St. Katrina and Mt. Sinai

Vacation 2011 is in its final days, we leave for Cairo tomorrow.

Currently I am sitting out on a rocky mound under a very blue sky with a cool chill in the air gazing at the mountains of Sinai. I have 4 out of 5 kids and they are reading to each other and being mellow, Andrew has volunteered for his first nap of the day curled up next to me. The others left at 1:30 am for an early morning hike up Sinai we will meet up with them in a bit at the monastery at the base of the mountain.

Yesterday we went on a beautiful hike up to a mulberry tree where we feasted on mulberrys and then treked back down into town for ice cream...doesn't get much better than that. In the photo it might be hard to tell but the town is right in the center of the picture and we hiked out of town and up the mountains.

We hung out for the afternoon kids playing some make believe game and the adults playing Settlers of Catan. We had planned on going into town for a grilled chicken dinner when our bedouin host showed up with 2 large fish to cook up for us bedouin style. Now for Sarah and I this was just fine being that we like fish but for the rest of the crew not so exciting and unfortunately there was no culturally correct way to wiggle out of an unwanted meal by a generous and very sweet host. His wife came along and made fresh bread over an open fire and showed the kids how to do it. The kids made a meal on the fresh bread and were perfectly content with that. Hopefully we have one more hike left in us before we head home tomorrow.

It has been a great 2 weeks and it will be hard to go back to just the 2 of us. Caleb has thrived in the company of all these kids and has really been a sweetie to be with. I am looking forward to getting back to Cafe Greco which may have had to lay off some help in my absence. I have not had a really good cup of coffee since we left.