Happy Birthday, Eric!!!

We celebrated Eric's birthday with family last Friday in Evanston.

family shot in Jim & Julie's kitchen...

Chuck and Carli...thanks for making the long trek up!!!

Today I made Eric a Spider man cake and brought it to his office. Max in his cute BYU jersey!!

Family shot!

I always get a little embarrassed at outward displays of affection…it always seems like bragging or as they say in Chinese, 'flesh numbing,'…recently, though, I was reading about the importance of public declarations…in fact, that’s part of what our church sees baptism, taking the sacrament and other such actions…public declarations…so, given that…I wanted to express some of my feelings about my special husband.
How to describe Eric…in some ways, he is so similar to me…he loves T.V., being around family, our wonderful little Max, the gospel, being social… if I start any jingle or old school cartoon theme song, I know he can finish it.
In most ways he is very different than me…he’s a little sloppy…a little disorganized, very easy going… he will always sacrifice for others. He is hard working and diligent. He is righteous and upholds the priesthood without ever being overly pious or self-righteous. He is the best father I could ever hope to give my children. He is the best friend I have ever had. He makes me laugh when we argue and he makes me laugh when we aren’t arguing.
My mom recently told me a Chinese saying about how the capable and generous will always be cursed to work the hardest. I know that saying to be true because I see Eric’s example and I am proud to be married to someone like him.
Happy birthday to the best person I know.

Luxor, Egypt...not Luxor, Vegas!!!

Luxor was so beautiful, I wish I could have stayed longer!!

The resort we stayed at...our pool looked over the Nile River.

Peter being swarmed by Egyptian girls!!!

We went on a Nile River dinner cruise. It actually was one of the funnest evenings we had. You know how Simon and Randy (on American Idol) say, 'you'll be working on a cruise ship one day' as the biggest insult?...well, these people showed that cruise ship entertainment can be pretty top notch, dawg!!!!

Here is a picture of Eric after the belly dancer chose him to dance with her...note, that is his Australia hat she is sullying!

Like father, like son!

Here is a picture of an Egyptian man...fondling me, and Eric doing nothing all for the sake of a box!!!

At the airport on the way home, we ran in to Meradith and Jason...what are the odds? According to Eric...he wasn't surprised at all to see them, they're big ballers when it comes to traveling! I like how creepy Max looks in this picture!!

They were nice enough to invite us over for dinner...we loved the food and company!!

Walk Like An Egyptian

Here we are walking like Egyptians...we had to do it!

Eric and Max...of Arabia (That's what all of the locals who were selling the head dresses kept saying, "Lawrence of Arabia and baby of Arabia!").

We got to ride camels around the Pyramids .
My parents watched Max while we went together on our own camels.
The two little boys who helped lead our camels were hilarious, they loved playing with our camera after we asked them to take our picture...we found a video they shot with our camera...

I love this picture...the Great Pyramids were built approximately 4,600 years ago by a series of father, son, and grandson pharaohs: Khufu (Cheops), Khafne (Chephren), and Menkure. So, father, son and grandson...Peters not Max's father...but you get the gist of it!

A family shot at the pyramids.

Family shot at the Sphinx. It's terrible that I chuckle whenever I see Max's little face in this picture crying!! He was so fabulous on the trip...I think this was the only time he cried and that was because I took the camera away from him to take this picture!

In front of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo with all of King Tut's (Tutankhamen) treasures. King Tut is only famous because he was such a unimpressive king who contributed so little to Egypt's history therefore making the amount of treasure he had in his tomb small enough to elude tomb raiders. The museum will be shut down and moved to a new building in 2012.
In a temple in Luxor.
Matching shirts that I forced everyone to wear in front of a panoramic shot of Cairo.

Greetings from Cairo!!!!

Little family at SFO airport...

I got a special seat with extra leg room and a bassinet attachment.

We stopped off in Paris!

These cookies looked so good at the Paris airport...but no brewskies to speak of!!! Jim would have been unhappy!!!
Finally in Egypt...gotta love this cheesey sign at the airport!

Here we are on the hotel grounds...walking like Egyptians!!! My Dad wasn't landing until the next day, we so had some time to ourselves before our tour...

We decided to walk around downtown Cairo...after finding the Shawerma and Falafel stand that Peter read about in his Egypt book, we ventured around the local market...check out the head of lettuce!!!

We were walking around the market place and ran into a camel...

Some local men partaking of a hooka...goodtimes!!!

We went by the McDonald's. I thought it was cool that their BigMAc had a chicken option and they had the MacArabia which was a falafel on a pita!

We took a river boat on the Nile River to Old Cairo...

Eric and Max, enjoying the sights.

The fam in front of a Church in the Christian part of Cairo.

I really liked this picture of some locals in front of the church.

Here are the doors to the Saint Surgius Church which is believed to be built over a cave which housed Mary, Joseph and Jesus for three years while they were in Egypt hiding from Herod.

Time at home...

It's been fun hanging out with my fam...we decided to make shui jiao's from scratch...

Here we are making the wrappers with flour and water...there was a little confusion as to the type of flour, as flour is flour in English, but in Chinese, there's rice flour, which is flour...wheat flour which is our unbleached wheat flour and bleached wheat flour which is our flour...and don't even get me started on the whole shallot, onion, scallion, leeks, spring onion and chives conversation we had!

Here we are rolling the dough...wrapping the stuffing...and the finished product!

Peter and Kristina enjoying the fruits of their labor!!!
This is a blanket my mom and I made...I got the 49er's fabric for $2.00 at Walmart (because it was a remnant) and couldn't bear the thought of spending more than a few dollars to finish the blanket...so, we scoured the fabric shops and found this remnant for just a few dollars and voila...a fully sewn blanket for the babe!!!!

Since we had an Up themed party, we had to take the Max-ers to the inspiration behind it...Fenton's Ice Creamery. It was so surreal going to my home town...I had half expected Piedmont to have imploded upon my graduation. It really is a lovely little town.

Casper, Lander and Farson

I took this picture before church last week and I really loved it...you gotta love my cute little future missionary!!!Here we are at a restaurant in Evanston with Jim while Julie was away. He was great company...but so sad without Julie!!!

Here we are in the car ride to Casper...Lindsey...La Barge?!?!?! Enjoying the aftermath of a warm bath!! The bottom right picture is of Max and Eric...see any resemblence?!

We went to a great diner for breakfast and dinner...for dinner we ate at a grill in Lander and for breakfast we went to the Ox Bow which apparently is referred to as the Ox Box by those in Lander who are in the know...we had great skillets and sourdough pancakes.

Another like-father, like-son picture.

Adam and Camille were nice enough to let us stay at their beautiful home for the night...after Max and I retreated to bed, Eric went to go have some bonding time with his favorite little brother...this is what I found on my camera the next morning...oh we had to mock you, Adam!!!!

We saw this Tipi in the side yard on one of Adam and Camille's neighbors and thought it was pretty unique. Also, here's the Max sleeping in the car with his giraffe. On the way back, we passed Farson...when in Farson! So, we got some delicious ice cream!