Although the weather now a days is hot in Kuwait but that does not mean quitting photography or taking a long break till the next season!

I went to Kuwait City with my brother Yousef to practice urban photography since I didn't shoot long time ago because of the bad dusty weather last month. We chose Dar Al-Awadi as a destination. Unfortunately my brother didn't have a tripod since it was broken. so I got all the credit in this trip while he was shooting but using his new 5.0 MP mobile camera (SonyEricsson C902).

honestly this is the first time for me to shoot this complex although it was opened long time ago but I didn't have a chance before. nothing better than shooting freely without facing the security guys. I was wandering what happened to them!? nobody was there at all!

anyways, that was a good experience.

]]> http://spaceapple.wordpress.com/?p=32 Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:36:35 +0000 spaceapple http://spaceapple.wordpress.com/?p=32 Today was our last day at the beach. Sadly, there were many much jellyfish lurking in the water. I swam a little bit, but didn't really feel like getting stung...again. There weren't as many people on the beach today, and they had been replaced by a flock of seagulls. We thought we would walk down and take a few pictures of them.

While we were by the seagulls I looked down and saw a piece of a sand dollar. I picked it up to look at it and then threw it back into the waves. Apparently pieces of sand dollar flying across the water look strikingly similar to fish when you are a seagull, and several of them took off after it. We thought this was a very good trick for getting pictures of flying seagulls, so I threw a few more sand dollar pieces (until the seagulls got tired of being tricked). Along the way back I collected lots of small pieces of driftwood (for the turtle tank, of course!).

After a while we rented an ocean kayak for for an hour. I decided to try it by myself first (it was a two person kayak). I didn't realized that it is very difficult for a single smallish person to paddle out past the breaking waves by herself, so I ended up riding one in. That part was fun, while the kayak stayed turned the right direction. But since I don't really know how to steer an ocean kayak in the waves...it quickly flipped over. Don't worry! I didn't land on any jellyfish. It was much easier to get past the waves once my mom came out with me, and then we just sat out in the water for a bit and looked at the numerous jellyfish floating by. We even saw some different ones that had sorts of ruffles instead of long tentacles.

We didn't kayak for the whole hour, because we started to get hungry...so we went back for lunch. I also boiled my new driftwood collection (no, not for lunch). It did look like I was making some kind of driftwood soup, standing there stirring a huge pot full of boiling wood. The point of all this is to make the wood quickly release its tannins, which cause the water to turn  the color of tea and are not so pleasant for aquariums.

Other than that, we ate dinner at Carrabba's (an Italian grill with amazing brick oven pizza) and did some last minute gift buying. We're mostly packed up for tomorrow. The turtles are safely tucked into their bed in the bathtub, in case they come up with some ingenious method of escape from their pool (now complete with driftwood). We *plan* on leaving at 8:00, so I'll see some of you tomorrow night!

- Karen

We went to:

• Buffalo downtown and Marina park
• University at Buffalo
• Ice Skating at Pepsi Amherst
• Niagara Falls
• Malls, Grocery Store, Target and Walmart

We ate at:

• Anchor Bar -  Monday dinner was Buffalo Wings at Anchor Bar (Home of the original Buffalo Chicken Wings). I love this and I ate a lot. I have never gone there before and besides the fat I liked!
• Taco Bell - one taco was enough for me.
• Arby's - my husband and I shared a Pecan sandwuich there. It was good, with whole wheat bread, chicken, pecans, grapes, lettuce, apple and some white sauce that I couldn't identify.
• iHop - We ate: eggs, bacon, potato, sausage and pancakes. The pancakes was really good! I loved them!

Some meals we made at home and I could eat salads and my loved breakfast. The day before the Buffalo chicken wings I only had oats soaked with milk for breakfast; soup for lunch. My friend wanted to eat pizza Hut or Domino's but we didn't have time to go these places (good for me!).

In general, it was good change the routine a lit bit, but I am happy that now I can run and eat my oats and salad and I don't need to eat tacos. It was good receive a friend here and show her my life and how the things are different here in USA from Brazil. She liked very much!!!

Last week the girls took advantage of a free community daycamp offered by the city, so I actually ended up having a week where I could go into the office, update the website there, and generally work on a few bits and pieces.  I'm not in the office much in the summer, so it was nice to get a few things done.

This week, we've taken it pretty slow . . . I've been working on getting the house back in order (we had Bible study here this week, plus there's an eMi BBQ here tonight, so that's provided some motivation!), we've had a few play dates, etc. etc.  This is what summer should be like!

Of course, for Kevin, summer is ramping up.  With less than 8 weeks to go to fall trips, recruitment is high on the list of priorities.  For a while, we weren't sure if Kevin was going to the Sudan or D.R. Congo.  It's now confirmed that Kevin will be leading the Congo trip.   I'll get some details for you soon, but for now, here's the eMi project description . . .

Now, some picture:

Besides the sandwiches, I have some snacks like peanuts and trail mix. We stopped at a Starbucks coffee but I didn't buy anything, I want try something different besides their coffee, do you have suggestions? I sow they have smoothies too, is it good?

And I bought MET-Rx protein bar with 32g protein, 2g sugar, 0g trans-fat. Seems good to me but I didn't eat yet!

Les escribo enviándoles un caluroso saludo esperando que se encuentren muy bien.

El día de hoy les escribo para pedir su apoyo en oración, el día de hoy han habido ya varios ataques terroristas con bombas caseras en la ciudad de Bangalore que es donde yo estoy.
De manera extra oficial conocemos de alrededor de 7 atentados hasta el momento en lo que va del día y hay varios muertos, aun no hay un reporte oficial de noticias al menos de manera local, y todo esto se ha sabido mas por las mismas familias, compañeros y amigos de personas que están conmigo aquí, a quienes han estado constantemente llamando para avisar y advertir para que tengamos cuidado y evitemos al máximo salir y si hay que hacerlo, alejarnos de lugares con muchas personas.

Yo me apropio de la palabra en Salmos 34:7 - "El ángel de Jehová acampa alrededor de los que le temen, Y los defiende." , yo me siento tranquilo y confiado en Dios, mas les pido su apoyo en oración por las familias de las personas que han sido victimas de los atentados que han pasado hasta el momento y para que haya una protección Divina sobre esta hermosa nación y las personas que en ella viven.

Gracias de antemano por su apoyo y que Dios les continué bendiciendo abundantemente.

saludos de su hermano en Cristo,

Miguel.

Yesterday morning we went parasailing. There were 10 other people on the boat with us, but we were the first ones up. Once we were in the air, it seemed like we were hardly moving at all. The whole trip was a lot of fun, even watching everyone else go up. We didn't do too much the rest of the day except shop a little, and plan for our snorkeling adventure...

We got down to the docks around 9:00 and were shuttled to the snorkeling boat. We swam out by the jetties for most of the morning looking for fun fish and avoiding the jellyfish (which there weren't very many of). We tried taking some pictures with the underwater camera, but unfortunately none of them turned out very good. We also walked over to the other side of the jetties where the waves were, and I proceeded to get stung by jellyfish three times. We took the shuttle boat back to the docks around 1:00.

On the way back, we stopped at a beach store to pick up some friends that I'd been waiting for. One of them is a present from Destin for Matt. (Hi Matt!) I've always wanted one of these little guys...

Michelangelo is a yellow-bellied slider and Piper is a red eared slider. These silver dollar-sized turtles are excellent swimmers and will spend most of their time either playing in the water or basking under the special UV bulb I got for them. They're tiny now, but they will get bigger eventually.

After getting the new turtles settled into their temporary house we got started on our trek back to the other end of town for supper at The Lucky Snapper. Happily, they offered lots of vegetables and a view of the harbor. We even got some pictures of a sailboat and a seagull nest.

Later we took a few pictures on the beach and then walked down to Pompano Joe's for key lime pie (which was very good). Tomorrow we are swimming at the beach for the last time and possibly renting sea kayaks. Let's hope for no jellyfish in the morning!

- Karen

I have my photo site, I have a site dedicated to our gaming family, I have this site and I just started a blog for journaling the antics and precious moments of my favorite short people Alyssa, Zachary and soon to be born Devon Kylie.

There's a thoughtling growing in the creative womb right now for yet another blog but I'm not sure I want to venture into this particular territory just yet.  So life is busy which translates into not so many posts here at the hippie hacienda. I've got 3 blogs that need daily attention on top of my photography, running this house, keeping my husband happy, my children out of jail and prepping the house for the new puppy.

The cat is going to be traumatized for sure. Jason has already said he will not take her to a pet therapist. If we can survive without anti-depressants so can the cat.

I'll just buy her some catnip and keep her stoned for a week. She'll think the dog is a hullicination.

The next six weeks are packed full with things to do. Trips to the shore, pregnant bellies to photograph, a baby shower, 2 trips to the shore and a trip to Florida. I'll post when I can and toss photos up here in lieu of words.

Enjoy the rest of your summer peoplez.