the great easter egg hunt

after a morning spent at the beach (90 degree weather, turquoise waters, white sandy beach, all in our own backyard!), we prepared ourselves for the easter party at sara's. it was a lot of fun.

for most of the holidays, sara and her husband host the parties because they have a fenced in yard with a slide and toy house and enough room to put people. you pay 15 dirhams per child for a mcdonald's happy meal, crafts and prizes. then the adults each bring something to eat and it's a potluck. 

julian, being the youngest walker of the bunch, didn't really get the purpose of the games, but he had a good time anyway. sliding down the slide, playing in the kitchen in the fake house. he wasn't too into the egg hunt or the egg-and-spoon race, but sat like a good little boy on the eating mat and ate his (and tried to steal others') fries and nuggets. even got all messy with a nice chocolate cupcake.

i also learned that "fancy dress" to british people is really a costume like for halloween. so julian was sans costume for the party, but not the only child dressed normally. there were pirates and chefs, princesses, karate dudes, spiderman, harry potter, etc. and when we left, sara gave each kid a little goodie bag with chocolate eggs. really nice for serge to see who i hang out with and get to meet some more people.

when we got back home, i decided to bring some grape leaves (that was my contribution - that was last night's project while watching 'madagascar') upstairs to maha and her family. wouldn't you know - she made the same thing for her family as well. great minds think alike. hers are different, however - some having meat and others having tomatoes, while mine have currants and pine nuts and coarsely chopped onions. they said that mine was in the lebanese style. interesting to know, as i thought it was the armenian style, especially since all the grape leaves you get at lebanese restaurants here have like 3 grains of rice in them.

anyway, i ended up staying up there and chatting with her for 2 1/2 hours. and now look at the time - 12:30 am and haven't done what i was supposed to do. for the first time in a long time, i've updated the blog on time!