Take me to another place.....

We're off to Lebanon today for a conference. It is about 95 during the day and 75 is the low at night. This should feel like a nice change from 115. looking forward to the pretty ocean and some historical sites. I'll post pictures when I get back.

Baby, Baby......

We have a new nephew born today!  Trey's sister Jessica and her husband Jeziel had their baby boy in the early hours of the morning.  We can't wait to meet him......and hear what his name is:)

We're 2 of a kind workin' on a full house......

This week I hosted my "birthday club" from work at our house.  We also had our church group over for ice cream last night after service.  Both nights I taught the groups how to play Dutch Blitz and Pass the Pigs.  Both fun games.  Pass the Pigs always makes me laugh.  Seems ironic to play a game called Pass the Pigs in a muslim country, but ya know.

Look at this cute ice cream topping holder I bought from Wilton for our party last night.  Isn't it cute.  Little additions like this make a party so much more fun in my eyes! Again, the summer survival theme here is PARTIES.....we do whatever we can to stay inside and have a good time.  I'll fill you in on the rest of our summer occasions as they come along. 

I think we're going to convert some of these folks into Pennsylvania Dutch kids playing this game.  There was a lot of yelling and cheating going on......not that those qualities have anything to do with Pennsylvania Dutch folk ....although some would say.......forget it.  I'm Pennsylvania Dutch from both sides of my family . Although, sometimes I wish we were party Italian. Something about Italian families and their food is so appealing to me:) 

Where in the world is Carmen SanDiego.....

Trey's been traveling around a lot this year and he still has more to go.  So far he's been to 4 countries this year which has been fun for him as he enjoys seeing new places and especially when he goes to places where people speak Arabic.  The purpose of these trips is to see if our hospital can help others by bringing them to our hospital or sending staff to do medical trainings at hospitals in less fortunate countries. 



Last week he took a trip to Kurdistan in the Northern part of Iraq.  It was a fabulous trip and he loved his time there. He said the people were wonderful and the scenery was beautiful.  It reminded him a lot of Bethlehem but just a bit more built up.  He said that it was more modern than he expected. 

Last year, the hospital brought a little girl from Kurdistan to Oasis Hospital to have club foot surgery.  Her situation was pretty severe and she needed good medical attention.  Overall, CURE does many surgeries for club foot in their other hospitals and through their club foot clinics but our facility has not yet up to this point.   

While she and her father were here for her surgery and recovery, we had the chance to get close to them during their 2 month stay.  Last week, they were able to see this little girl and her family a bunch which was great. Trey loved this family and they were fabulous hosts.  

We have a new orthopedic surgeon coming to our hospital this fall,  so our hope is that we will be able to do more of these things.  They were able to meet with a mom and her son who had been injured by a bombing.  He will need many more surgeries, but the hope is that we could help him in the UAE. 

Roll it, pat it and mark it with a "B".......

My sister-in-law Jessica will be having a baby next month!  We're so excited to meet the sweet little boy.  My hope is to go home in September to see him a bit.  We had a shower for her when we were home in in June and had a really nice time with everyone.  The shower was at a country club near there house, so there was no clean-up!  That's always nice.  She was definitely showered with gifts. It was fun to see all of the new things for the little bambino.

Take me out to the ballgame.....

When we were home, we went to a Red Sox game. It was a great day. The Sox won and the weather was great.  We had a fun time was a family.  I hadn't been to a baseball game in a while but it brings back fun memories of listening to the Phillies on the radio as we were driving home from visiting our grandparents or other places on summer evenings.   The Phillies announcer had the best voice and would put me right to sleep. 

And I'm Proud to be an American.....

We celebrated the 4th of July a bit early here. On Friday night we had a few friends over for some burgers and picnic food.  I love getting ready for the party just as much as having the party!  Min and I had fun preparing all the food and dishes, etc.  Martha Stewart came through big time on this party. We used all of her ideas from the July edition and found some of them to be rather cute.  The cookies didn't turn out exactly how they were supposed to but they looked pretty good to us and tasted even better. So we were satisfied.

The favors.  Min printed these off from the Martha website. They give you free templates. It was supposed to be a lemon blueberry bread, but we made blueberry zucchini instead.  Tasty.