Baba's visit and San Diego: Part I

Ramadan Mubarak! May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept your fasting, prayer and worship and keep us in your dua'a.


Alhamdulillah, we had a wonderful week right before Ramadan when baba blessed us with a very short visit. We drove to San Diego and visited a few places, the high light of which was the sea world except i haven't uploaded those pictures yet! In the mean time you all can enjoy pictures from the wild animal zoo and the beach.

note: unfortunately as i was uploading i realized that the camera was set to the lowest resolution.


The Wild Animal Park

part of the wild animal park was a computer operated dinosaur area with over 20 dinosaurs. asmaa and abdurrahman were freaked out so only nusayba and i really go to enjoy this area. since it was only the two of us, nusayba got to take the above picture!

and here nuzayba wanted to imitate me and pretend she was afraid of the t-rex behind her (mind you, she was kind of afraid!)

Asmaa's hand against the ape's!
(subhan Allah--so much like a humans)

The La Jolla Beach

Back at home and the girls enjoying their last evening with their grandfather

Homemade popsicles!

Assalamu alaikum!

Yes, it's been too long! these are so long over-due i'm staying up after fajr (six o'clock in the morning) to post them...and you all have no idea how precious the next two to three hours of sleep are!


here the girls are making some homemade popsicles...they actually turned out very good alhamdulillah

a little too excited!

after the first set of go-gurts

the concentration is vital

then the second set


it actually tasted much better than it looked:)



some more concentration...




some five hours later...delicious!

My three musketeers

Our new bunk beds...

Alhamdulillah, this was a good investment and we can separate the beds eventually if we need to :)

yup...he's already sitting!


and racing too:)

My little Olympic Gold Medalist:)

During our trip north of San Francisco--Asmaa also got to swim:)

and eat ice cream!

this game really helped nusaybaa with her Arabic letters. we also wrote letters on regular paper and started jumping around in the house--she especially enjoys making me jump around!

Just Abdu!

At the jungle...

He can really jump!

Nusayba's old goggles:)

We drove up north during memorial day weekend and basically spend the day in the hotel:) We went swimming twice in the pool, but i didn't take any pictures (and regret it! :( )

This is an older shot (i think when he was around 3 months)

And this was just a couple of days ago:)



showing off our latest moves!

We miss you Nana!

Abdurrahman's cooing and Nusayba's reading!

yes, insha'Allah i will make an effort to take more pictures/videos of him insha'Allah. you should see/hear how he coos and interacts with us...it's amazing subhana'Allah!

Abdurrahman over a month ago!

We're now following the "teach your child to read in 20 easy lessons" and alhamdulillah, nusayba has really caught on. we only do 2 pages a day and only when asmaa's sleeping. she really looks forward to this "alone" time where my attention is just on her.

i think it's time i start incorporating some arabic!

Swimming

Since mid-March Nusayba has been patiently waiting for April 13th, the day she starts swimming lessons! I decided to create a calendar and clearly label 09/13 so that she would understand that it was some time to come. Alhamdulillah, the calendar wasn't a bad idea after all. I think she'll eventually understand the concept of months, the days in the week and that numbers go beyond 10:) Oh, the calendar also helped us keep track of the weather!

The anticipated April 13!

alhamdulillah, she was a lot braver than I thought she would be. They even ducked her face under water twice (after asking her to make a "bubble face") and she didn't cry or panic!

on the way home she exclaimed "a'jabatni alsibaha katheeran!" (I enjoyed swimming very much) :)