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...