there are no olan mills, sears, or jcpenney studios over here... so when we watned have to get landon's portraits done we had to go to a photo processing store. its basically like the walmart photo lab and the walmart portrait studio in one.

the studio has all sorts of examples of kids portraits in the window in which they superimpose them with cartoon characters. we posted one of those photos back in the day that you may recall... the one where droopy the dog is pointin' a six-shooter at your kids head. lovely, eh?















well, the studio we had gone to was in another part of town. the other day we were back in that part of town and our friend told us that we had to go to the photo lab and check it out. so off we went and when we arrived this is what we saw. they had decided to spruce up the window display and ditch the pics with the cartoons... instead they have a picture of our son in the window... along with many other national folks... but landon is right in the center and he is like an 11x14 photo. have a peak...














and a close up...

this is from a friend of ours in south asia. i thought it was hilarious! it seems to beat any of the arabish i have posted in terms of wrecking the english langauge. haha...

normally we just carry our own groceries home... today we didn't feel like it because we bought a lot of them. so we paid about 2 bucks to leave it at the grocery store and have them bring them to our building, up the entry stairs, to the elevator, to our floor and into our house... we don't have a car so that we means we don't have a trunk to put them in... which means they're on our laps or in and around us on the seat. home delivery... how lovely!

This is a cute video of landon saying the blessing over dinner with us. One cute component is unfortunately missing.

First we have him say thank you (which he says in Arabic... sho-kran)... and after that we say everything that we are thankful God has provided for us... the food (he always points to the food), mommy, daddy, baby jo(siah), and for yeshua (to which he usually points skyward... this is the element that was missing tonight). Then he did something new tonight. he said something like "ana nane" which we think was his version of "in name." and then he says amen. how cute!



pretty cute, no?

Every day before we leave for daycare, we have Landon say goodbye to the one staying behind. He started screaming it which made us crack up... so here he is screaming goodbye to us. :)

Welcome to the newly redesigned Camel Riders Blog. I have wasted countless hours redesigning it to allow a side panel on each side. I hope to bring more content to you that will make it a nicer site to visit.




Some New Features:

• Flickr photos... on the right panel you will see that there are photos there to enjoy. They are small but if you click on them they will enlarge and you can even start a slideshow. The photos are high enough quality to order 4x6 photos. Just click on "all sizes" above the photo when it comes up, then click "download the large size" save it to your hard drive and take it wherever you want for processing. :)
• Comments! they are so much easier in this version of my blog. At the bottom of every post it says "Post your comment!!!". Just click that and post away!
  
• A lovely color scheme... that's right it's lovely.
  
• Streamlined design for a pleasant viewing experience.

Hey everyone... technology rules!!! I love being able to put these videos up here for you to watch. I will eventually make a link on the right to watch videos.

Anyways... many of you may recall a post i did on fetlah (click on that word to see the full post... or read the following excerpt...)

fetlah... so what it is is this: the guy takes a really long piece of dental floss type string and puts one end in between his teeth and then makes an intricate web of strings around his fingers. he then pulls it tight using his teeth so that all the little web holes close up... around the excess hairs on your face which rips them out with excrutiating force. my eyes were watering and on the verge of forming tears... especially when he did it around my ears. OUCH! after the fetlah and him trimming my nose hair, i feel all groomed up!

Well now that I have the ability to post video... I see it as my duty to bring you a video of my brother receiving the special treat of fetlah! Enjoy... you'll know that I did by how much I laughed in the background while filming it! haha...

Here is an awfully cute video of Landon and his friend, LeeAnna, jumping on the bed. This is our first video that we've uploaded on the blog... let me know your comments by clicking on the number next to the blog title and then leave a comment! We'd love to here from you...



This file is about 3.5 mb so anyone with DSL or better should download it in less than a minute.

Boys in pink... girls in blue... no problem! BUT what color will a mom not dress her child in?
Here are the results...


and the answer is yellow! we fooled most of y'all. only 3 of 24... that's 12.5% that guessed correctly. Black would be the obvious choice which is why I put it in there. They don't dress there kids in yellow here because it is the color of sickness. There ya have it.

so i just bought a sweet sony dsc-n1 camera with a phatty 3-inch touch screen. ohhh yeah... but... one accessory didn't make it to my frend in time for him to bring it back from america... the memory card. not important right? ack!












well it should be coming soon with another friend. the 26Mb of internal memory just doesn't cut it. have to offload every 15 pictures or so.

Landon's hair was getting pretty shaggy. I borrow from the naughty chair story pics to give you a glimpse at it from a good angle. At daycare in the afternoon they would always wet his hair and spike it up. It was cute... but it was time for another cut...

We really adore alabaster. They have some amazing alabaster creations here at the local bazaar. Yvonne and I went the other day to pick up a few things to decorate the house. These are 3 alabaster 'lamps' that can go inside each other.








This is the 'gorgeousness' that happens when you put tea lights in them and turn out the lights. mmm... nice.












This is an onyx vase type thingy. I don't know wha it is really for other than to sit on a shelf and look purty.



















This is a picture of one of the walls of the alabaster shop that I go to. He has about 5-6 times as much stuff total in the shop and another little room across the hall.

These are the microbuses. The different forms of transportation are the metro (subway), the autobuses (big buses like in America), microbuses and taxis. We live right near a microbus station so it is pretty crazy. The usual method of knowing which one goes where is a guy or a boy hanging out the window yelling where they are going over and over again. The people here are pretty hacked off right now because the prices of everything just went up. Our gas prices went up to $0.85/gallon so microbusses are now $0.13.

My brother has 4 boys and they are in the process of adopting 2 girls from china. So I told my friend H (who by the way says hi to my brother Chris), that Chris is going to buy a microbus to drive around all those kids... and that Chris will hang out the window and scream where he is going (home! home! home! or supermakret! supermarket! supermarket!). He thought that was pretty stinkin' funny.

so we have been watching super-nanny over here and we think it is great. she uses this technique called the naughty spot. she doesn't like sending kids to their rooms because it is where they sleep and play so they shouldn't be punished there. we agree and if spanking is needed then we use the spankula (a wooden spatula that we use for spanking) in the bathroom.




well the other day yvonne got landon some juice and some breadsticks and we told him to say thank you but he wouldn't. we don't view this as a spankula-rific offense so we instituted the naughty chair. we put him in one of our family room chairs and told him he couldn't get out of the chair until he told mommy thank you. we would talk to him often... making sure that he understood why he was being punished and told him that he needed to obey his parents and we told him all he had to do is say thank you.
well he wasn't in the mood to obey... and believe us... he understood us.

this is the beginning...
















after 20 minutes...
















after 45 minutes...
















after 1 hour and 10 minutes...
















after 1 hour and 35 minutes...
















after 1 hour and 50 minutes...
















after 2 hours and 5 minutes...
















after 2 hours and 7 minutes the boy finally gave in. some may say that this was a bit excessive but he needs to know that we mean business from the get-go. since that day... he has said thank you right away... or said pretty much anything we want him to say... very quickly! he doesn't want to go back to the naughty chair :)

We have been meaning to take this picture for a long time... but with my new handy dandy stinkin' sweet fun-loving awesome great super hi-tech easy fast and beautiful sony dsc-n1 digital camera with the 3" touch screen... i got it in a flash with no long wait times like the old camera.so anyway... there is a white VW bug here that looks just like herbie... and now we present it to you for your viewing pleasure... enjoy.

Our friend, Andrew just headed on back to the states. It has been a good time having him here and hope to see him here again. Bye bud.

here is a recent picture of yvonne and josiah... she is about 6 months along here...

I have always been a big fan of pioneer stereo components. I guess the people here like pioneer a lot too but maybe due to a lack of proper fundage they settle for the equate brand version pioneer.

It's nearly pioneer.

Landon just got his big boy bed! He has been in it for about a week now and it has been great. We were thinking that maybe he might not do so hot in it for the first few days but he did great!








He is hilarious about hats and shoes. When he wakes up... if he is in his pajamas or if he is only in a diaper... he brings us his shoes and wants us to put them on for him.
















We went with a friend from school to her Catholic church. It was very nice! They have a nice courtyard and Landon and I played soccer for about 45 minutes. Everybody wanted to kiss on him but all he wanted to do was play soccer... or actually football to say it right.

























Landon loves to hang on the handles on the subway. Don't worry... i was behind him ready to catch him when he fell.