Day 51: St. Catherine's Monastery

This was our first full day at the monastery. The gardens are beautiful at this time of year, with the almond trees in full bloom.

Day 50: Sinai Wilderness

The road from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Catherine's passes through the mostly-deserted wilderness. It is a beautiful but rugged landscape.

Day 49: King Tut

The Egyptian Museum houses the famous treasures of King Tutankhamun.  Dad and I were some of the only people in the museum and we stood in front of Tut's funerary mask, gazing upon it in wonder.

Day 48: The Pyramids of Giza

"Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids."

Today we rode around the Pyramids of Giza on camels and climbed inside the Great Pyramid. We also visited Memphis and Saqqara, both important ancient archeological sites.

Day 47: Landing in Cairo

This evening we landed in Cairo. This was the view from our hotel. We spent the evening walking along the Nile.

Day 46: First Day Without A Picture

This day marked the first day since I have started this project that I did not take a picture. I did, however, set off on a dream trip. I spent the morning packing and then went to the airport to fly to Egypt. The remainder of the day and the majority of the next was spent in airplanes.

Because I did not have internet access, I am now posting pictures from my trip that I took each day.

Day 45: Ready to Go

I still have an unfortunate amount of packing to do, so I'll keep this short. We're ready to go! I'll still take a picture every day for the next two weeks, but I probably won't be able to post the pics until later.

Day 44: Hot Chocolate

I picked up these canisters of hot chocolate from a girl at school today. She is Egyptian and her mom lives in Cairo. We'll be delivering these when we go. It looked so yummy that I had to have a cup of hot chocolate myself this evening. It wasn't Ghiradelli, but it was still lovely - especially the marshmallows on top.

Day 43: Attack

Java looks like a vicious dog here. In reality, she's grinning as she runs up to me for some loving. I discovered today that it's awfully difficult to get this dog to sit still long enough to get a decent picture. She just wants to be petted all the time.

The Amazing Race began today. Mom and I like to watch it together and cheer on our favourite teams.

Day 42: Flat Stanley

While I worked on homework, JoAnna and Alyssa made flat versions of themselves. Flat Alyssa and Flat JoAnna will be traveling with me next week! If I still travel, that is. We're hoping to, but the situation in Egypt is still unstable, so we'll just have to see.

Day 41: Back in the Saddle Again

It was a nice and sunny day to get back in the saddle. It's been in the eighties yesterday and today, so it was actually quite warm. I rode Soldier again and he was fantastic. Unfortunately, this picture was snapped before I smiled and while I was in the middle of saying something. Oh well, at least I'm on a horse!

Day 40: Books

So, I have a fairly unexciting picture for the day. Unless, of course, you love books like I do. This is my "school shelf." Much of my day was again spent doing homework. I did take a break this evening to go to Sing Song, which was a lot of fun. They had some great songs this year.

Day 39: A Fool

I opened a book at work today that we were lending out and this is what I saw. I think it is more likely that whoever stuck that paper there is more of a fool than Thomas Aquinas. But what do I know?

Day 38: Making Boxes

Tuesdays are my long days. They are full of work and class and not much else. The highlight of my Tuesday today was making a box. One of the books we lent out was too large for any of the packages we had. So, I set to work making a perfectly sized box. It was fun, sadly the most fun I had all day.

Day 37: Homemade Pasta

Tonight Anna, Alyssa and I had a delicious homemade pasta dinner. We made the pasta from scratch, which none of us had ever done. It was actually really easy and quite good. It was our special Valentine's dinner just for us girls. Yumm!

Day 36: Red Valentine

I went home for lunch today and took a couple of friends with me. Mom and Dad cooked up a wonderful Valentine's Day meal for us. Growing up, the kid's Valentine's Day dinner was often comprised of red foods. Mom did it again today! It was yummy and it brought back lots of great memories. I love my parents so much. And my brother too, who took the picture for us.

One more important fact that I should mention: we were just about to pray when the picture was snapped, hence the hand holding.

Day 35: Piano Playing

I spent most of the day completing homework and babysitting kids. Our mission team babysat thirty-nine kids this evening as a fundraiser. Earlier in the afternoon I was able to take a short break to play my keyboard for a few minutes. It always helps to relax me and luckily it did just that.

Day 34: Kid's Meal

Once news of the protests in Egypt reached my house, I've known that my trip might be in jeopardy. Since then, Egypt related things have been popping up everywhere. It's become somewhat of a joke in my house, as Egypt has been taunting me. We turned on Despicable Me and the opening scene is set at the pyramids. The girl in The Time Traveler's Wife loves spends her time reading about Egypt. Those are just the two examples that come to mind.

In light of this, I shouldn't have been all that surprised when my kid's meal bag today had this Egyptian picture splashed across it. Maybe it's actually a sign.

Day 33: Wal-Mart Evangelism

Okay, so I wasn't actually evangelizing, but I was talking about God to random people in Wal-Mart. For one of my classes we had to go to a public place and ask people a question. If you could ask God any question, what would you ask? Anna and I partnered up for this assignment and we somehow survived talking to a bunch of strangers. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Day 32: A Bright Snowy School Day

My professors were all convinced that today would be another day of cancelled classes. Alas, the powdery dusting of snow that we received last night was not nearly enough to force ACU to cancel anything. The bright sun didn't help either. Oh well, I really needed to work anyway. Unfortunately, the sun did little to warm us up today, and I will again be tucking myself into bed in a very, very chilly room.

Day 31: Halls

I'm sure professors and fellow students love it when a classmate is hacking away, disrupting the entire class. Unfortunately, that was me today. My cold has moved down into my chest. I've been combatting it with lots of hot tea, honey and cough drops. Mom lovingly supplied me with three different flavours: honey-lemon, mint and cherry. The honey-lemon lozenges have little encouraging messages on the wrappers. When I pop one in my mouth I read, "Get back in the game" and "You can do it and you know it." Pretty nifty, huh?

Day 30: Blur

Today was Monday and I still didn't feel very well. This meant that my day passed by in somewhat of a blur. So, I took a picture of my favourite jeans. I know it's just a close-up of a seam, but I kind of like it anyway. And the blurred edge of the photo represents my blurred day... Okay, maybe that's stretching it, but my brain's not really working right tonight. And that means it's bedtime for me.

Day 29: And the Snow Kept Falling

Another picture of snow, you say? Well, yes. Because in Abilene the snow just keeps on falling. Most of the snow from last week's snowmageddon finally melted today. This evening, however, I pulled aside the blinds to look at the rain that my forecast said was falling right then. Lo and behold, it was actually more snow. In case you don't know, this is unusual for Abilene.

I have no more exciting pictures than this because I came down with something last night. Being sick is no fun,

Day 28: Where's All the Water Gone?

The "highlight" of our day was when we realized that we had no water in the house. We knew our pipes hadn't frozen because the water had been on less than an hour before that. Thanks to our wonderful landlord we were quickly able to ascertain that the water had been shut off by the city because of a break in the water main. Anna and I were ready for it to come back on which, hours later, it now is.

The roads finally cleared today and we were able to head out to my grandparents house where we celebrated my grandmother's seventieth birthday. Except for our water ordeal, it was a pretty good day.

Day 27: Snowman

Today marked our fourth snow day. I feel like it must be an ACU record - four snow days in a row. What a crazy week!

The mercury rose a little today and the sun came out. At thirty-three degrees, the snow and ice began to melt. Finally the snow could be packed. This, of course, meant we were finally able to make a snowman. By the way, our snowman has a mustache and not two mouths. I just thought I should clarify.

Day 26: Fresh Baked Bread

We again stuck to the house today. Using the oven always warms the house up, so today we baked bread. This wheat loaf was quite yummy, especially fresh out of the oven with some butter.

The highlight of my day was when Joel and Mom walked all the way to my house to bring us delicious cookies that they baked. They walked through the snow, ice and bitter cold. I love my family so much!

Day 25: Snow Berries

I thought these berries outside our house contrasted nicely with the snow. Today was another great snow day. My roommates and I again hung out, played in the snow and watched movies. I did manage to get a little bit of homework done today. JoAnna, Anna and I tried to build a snow-fort today. It didn't work too well because the snow was far too dry. Unfortunately, this means no snowmen either. Also, it is so cold both outside and inside my bedroom that the condensation INSIDE of my window was frozen in the morning.

No school tomorrow either!

Day 24: Snow Day

My roommates and I enjoyed a wonderful snow day today and actually have one to look forward to tomorrow as well. We had french toast and coffee for breakfast and then cuddled up for a scary movie. We headed outside to play around in the snow for a while and enjoyed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Our day eventually ended with homemade sugar cookies and a few rounds of Catch Phrase. It was a fantastic day!

Now I'm headed off to bed where I hope to be snug and warm. Outside it will be 5 degrees, with a "dangerous wind chill." In Abilene that's fairly chilly.