Here are some pics of our new flat! Yay! We have a home again!

You can click on the slideshow to take you to the site where they are stored and see bigger versions :)

Here are pics of Christmas... the actual one as opposed to the Christmas in November.


You can click on the slideshow to take you to the site where they are stored and see bigger versions :)

We celebrated Christmas in November... when we were home in the states for Thanksgiving. Yvonne's parents, her sister and her family, and my mom were all there.


You can click on the slideshow to take you to the site where they are stored and see bigger versions :)

Christmas is on the 25th... today is the 25th... and this is my 250th post on the blog.
Coincidence? I think not!

i love it.












© 2007
This photo is copyrighted and may not be used without written consent from Tim Semmens

We invite you to take a look at some pics that I took over the last 2 years using my cell phone. There are a good many of them. I wrote captions for many of them. It may only show a little bit so hover your mouse over the caption and it will show you the full text.

Phone Pics

well as many of you know we went back to America for thanksgiving with our families. it was a great time of decompression and refreshment. you really have no idea of some of the stresses that you live under until you are out from under them. we're back in country now and adjusting back to the middle eastern time zone. it is really messing with me.

we got in about midnight a few days ago and we got the boys in bed around 1:30 or so and we went to bed at 2:30. they have some stinkin' sweet shutters in our country where you can lower them and the interlocking slats block out any and all light from the outside... it can seriously be pitch black in the bedroom at high noon. it's wonderful. the phone woke us up and when yvonne saw the clock in the family room, she thought it was broken because the time was exactly the same as when we went to bed. my cell phone was still set to eastern standard time so i called my buddy here and said hey and asked him what time it was. he told me it was 2:30 in the afternoon... the clock wasn't broken, it was just 12 hours later exactly.

the night after that though we didn't get to bed until 5am and woke up at 9:30. last night we got to bed at 3am and woke up at 11:30 wishing we had set an alarm to help us adjust to the time difference. so tonight we went to bed at 2am and set an alarm for 9am. it is now 3:10am and i just watched an episode of 24 because i was wide awake.

jet lag is seriously lame.

Hot Diggity Dog! We're having a roaring-good Halloween. I know, I know...shocker of all shockers! Yvonne is blogging!? Well, we didn't get to have the costume party we had hoped, but we couldn't let such adorable costumes go to waste. So, without further adieu, here are our little lion and hot dog!

Happy Birthday to Josiah!


loving the balloon at Applebees today...


oh and by the way... Josiah started walking yesterday! He just beat the one year deadline! Hooray! Good job buddy! Here is some video of it...

well... you know from the last post that i hadn't posted in some time because of some crazy computer problems that i was having. soon after that my brother and i were on vacation. the vacation ended the 18th and yet i hadn't posted until now. lemme give you an idea why...

we are looking for a new home! we will no longer be living in the country that we have called home for the last 2 years. we are living in another country nearby for the time being and are searching for our next place to settle down. it's really sad for us because we are losing so many close friends.

i will be uploading some photos today hopefully... because today is Josiah's 1st birthday!!!

tim

i hate my computer... let me just get that part out of the way. it is ridiculous!
hewlett packard= the bubonic plague of computers.
hewlett packard's tech support has no cure. i don't think that they're looking for one. they don't even pretend to care. i don't wish to get into it. let's just say i have some heart issues that i really need to work through in order to stop wishing for burning sulfur, brimstone, and fire to come raining down from heaven upon their headquarters... well maybe if there are 10 righteous tech support workers there it should be spared. haha... it's lookin' pretty bleak for them.

this is why we haven't been posting lately.

well... my brother and i are on a bonding vacation. we went to Petra the other day... that is one of the new recently named 7 wonders of the ancient world. it was always considered the 8th wonder by the old list. the new list was released a few months ago because only 2 of the previous 7 were available to visit. i forgot my cable for my camera and so i unfortunately am unable to share pictures of all these amazing experiences that we are taking in. gimme a week or so and you'll have them.

tim

That's right y'all... our little boy just turned the big 3!

He is getting so big! He is way tall too.

We took a trip out to a local water park aptly named, "Aqua Park". I sure hope that nobody hurt themselves thinkin' that one up.

Here are pictures from the day.















Landon loves the movie Cars so we made him Cars Cupcakes. They were straight up yummy.













Happy Birthday to you Landon! Yvonne was trying to get a different shot and a friend of ours thought that she wanted her to take the camera and shoot the video from somewhere else... haha
















Chicken Panee sandwiches... mmm.


















Drinking a bottle on the ground padded by a few towels.














Landon got a Cars fannypack...














... and a sweet foam sword...


















Landon playing in the water with his new sword.


... and a toy phone and bubbles.
































Wassup!










































Landon and a friend from school... and her little sister.














the t-shirt says: "Warning! I am Three"


















Landon's friend Lee Anna gave him some sweet Finding Nemo waterguns and some play-doh.














Birthday time number 2 with some other friends who weren't able to come to AquaPark.














Did I get it all?

if killing flies is cool... consider Josiah to be Miles Davis.

We had left a window open and there were a bunch of flies that got in. Yvonne went on a rampage massacre and nailed about 6 of them. Josiah thought it was hilarious so we taped him while Yvonne smacked the fly swatter on the ground. It achieved the same affect... apparently our son isn't so sadistic as to laugh at the needless annihilation of poor innocent flies.

It's Ramadan time again. Here is some video of a guy that was selling instruments in the streets a few days before Ramadan started. People buy their kids Ramadan presents. This video is from the vantage point of our 6th story apartment window.

my computer was taken to the states to be repaired while some friends of ours were visiting family there. So here are some posts to play catch up...

Nothing quite as much fun as an empty box.



































Mmm... foot.


























We were walking down the street and Landon complained that the sun was hurting his eyes. So I gave him my sunglasses. He was pretty cute in them.













Causing trouble at the local stationary store.

















Cute sleeper...












































Yvonne got a few cute spidey masks so Landon likes to put it on and in a deep raspy monstery voice say, "I'm Spiderman!"






























Josiah wasn't too into wearing the mask... oh well.

A few month ago a really nice Mexican restaurant opened up in a mall about 45 minutes away. Yvonne went up there the other day for a friend's birthday party. She went, she saw, she ate some chips. She ate too many chips and therefore needed a takeaway bag for her meal.

Here is a picture of the bag... there is nothing special about it.

















Here is the side of the bag. From the little picture I suspect they're trying to say to throw this bag in the trash when we're done with it... they need to mind their own bidness... the depth of my corny shouldn't concern them.













These glasses only work when they're in the sun... converting sunshine into cold drink...













Landon got this basketball hoop from a church we went to the other day. He was in the kid's room and they were singing and coloring and all sorts of stuff. This was his reward.

















Here is a zoom in of the top right corner... right next to where it says "CHAMPIONS"

We went to a local water park and had a great time. On the way home our taxi broke down. My taxi driver friend and I were working under the hood. Yvonne, her friend, and our combined 4 kids were still in the car. The trunk was open because we were getting tools from it a few minutes earlier. Amazingly enough a few guys walked buy and stole our bag out of the trunk and none of us saw it happen! That seems impossible to me! Oh well. They got some money, our house keys, my wallet, and some clothes... but hey... we're safe... so enjoy the pictures

About a month ago we took a trip down to the sea. This place wasn't anything like the places we have been where there is beautiful coral, etc... but it isn't the busy megacity in which we live, so it was great!

Here are some pics...

We made some mini blueberry muffins this morning. Landon was lovin' them. It was so cute. Towards the end of the video you'll see Landon say cheese a few times. I was holding up the camera because of video but he thought I was getting ready to take a picture.

We had some friends over last weekend so that our boys could play in the pool on the balcony. Here is a cute video of Landon and Chase.

Here is some of the latest arabish that we've seen...

Oh and by the way... I have coded all my Arabish posts in the past withe arabish label and there is a arabish category listed in the left side so that you can visit all arabish posts on one page... your welcome :)

Click on this one to see it a little bigger... but what it says exactly is:

These next 4 shots are from a restaurant that we really really like. It's called GAD. There is a veritable cornucopia of Arabish in this restaurant's menu. Here are just a few...

Maybe they weren't sure which was spelling was right so they figured they would be right at least once. Heh. Another page of the menu had it spelled "See Food".














I love me some Colo Slw... especially when there is just the right amount Mayoneez.














While Mashroum is speeled rong... I also wanted to introduce you to the idea of tuna pizza. I've never tried and proabably never will.














They have quite a list of sandwiches... even a few for the more frisky customers. Haha.

we are officially back in bidness...

a few months ago we had our compact digital camera stolen. this is hurt out blogability. we just got a new camera brought in for us and got it yesterday. So our blogging should... should increase.

Whoo-hoo! Here she is...