a bobcat and a birthday

Today work began in our yard.  It all looked very promising for about ten minutes and then Lawrence, later referred to as Loco Larry, drove his Bobcat on the edge of our rotting retaining wall at the high side of the driveway, he rolled off and luckily didn't hurt himself.  The next few hours were spent trying to resurrect the Bobcat and find other things to do until new equipment could be rented.  I have a feeling this process may have several such anecdotes before we are done.

I then left Amine to supervise the crew while I piled the kids in the car and went to Lise's house for Eliza's second birthday party.  We had a great afternoon playing with the other kids and relaxing in Lise's backyard and driveway... who knew how much fun a driveway could provide?  I came home to find two Bobcats and one ginormous bulldozer, the neighbors thought we were putting in a pool, so far we are just moving dirt around, but we will see what tomorrow brings.

my bookends

the kids loved the wagon, especially when someone pulled them around

Eliza is already multi-tasking!

the bulkhead also topped the list of cheap thrills, they repeatedly climbed to the top and then slid down, who needs playground equipment?

Zoe, ridiculously cute and photogenic... and her dad Mike

my kids were the only ones climbing on tables, hopefully it's just a stage

Eliza's new baby carriage was a big hit

Is it too early to claim Zoe as Bibi's future wife?

How cute is this swing?

The birthday girl and her cake

Our last day in Morocco

Here's the last of the image overload, I still may post a video or two, but right now Iman is not quite asleep and me reviewing the videos is keeping her awake, so another time.  These photos are from a mountain town outside of Oujda.  Most of the family was there visiting Amine's grandparents, I realized my other posts left out some of the other cute cousins, so here are Ilias and Sid Hamed.

Ilias was so little two summers ago, but here he is looking like a big boy next to Bibi

Sid Hamed playing with Bibi

Amine's parents having one final tea with us before driving us to the airport.

Rocking the trigs

This video was too precious not to share. Iman shows the world that the Beasty Boys still rock the house. Not what I thought she'd be rocking to, but there is plenty of time for her to discover a passion of Marley music.

Joc is already attempting to recruit Tayeb into the architects clan. Here she's giving him a hands-on trigonometry lesson (anyone remembers which is the sine and which is the cosine?)

Morocco-part deux

As unlikely as it seems, I managed to take 700 pictures while in Morocco for two and a half weeks, the benefit and shortfall of the digital age. You are bound to capture something worthwhile, but you also have 700 images to sort through. All this to explain why I am offering another image overload. Morocco offers a new and interesting backdrop for the Babies B. Also, while I thought I was uploading the photos in chronological order, I managed to instead load them in reverse showing the more recent photos first, but if you weren't there you wouldn't know the difference barring my explanation of where each photo was taken.

When last we left off our Moroccan adventure we had gone to the beach several times, this batch of photos begins (at bottom) with Bibi our little punk rock boy and some pictures of Amine's dad, Tayeb's namesake, with the kids before we walked him to his train for Casablanca. He took to the kids pretty quickly and was sorry to have to leave them for a few days.

Our next adventure was a road trip to Fes and Ifrane with Amine's grandmother and his uncle. After an early morning start and a few uneventful hours in the car, the babes demanded both parents' presence in the back seat and Amine's uncle took the driver's seat. That is when the fun began and the new land speed record was set, let's just say we made very good time from that point on in our travels. We rolled into Fes early afternoon and checked the progress on his grandparent's renovation to their apartment before we decided to check into a hotel for a shower and a nap. Oddly, the second hotel we stayed in for an afternoon of leisure rather than a nights' sleep. If we didn't have two kids in tow, I may have looked like a lady of questionable character frequenting Moroccan hotels. Freshly showered and napped we continued our journey to Ifrane, stopping at a small mountain town for the best ghringo (no way to spell that nicely in English.... it's a thick bubbly crepe drizzled with honey and olive oil). We stayed at another Uncle's place in Ifrane. The next morning we had breakfast and headed back to Fes stopping at a roadside farmer's market of sorts and for lunch at McDonald's- very fancy. In Fes we took a spin through the Souk (market). We then started for a very long drive back to Oujda.

After stopping at BBQ town (aka my idea of Hell) for some eats, we happened upon the king's caravan to Oujda. We happened to be driving a black Mercedes like all the king's men... so we pulled a move reminiscent of my father or Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi mind trick... "these are not the droids you are looking for". We managed to clock speeds upwards of 100 mph, sail past police checkpoints and even pass lesser cops even though we were a car with two kids, a grandma and a white lady rather than a car of suits. I saw my life pass before my eyes on several occasions, but again, we made great time.

Our next road trip was a few days later to another small mountain town with a natural spring. We had some lunch and then drove to a cave that Amine remembered from youth. I got some great shots of us "bouldering" in the cave and Bibi and Iman enjoying the spring mountain water in the buff. I think all that's left to show is the last day in Morocco and several videos, but I will save that for part trois if you are up for it... in a few days.

I couldn't stop snapping pictures of Bibi in the buff, something about going au natural in nature was really beautiful

I am sure he will hate me for it in years to come

before the babes went au natural

my little cutie

check out that reach!

the cave man, or the cave guard, anyway a cool old chap who was very spry for his age

Outside the cave at Zigzel (I think Amine is making these names up as we go)

Yet another unfortunate diaper change for Bibi, ah Morocco

Alae and Bibi

Amine's cousin Alae joined us for our trip to Tafoughalt (say that five times fast)

So it turns out my son is a meatatarian, he snatched this lamb chop from his Baba

and helped himself

then offered it again to Baba

and then had some more

Amine's aunt Tahta

One of my favorite houses in Oujda

Amine's beloved "Rudy" is put to use in Oujda

Amine's sister, Sanae with Bibi

Amine's dad on his way to the Friday prayer

proud fisherman

air time

Bibi playing with Baba

Iman loves to fly

Walid is sucked into the age of video games

I love Iman and Walid's expressions "take my PSP, I think not!"

still relatively composed after several hours in the car

Our happy traveler

BBQ town

According to Amine, politicians have graphics to represent themselves so illiterate folks can vote for the faucet or eyes... I just thought it was organized graffiti

Fes

window shopping in Fes

Mosque in the heart of Fes' souk

Fes

the fanciest McDonald's I have ever seen

Two babes, mama, and a donkey en route from Ifrane to Fes

grandma negotiating cherry prices

Moroccan roadside farmer's market, awesome fresh cherries

Fes bound

goodbye's in the train

Tayeb and Tayeb

punk rocker