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By Kate, 9 January 2010

Neil & I just got back from a week in New Orleans, Louisiana. I spent the week volunteering for Legal Aid & the public defenders. Neil spent the week exploring and eating Beignets and being harassed by NOPD (he may elaborate further in an additional post).

The absolute highlight of the trip, other than staying with our gracious hostess and nun-tastic friend Alison, was The Backstreet Cultural Museum. The museum is a neighborhood cultural preservation project housed in an old funeral home. There are many of the truly awesome Mardi Gras Indian costumes there. They are all hand-made by African American-Native American people who are the progeny of former slaves who found refuge with Native Americans. These costumes are incredible.

They are all hand-sewn with no glue used and take a full year to make.

No one can wear the same costume twice, so each one is started from scratch. There are over 30 Mardi Gras Indian tribes.

Each costume can weigh up to 150 lbs, as you can see from the castle themed costume above are very intricate.

Now we need to come back during Mardi Gras & see these Mardi Gras Indians in action!

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By Kate, 1 October 2009

So, we got a school break for Yom Kippur… what a great surprise it was in the form of a Jewish holy day. As part of our effort to reclaim and celebrate Jewish holidays…Neil and I headed North to the great states of Pennsylvania and New York.We stopped in Erie to see Aaron, Anne & Lily. Good times were had. Delicious food was eaten (thank to Anne). And many, many, many pictures were taken of Lily.

She is getting SO big… it won’t be long before she is driving!! She even says words now. Among the most popular are, “Up,” “Yay,” and a few expletives not fit for the internet (or at least, that’s what it sounds like.)

If you feel like watching the cutest thing you have ever seen, see below for video of Lily dancing with Neil to Gummy Bear, her favorite song of all time.

Oh man, is there anything better that life has to offer than playing in puddles??

We can never get enough of that LILYBEAN!!! Thanks Anne, Aaron & Lily for the good times!

On our second leg of the journey (about 20 miles down the road on Lake Erie) we visited our friend Jason. He is a visiting assistant professor at SUNY Fredonia, and even has a real office. We are not sure if we can even be friends with him anymore since he is so legit these days.

And because he just LOVES CORN SYRUP SSosososoososo much because it’s fine in moderation, just like sugar.

We got to visit Amish Country (big highlight for me), as well as the Hill Cumorah & Palmyra.

I am now considering naming our first child, irrespective of gender, Palmyra. Think of all of the great nicknames… Pal!

We were going to go to the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh, but ended up not having enough time. Our friend Chris was there and this is what happened to him (he is the one wearing black w/ the white helmet):

SCARY! Scary! SCARY! We are glad that didn’t happen to us & so sad that it is happening to other people simply trying to exercise their 1st Amendment rights… IN AMERICA. I certainly hope that the “land of the free” gets a whole lot freer soon, for Lily’s sake.

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By Kate, 16 September 2009

Found this in one of the boxes I was rifling through in the move. Amy & Aaron and I took a trip across the country with a large, framed picture of Vanilla Ice holding a Book of Mormon & took shots of him in all kinds of weird places.

I think I am getting dumber with age, because that was brilliant.

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By Kate, 14 April 2009

Easter has come & gone & my internet fast has come to an end. Lucky you.

As always, I took Easter as an opportunity to bust out my glorious Easter bonnet. Normally I am joined by a few of the 60+ crowd in the congregation I attend, but this year I stood alone. Luckily, this bonnet was a particularly glorious gift from Neil that was resplendent enough for all to enjoy.

We had a fabulous time in Utah & got to see many good friends & have many good times.

We got to enjoy a delicious Iraqi feast and a rousing game of darts with the Alhasnawy family.

We dyed some delightful Easter eggs & stuffed about 1 million with candy.

We also had an Easter fiesta complete with a visit from the Easter bunny & a full-tilt Easter egg hunt in the garden!

Does anyone else have a good explanation for a Muslim from another country on why pastel eggs & bunnies & candy have anything to do with the Christian holiday Easter? Because, I sure don’t. After about 10 minutes blabbering about how Christian holidays often were meshed into Pagan celebrations, and what a Pagan is, and how eggs & bunnies represent fertility… I finally just gave up and said, “I don’t know, it’s just a tradition I suppose.” In retrospect, I should have started off with that.

We also got some fabulous gifts from my dad, including, but, not limited to, this chick CANDLE and purple hat.

It was great fun. Back to slaving away at school & diverting my studies with internet endeavours. Hoo-rah!

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By Neil, 15 March 2009

As we drove between Mazatlan and Guayamas we discovered our Mexican car insurance had expired just an hour before. Since we were unable to extend it we decided to head for the border. We crossed the US border at Nogales around 8:00 pm without incident and went to Kate’s grandparent’s house in Tucson to spend the night. They were very gracious hosts & the soft beds were very welcome after the granite-hard ones we’d experienced in cheap Mexican hotels! Saturday morning we got up late, showered, said goodbye and headed for the restaurant, El Charo. Then home to San Diego. The trip was fantastic and with 3,600 driving miles under out belt I’m extremely glad we made it home without incident.

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for:

Kate got a shot of me filming footage for my Monarch-umentary. To be posted soon!

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By Neil, 11 March 2009

We made it out of Mexico City without much problem and managed to get to Angangueo, a small town in Michoacan. We wanted to see the monarch butterfly colonies before they returned to Texas to lay their eggs and die. We did that and it was literally awesome. More fantastic and amazing than words, pictures or my coming documentary can tell. After lunch with our travel guide we headed to Guadalajara, where we are now. Another great city, why we live in the US I will never know. Anyway, we are safe and doing well.

Our little car/true champion & me with a little glass Coke.

Pineapples squashed to make fresh juice in the market.

More pictures to come!

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By Neil, 5 March 2009

If you ever get a chance come to Mexico City, it is probably one of the greatest cities in the world. Since last update we´ve, Jason and I, been running around the town looking at Diego murals, historic buildings and museums filled with ancient mind-blowing stuff. We have also eaten great food at every meal, including panini in the dark because the neighborhood lost power. Well, Kate is coming tomorrow and the terrible trio will be complete. More to come soon.

p.s. Donna, I may be moving here permanently, this place it too great to leave! Don´t worry we are playing it extra extra safe.

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By Neil, 2 March 2009

Jason and I made it to Mexico City just as the sun was setting. We got onto our main road just as the sky went dark and 30 minutes later were in our hotel.

Street tacos then bed!

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By Kate, 1 March 2009

Neil and Jason set out on their journey to Mexico City today. In total the road trip will be 4, 065 miles. Turns out driving to Mexico City is approximately the same distance as DRIVING TO WASHINGTON DC, our nation’s capitol. Luckily I will only be making the return leg of the journey by car.

But, it will be worth it… I mean, who doesn’t want to vacation in a place where the  State Department issues travel warnings about? With such lovely descriptions as, “Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades,” how can you go wrong?

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By Kate, 12 August 2008

Yep, that’s right folks this is a picture of us on a ride at…Disneyland. We were there from 9am to 12pm on Saturday. Why? Our friends the Hasans came to visit us from Salt Lake & it is extremely difficult to convince a family of 7 from Iraq with small children that Disneyland is not all it’s cracked up to be (believe me, we tried). So… after about 2 hours of diplomatic wrangling, we ended up conceding to go to Disneyland. 

All things considered it was a pleasurable experience. We will put up more pictures when we get the internet. (Yeah, I know I can’t believe we have had time to go to Disneyland, but not to get the Internet installed. Where are our priorities??)