Winners in the Desert Race this year!!!

Yippy! All three Dunavant children came home with a medal this year from teh 2k/5k race in the desert! Meredith placed 1st in her division, Madison 3rd in her division and Matthew Ray 3rd in his division. They have been training for the last month and their hard work paid off! We are so proud of each of them and their hard work...

Each of them on the home stretch...I love how Matthew Ray is cheering on and encouraging each of his sisters in these pics :)


Meredith 1st place....

Matthew Ray and Madison 3rd place in each of their divisions...we missed a shot of Madison receiving hers but you can see how proud she is in the right hand side of this pic....

Big Buds....love this pic!

Meredith’s First Valentine’s Banquet

Meredith is growing into such a beautiful young lady, inside and out. She has such a good head on her shoulders and continues to bring us joy as we watch her mature. And with that maturity comes A LOT of youth events!!!
This past weekend she went to her first Valentine’s Banquet with her youth group. To prepare for this event we went on a little mother/daughter dress shopping trip with one of her friends and her mother. We had a great time shopping for just the perfect dress at just the perfect price. We hit the jackpot with this cute little number…


I stepped into the banquet for just a few minutes to grab some shots of Meredith and her friends. These guys love each other and really have become family at school and youth group.

Meredith, HK, Chelsea, and Bonnie

Chelsea and Meredith

Rita, Bonnie and Meredith
She came home a few hours later talking non-stop about how much fun she had. We are so thankful she loves her life here, has such great friends, and has Godly leaders in her life that pour into her!
Here she is with her amazing youth leaders...

Our First Official Date Night....

Matt has been taking the girls on a date for quite a while and he has taken Matthew Ray on "buddy time dates" for a while as well. But Matthew Ray and I had never been on an official mom/son date until just the other night. When I asked him to go on a date with me he was so excited. He told me he wanted to get dressed up really nice even adding in that he would wear his dress shoes that he really doesn't care for. :) Meredith was in the bathroom when he came in to get ready and she said that he pulled off his shirt to change, flexed his arm muscles and said, "Whew! I gotta get my guns ready for my date!" I love this guy!

We ate hamburgers at Johnny Rockets and like any great date would do, he let me shop for a shirt. :)

Special Guests for Dinner

Matt works with Egyptian pastors. With that job comes lots of traveling to churches. We often travel outside of the city to visit these churches and each time we do we are fed tons of delicious food.
A few weeks ago one of our pastor families was able to come into the city to visit our home for a meal. We had such a good time eating together, working hard over Arabic (their Arabic is a little different from what we speak here in the city so this is always a stretch), and watching our kids play and sing together.

Here are a few pics of our time together.

Been a Long Time...

I know..I know…it has been forever since I posted anything to our blog. Partly because we have been so busy and partly because our small camera is broken and we just don’t “tote” around our big one as much because it makes us look like major tourists! 
So, I hope to catch you up a bit on some happenings in our life…
Here’s our newest family pic to get the ball rolling. Some have thought we were standing on our balcony but this is actually taken on the roof of our building overlooking Cairo. You should see our roof…wow…dust…trash…metal…wood…yuck…but we love it..it’s our roof! 

Still No Camera...but a pic....

We still are having camera difficulties...but a friend of ours did take a pic of us this past weekend. I just thought I should update the blog...so, here ya go!

Christmas and a Camera Catastrophe...

Here's a few pics of our Christmas this year...not taken by our camera...but pics to let you know how our Christmas morning went...no pics of our Christmas Eve because of camera issues...ugh...BUT we did have a great Christmas Eve with friends...we told the story of Jesus two different ways...a book and the reading of Luke 2 by one of our friends that dressed up like an old lady to read the story.
And...we don't want to forget the HAM...we had HAM...no, no picture to prove it..but we had HAM!!!

So, here are pics of Christmas thanks to April's camera and a little commentary to go with it...

Our friend April stayed the night with us again this year...Santa brought her gifts too!

Matt read the letter from Santa to the kids...I love Matthew Ray's stance in this pic...
Meredith bought Matt his first Egypt soccer shirt...
Matthew Ray guessed he was getting a Ben 10 watch before he opened it...He was so excited he had guessed right...
Meredith's favorite present...cracks me up...she got a lot of nice things..and this is her favorite...
Madison has asked for a doll house for 2 years...now she finally has one....
Santa brought us all tickets to the Nutcracker Ballet. Madison was THRILLED and Matthew Ray was NOT so thrilled...between scenes when the orchestra was playing he said, "Oh come on! This is like when a movie or game is loading, loading, loading!" :) We did have a great time together as a family...so nice to do something all together.

And again...camera issues...we have 2....and this is the ONLY picture that turned out from our night at the Nutcracker. I love this little guy...He makes my heart warm!
Now to figure out our camera issues so I can keep blogging!

Not Everyday do you...

get a holiday greeting from the pyramids!

Merry Christmas!!!

Santa's Helper..

Madison would make a really cute Santa helper. If it counts, she is a daddy's girl!

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth...

That's what Matthew is singing this year after losing 2 teeth, 2 days in a row!

Bil Hanna wi Shiffa

Our friends are in the military and graciously took us to the commissary here! What a treat!!!!! We were able to get great American food at great American prices! Instead of paying $10 for coffee creamer (which we don't ever do here), we got it for $2.62! Instead of paying $2.50 for a can of cream of chicken soup, we got it for $.69. When we brought all of the food home the kids were screaming with excitement as we got each item out of the bags.
In Arabic when you are given food at someone's home they may say to you, "Bil Hanna wi shiffa" which means "May this food make you happy and heal you." Well, I am not sure this food with make us healthy but it sure does make us happy!!!

A real live HAM for Christmas dinner!


Tostitos sell here for about $8 a bag...not at the commissary...$2!!!
Bacon...and do you see the biscuits and crescents to the left? We can't even find those here!!

Can you tell we are excited?!?

Busy with Visitors...

Our sweet friends, the Sprakes, came to see us this week. We have been super busy seeing all there is to see in Egypt. Many times when people come to visit it is busy but not this busy....why so busy you may ask? Well, the Sprakes have 4 kids of their own. So, when you add their four to our three and the adults to our apartment and in our car to see all of the sites...well, it is MUCH busier...believe me! :)
Here are some of the things we have done so far...

We took Santa hats for great pics at the pyramids...
We became quite popular when we got the Santa hats out of our bag....Little girls love to have their picture made with Meredith...

Madison waiting on us to finish riding the camels...she's content to just sit on the desert sand and rocks..:)
Night on the Nile...