Eliza got baptized!

January 19th, 2008
Eliza Penrod was baptized in Cairo, Egypt

The water was freezing! We tried warming it up a tad by dumping pots of boiling water, it helped the top few inches but was subarctic mid-way down. Eliza was very brave, no squeals or screams! It was about 65 degrees today. We had wonderful speakers and then cake afterwards. The candies on the table were from our good friends the Catogni's. (they are french) They brought them from France. They are traditional candies for baptisms and weddings there. They are almonds and chocolate. Most of the branch came and it was a very special and pleasant day! We recorded most of the program and will burn a DVD for the family soon.

My Boys

Daddy and Grant love goofing off!! I can't believe that Grant is 3 1/2 now. Spencer and I are amazed daily at what he does and says. Yes, Grant has quite the vocabulary now. He inserts expressions now, too. "No, just a little bit, Mommy. That bagel is too big and round!" He loves preschool and marches off 3 times a week, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Just the other day, we were eating and he crossed his fork and knife and said, "Look Mommy, it's a "T"!" Then two minutes later it turned into a fighter jet and began bombing the butter!

Christmas Morn'

The four of them lined up on Christmas morning. We built a wall in the hall with the blocks and posted a note (that Eliza read to the younger ones) that said "No stockings until Mommy and Daddy are up." They came and got us at about 7:30am; quite late for them. Usually it's about 6:30.

We had one of my Young Women spend the night with us, Catie. She is a foreign exchange student living with a Coptic family in Giza. She is 16.

Here are all four before our humble present opening.

Jackie is opening her puzzle. She looks just as puzzled.

We had a great rest of the day. We played games. Hullabaloo was a big hit!!! Even Jackie joined in aimlessly. We watched the Santa Clause on AFN and then had some people over for Christmas dinner. A very relaxing and joyous holiday for the Penrods.

Jackie Talks

Our Jacqueline

Jacqueline is growing up so fast. The other morning, as the girls were getting ready for school, Jacqueline wanted to get dressed too. Not in her clothes, but the girls' uniform dress. So I got out the smallest one we had and it hit right at the top of her feet. She thought she was pretty hot stuff. She will fish in my purse for my cell phone and hold it up to her ear and wander around saying, "Hewwow?" And does not like to be told, "No." She can throw quite the baby temper tantrum. Her favorite snack right now is cheese sticks. She knows which drawer in the fridge where we keep them and I'll open the fridge for her, she'll pull open the drawer and I'll ask, "Cheese?" to which she'll respond with one of the biggest cheesiest grins ever. Say cheese for the camera!!!

Halloweenies!!

This was the best pic I could get of all 4 together. Eliza is a dead fifties girl, Mairyn is a Mummy, Grant is a knight and Jacqueline is Tinkerbell. Eliza and Mairyn came up with their own ideas for costumes, Eliza wanted to be scary and Mairyn settled on mummy when we were looking at pictures on the internet.

Oh, what a brave and valorous knight of Egypt!!

Yep, she's scary! That's what she wanted!

Mairyn was the sweetest little mummy out there. They had awards for best costumes, etc at the school party. Seriously, her costume was the best out there and some dumb costumes that were just ripped t-shirts and food coloring took the prizes. Oh well, we know the truth!!

Jacqueline LOVED the duck train! She did not want to get off. Every time it stopped, she would scream and cry and hold on for dear life to that duckie train. We had to let other kids have a chance to ride and then we could ride again.

Busy Life

We are so busy right now. Clubs, homework, errands and such. Amazing how normal life feels. I never thought it would be this way in Egypt. But here we are, in the shadow of the many minarets and palm trees, pyramids and taxis. Eliza had a school play about 2 weeks ago. She is on the top row in the middle. The play was centered around their current study of materials and what they do. They were aliens that came to earth and "discovered" that the floor was made of wood, windows are glass, etc. Eliza had a good speaking part.


This is a mosque minaret that I got a shot of while I was in Siwa. Almost sundown, perfect light, it was the evening of the first day I was there. We also went to a petrified forest, a former palm tree oasis. The trunks were amazing; they looked like a palm tree trunk, but were solid stone and made an odd, hollow/metallic sound when another piece of petrified palm is knocked against it. And to finish it, a picture of me!!