all got dressed (I even showered!), I did a little grocery shopping with Lucy (who was HORRIBLE today, god what is WITH her?), and also conducted other routine household chores like taking out the trash and cooking and whatnot. But we did not do anything remotely worth photographing, so I have nothing to share. I do have a few photos M. sent me, and I'll put them up in a second. Just know that I would ALSO have photos of our day, if our day had anything remotely remarkable contained within it.

Actually, that's not true, there were a couple of SORT OF remarkable things that happened, though they were not photographable. First, the kids and I started listening to Christmas music. Now, normally I am of the "not until after Thanksgiving" mindset with all things Christmas. But we were in the car, and the kids heard an ad on Sirius XM radio for their holiday channels, and insisted I tune in to one of them (channel 17 - Holly - for those who want to know). And from there, it was all over. We got home, and I turned on Pandora and sampled Pentatonix, Straight No Chaser, and Trans Siberian Orchestra channels. There is no going back, I'm hooked.

Second, we almost had to hold a funeral today. In striking (for us) news, Finn's fish that he's had the longest (remember how we gave him a fish tank for his birthday just over a year ago? Oh, wait, I just checked, and I never actually blogged about that. Sorry! But to catch you up, we gave him his very own fish tank for his 7th birthday), Annie, is about to die. His small, 2.5 gallon fish tank has seen it's fair share of death, but Annie has been the constant. And she was floating belly up today. I scrambled to change the tank's filter and some of the water, but it's a desperate move that isn't likely to work. She's still hanging in there, but just barely. I had to turn the tank's pump off so she wouldn't get stuck to the intake, that's how weak she is. So expect an update on tomorrow that Annie Is Dead. It will be a sad, sad day.

OK, on to M.'s pictures, so I can get to bed (I meant to post earlier, but I got caught up in an episode of The Good Wife).

Here is a view of his hotel from the patio at night:

He had mint tea this afternoon after getting a grand tour of the hotel and getting some things set for the coming week:

The hotel lobby has some unique umbrella lights:

Tomorrow he's off to the big "market" area (I'm blanking on the name - Medina, I think?) - he has most of the day to do some sightseeing before things ramp up with work related stuff. He claims he will NOT bring home a rug or anything big like that. We'll see...

Is This Thing On?

I'm dusting this site off, at least temporarily. M. is winging his way to AFRICA* for work (god, he gets to go to the coolest places for his job), and I'm holding down the fort at home. While he's out for the next week, I'm hoping to post a few photos here from him (so we can all be jealous when he has dinner with a KING), and some photos of us (to remind him of the glamorous life he's missing).

Since he's still en route, and the kids and I did nothing interesting after he left this afternoon, I don't actually have anything interesting to post right now. Instead, I thought I'd put a few recent-ish photos up, since it's been so long that you may have forgotten what we look like :-).

Here's one from the first day of school - Finn as a second grader, and Lucy as a kindergartner:

 

 I missed documenting a few other big milestones on this blog, two of which happened on the same day - on October 20th, Finn turned 8, and Lucy lost her first tooth. If I had been laboring under any lingering illusions that my kids are still babies, I am now quite thoroughly disillusioned.

The year has been speeding along. Can you believe there are Santas and wreaths EVERYWHERE already? Even Christmas lights!?! Before we forget that fall happened (is still happening, damn it!), here's a quick snap of the kids during Halloween. Note that Finn (zombie) is sporting homemade guts spilling out of his shirt, lovingly prepared by M. using paper towels, flour, water, food coloring, and a pair of panty hose. Rather creative and gross, no?

I forced everyone to take a "picturesque fall walk" so I could try to capture photos for a Christmas card. I let the kids try taking pictures of us. This was the best of the lot, and spoiler alert, it did not make it into our card (which I have already ordered, by the way, in the only act to date that has given me any sense of feeling prepared for the rushing onslaught of Christmas):

Finn, at eight:

Lucy at five and a half:

Still the cutest things I've ever seen:

The End, at least for tonight.

*Not the ebola-ridden part, in case you were wondering. Morocco, in fact.

838 Photos

I finally managed to plug my iPhone into my computer and download all the photos I've taken since I bought it. 838 of them, and only about 400 are blurry. So I figured there must be SOMETHING worth posting, for posterity and all. Because I find that if I haven't put it here, a few months later it feels like it never happened. But be aware that these go WAY back. And of course, I picked the best ones. So we look happy and instaperfect and enviable. But there were plenty of cranky, shouty, rusty, sticky moments mixed in. Full disclosure.

Big Man, Bigger Chair

Snuck lipstick out of my purse

Bike, sunlight

Crazy pretty sky, the kind of which my great grandfather used to call a sheep sky (looks like a flock of sheep as seen from heaven)

We are dedicated zoo-goers

B&W selfie

My daughter the newscaster

And ballerina

Christmas happened

It was pretty

 

It snowed. A LOT.

But we kept having fun with it. Mostly.

And mixing drinks when times got rough

We ate a lot of cookies, too. That always helps.

Lucy continued to push style boundaries.

We enjoyed Christmas with my sister and her family.

There was a lot of plaid.

We began our year of doing something new every week with ice skating. If I ever get off this non-blogging rut, I'll go into some more details about our adventures.

Lucy celebrated 100 days of school by dressing up as an old lady. If they ever reboot the Golden Girls, I'm having her audition.

Finn discovered a love of basketball

 

M. turned 38, and was presented with the now-traditional Wisconsin birthday cake.

Finn passed his first belt test in Tae Kwon Do

We celebrated Ground Hog's Day, Pinterest style

I made miso soup. And I'm only showing this photo because I'm realizing that I should make this again. Yum.

Lucy wore leg warmers.

Finn lost one of the big front teeth.

We got more snow. By now it was mid-February, and we were less cheerful. Also it was a ridiculous amount.

The kids goofed around.

We thought it was spring. We went to Rehoboth for a weekend.

Then we got more snow.

And even more. This was practically April. I was pissed.

But the skies cleared, the brown started fading to green, and we dined outside. Spring was here.

M. and I went on a date to celebrate my 27th birthday. Ahem.

We went to Texas to visit this lady.

And Texas bluebonnets (better pics are on the big-girl camera)

And somehow, impossibly, Lucy turned 5. And got registered for Kindergarten. I don't even know.

We've had some more fun family outings, like this one to the National Building Museum.

Spring days in DC are awesome. Why don't we go more often?

Lucy discovered a love of pretend tea with real china.

And I breathed a sigh of relief that spring was here to stay when our dogwood tree bloomed.

We are now enjoying most evenings on the deck, with cool beverages, until the heat of summer drives us inside.

While the kids spend lots of time staring at the Kindles. Party poopers, but at least it gives us some grown-up time.

And we are having fun.