It's Toasty!!

For the past week the temp has been up again from 110 degrees to 130 degrees. A week of that and you guessed it, it's 11:30pm and it's 88 degrees outside and 88 degrees inside.
Sweating for the family,
Brian

Mom's away the kids will play and Dad, well Dad is going crazy.

Donna and Emma left this morning for Spain. Emma's visa runs out in the near future so she needed to leave the country for a day or two. Donna went with to keep her company and also so that there are two women traveling and not one. The trip itself could be quite challenging.
They left from Fes by train at 6:30 am. They switch to another train and end up at a town close to the northern African border. Then they get on a taxi to the ferry. Then they take the ferry across the Straight of Gibraltar into Spain. Once across they take a bus to a city where they will get a motel for the night and wait to re-enter the country. They might be allowed back in the next day and they might not. They are doing all of this for the first time in strange countries that speak foreign languages. Rather Donna then me, her Arabic and Spanish are better then mine.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, ok the villa, things are very hot and very wild. It really isn't all that bad. Today I woke up very tired and later on had a migrane so that made life more interesting. Things are winding down for the evening with the kids playing "tag". This is a legal way for them to cream each other. Another name for this game might be full contact tag. Brent is screaming as if he was being tortured but he will be up and running in about 16.9 seconds.
Brian for the crew
P.S. Two things I learned today. 1. When your daughter drops a glass cup on a tile floor when your napping it sounds like a bigger explosion then it really is. 2. When your son drops a glass plate on a tile floor it is a big explosion. There was a chair 5 feet away and there was glass up on the chair.

  

Getting ready for school

 
We are building a "reading cave" / loft in the school room for the children. The cave will be on the bottom and the loft will be up top. 

  

 The children did a great job working together as a team sanding. We will give you more pictures later when we are finished! 

  

Heading for the woods!!

 
Monday was the King's Birthday which means NO LANGUAGE SCHOOL! Yaaaaaaa Hooooooo!! So we took the childen to a eucalyptus forest. We had a lot of fun hiking, kicking ball, and having a picinic! 

  
Big tree!! These eucalyptus trees smell wonderful.

  

Relaxing!

  

Can you tell I've been in the city too long!?!

  

  

Interesting facts

Did you know that in Arabic the name for a finger and a toe are the same. So the only way to tell the Doctor when you call him on the phone that you cut your finger is to tell him that it's on the end of your arm or wrist. If you cut your toe you would need to tell him it's on the end of your leg or foot.
Brian

Our Mailman

  

Amina and Kellonna

  

The King's Palace

 
Today we went into town and drove by one of the many palaces throughout Morocco. 

  
Very cool metal work on the doors

  
Amina, our language helper, and her sister Kinza went along with us.

Doorbell crazy

 
This little guy tries our patience. In the afternoons he may ring our bell 6 times looking for one of the boys. 

Grilling

 
We loved to grill in the States!. We bought this little charcoal grill and the burgers taste WONDERFUL!! It is quite an art getting the charcoal lit. It's wood charcoal and there is no lighter fluid but I think I have the hang of getting it lit now. 

The children wanted to have a "picinic" outside on our grass

  

Donna and Emma are enjoying some roasted marshmellows

  

Kelly enjoys Tori's bear

  

Conjugating verbs

  
Learning to change the root verb to imperative, past, present, and future tense.

A page in our language book

  
On the left is the English translation. In the middle is the phonetic example of how to pronounce it. On the right it is written in Arabic.

Before class!!!

  

After class!?!