Christmas 2011

Not such a "White Christmas" this year (rather warm, windy and brown) but a nice Christmas none the less. Some of the Christmas activities this year include:

Hanna's Christmas Concert with the Girls Choir. I loved this, puts one in the Christmas Spirit for sure. (Hanna is in the middle on the second row from the bottom)

Mom is primary president in Leavitt and she had the kids put on a little play for the ward Christmas party. We had a busy fun time preparing for "The Great Manger Mystery"

Mom at one of the practices, it really was a lot of fun and I think the kids will have good, fun memories of the whole process. Mom really does have alot of energy, more than most!!

I spent Christmas in Lacombe. This if Tiffany and Markus. Do you like his mustache?

Kassie with James and Markus.

Susan and Andy



Jord-man!!

Ashley, Kassie, Tiffany and Tashina. They are playing a game on their iphones with Each Other!!! Oh man! Oh Man!!

Christmas morning. Tiff & Kassie got fun PJ's with a flap and all!

Tiffany sketched this picture of Tommy Jr for Nathan & Rachelle. I love it!! Can't wait to see it framed.

Tommy Jr in Dad's boots, "If he can wear them, I can wear them!"

"Hey Great Grandma Bevans, How do you like my new shirt eh?"

"I can't get out of this box! Help!!"

My friend/cousin Daneca is home for the Christmas vacation. She is working in Iran right now and we've all decided that this is what she should wear to cover her head while working over there. ( Umm I wonder if it would cause any grief?)

Dancea and I had some good times as room-mates in Lethbridge back in the day. Thus concludes Christmas 2011.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Went to Market!

Dad went to the auction market the last week of November and this is what he brought home for Dixie Dee!

A herd of 20 black angus cows. They are 2nd and 3rd calf, cows and I think they are due to calf in February/March. A few may be older than that, but I think they will do well at Ziggy Ranches.

Just happy to get off that truck!

So, as of 01 December 2011, Dixie Dee has 31 cows that roam free and happy on her PAID for quarter of land!! That is cool, yes, don't you agree, that is COOL!!!

Wacky, Wild, Wicked, Wind!

Living in Southern Alberta can be a challenge at times. It's windy in these here parts, but I have to say that Sunday was the worst wind I have experienced! Rumor has it that there were wind gusts clocked at 140km at times. I was working at the border on Sunday and my computer monitor was shaking more than I liked (my office is on the second floor).

This is looking north from the port of Carway and the grey/black "mist" is dirt that is being blown from the field west of the road (left of the road). It was dark like that for most of the afternoon.

This is part of the snow fence that got blown over.

This is the sleigh, the runners should have a deck on them, you know so that the humans have somewhere to be when the team is ready to take them for a ride.

This is the deck that should be sitting on the runners of the sleigh. They were together last week.

See how far the wind took that deck for a ride!! Ahhh, no one needs winds that strong for any reason!!! So now I guess we will think it is a nice breeze when we get wind gusts of 60km.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

This is the last post of my Israel/Egypt Tour 2010. Ya me, I finished telling the story within a year!! Thanks for coming along.

Oh, the places you'll go.

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

A New Testament period stable where I got to contemplate the humble birth of the Savior.

The sacred pit, where the Savoir spent the night alone just before his trial in the Palace of Caiaphas. This was a sewer of sorts, and this is where one thinks about the fact that "Christ descended below all things to rise above all things."

Caesarea, and the steps that Paul used to board ships to Rome and to serve his various missions.

The Nile River in Egypt. This is where one gets to think about Old Testament stories, plagues, locusts, parting of the Red Sea, the passover, etc...

The Citadel of Salah Al-Din. This is the prayer rug that many Muslims use when they are here and it's one of the 5 times a day to pray.

The pyramids of Egypt.

Finally, the beaches of Hawaii! No better place to finish a great trip than Hawaii in November!

And as Dr Suess says:

You'll get mixed up, of course,

as you already know.

You'll get mixed up

with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step.

Step with care and great tact

and remember that Life's

a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you suceed?

Yes! You will indeed!

(98 and 3/4 percent  guaranteed.)

The Pyramids of Giza

The Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Khufu is the first of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. It is the oldest building in the world and HUGE!!
The Great Sphinx with human head and lion's body, is a colossal sculpture cut from the Giza bedrock. (Look someone got his nose!)

The Pyramid of Khafre (in the back there). The pyramids were built about 4500 yrs ago. Guess what the main purpose of the pyramids was? Oh, I knew you would get it, a tomb for a King. (talk about ego!!) 

This is the other side of the Pyramid of Khafre, just an indicator of how HUGE the pyramid really is.(Oh the things one can do with a camera!)

"Walk like an Egyptian!"

(Can you hear the music? I'm singing it now!!)

Shopping anyone? So much to choose from, and yes sometimes I fell prey to the tourist trap, oh what the heck, I'm on vacation!!

The three large pyramids of Giza. From left to right, Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu. Cairo in the background, and Dixie Dee in the foreground. (Just wanted a picture of me with one of the Seven Wonders of the World.)

It's Friday 19 November 2010 and the last full day as a tourist in Egypt. Sad to say, it's almost time to pack up, and hurry up and wait in line, go through scanners, remove belts, shoes, etc... and then look for a winter coat. Leaving all the sand and heat for the snow and cold of Alberta! Ahhh, is that a good thing???

I think I have one more post about "Interesting sights 2" from my trip and then I've pretty much told the story. Thanks for coming on the trip with me, I hope it was somewhat interesting and that you've learned a few things, I know I learned alot of things and I hope I can keep them in my mind and heart. I have much to be thankful for and one of them is the opportunity to experience the Middle East. Another is the chance to "Run today where Jesus Walked!"  Experiencing Israel and Jerusalem really does help make the scriptures come alive for me. I've said it before, but I didn't have to go to the Holy Land to know that Christ lived and died for me and mankind, but it is fun to read about things like The Garden Tomb and have memories to go along with that reading.

A Run Through History - 5km again??

It's been a year since I've started doing the blog thing. My first post was about my first 5km race in Montana with the Fab Four. So it is time to post about my 2nd 5km race in Montana.

This is the group on our way down to Kalispell. Sad to say that Barb couldn't make it for this particular run (never the same without Barb). We had a fun group nevertheless. Marilee, Kaylynn, Moi, and Laurel.

The view from the back seat on the way to Kalispell for our run through history. We left on Friday and it was raining the whole day! A little rain doesn't deter die hard shoppers and we were fairly confident there would be no rain for the run on Saturday.

There we are before the race! (Sorry, Kaylynn and Barb, we Miss You!) It's just before 10 am Saturday October 8th and we run through Historic Kalispell. It was a beautiful run, I loved the old trees with all the fall colors and the quaint setting. A very nice part of Kalispell that I haven't seen before.

There I am half a block away from the finish line, and look, I'm so far ahead of the pack!! Oh, not really, you all know better than that. I did finish the race in about the same time as I did last year, it was 32 min 31 seconds, for Dixie Dee to run 5 km. I do believe we all did about the same as we did last year, and we are a year older!! So I would say that is a good thing! (Really, I run for the party before and after the run)

An after race shot, we are still standing, a bit warm, but happy to be done and feel good about the race! Can I just say that I'm so thankful to have such neat friends, so thankful that I can actually run 5km, and so thankful that it wasn't raining!!!?

We earned those shirts! Have to get a picture of that!

I hope that next year we have the "Fab Four" in tact, that we are still able to run 5 km, and that Costco never closes!!! :)



Cairo

This is the greeting I received, in the hotel room, in Cairo, Egypt. A very very nice hotel. I was rather surprised that I was travelling in so much style.

Just a shot of our room, a nice room indeed. 

Everytime we entered the hotel we had to do the security thing, oh man I don't think I'll ever do that much security in 10 yrs in North America, as I did in 2 nights in Cairo.

A view of the street from our hotel room. Busy, busy at night, cars and people everywhere, honking etc... Too bad I didn't get a picture of the streets as we were driving from the airport to the hotel. Bumper to bumper traffic for as far as the eye could see and on the 3 lane streets I counted 7 cars across, I don't know why they bothered with lines on the road. So what do you say for that, door to door traffic along with bumper to bumper for miles and miles? I'm still amazed that our big bus got through it and to the hotel in relatively good time.

Not the greatest picture(I know) but it gives you an idea of how many people were in one spot. They are waiting to get into the "Colossal" mall that was right off our hotel. Life doesn't start until after 6pm in Cairo.

Same spot from our hotel room in the morning. No one is around at all. (and no, it's not 6am, it's more like 9 or 10am) not a car to be seen or heard.

The best I could do to give you an idea of the size of the mall we went to. West Edmonton Mall is childs play compared to this mall. It has all the stores one would find in Canada or the USA and then some. Oh the people, so hard to describe how many people were in this mall at night. We thought we would go to the food court for supper, but to stand in line that long for junk food, nope, decided to go back to the hotel room and order in. Alot of young people were hanging out in the mall, hanging out with friends and doing the cell phone thing too. They were all walking somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where they were all going, but going somewhere they were! We had to be careful not to lose each other. To say that it was a bit overwhelming would be an understatement!

A view of the city of Cairo from one of the mosques we visited. 25 million people live in Cairo. (Huge!!! or should I say Colossal?)

Kelly and I with Cairo in the background.(Master of the obvious, I know) Really shouldn't take pictures facing into the sun eh? Just notice my "Brazil" shirt. That shirt made me a popular tourist, as all the locals love soccer and Brazil must be a fairly good team. Too bad you can't hear the locals say "Hey Brazzil"! I got the thumbs up everywhere I went.  Oh some of the lines I got from the boys working the tourists, rather entertaining that is for sure!!

Just to get you ready for the next post. I bet you can't guess what it will be about? I'm going to leave it at that for now. For the record, I'm very glad to visit a city like Cairo, but I don't want to live in a city like Cairo.