Back by Popular Demand.......

Oh man! When I take a break from blogging I do not mess around! That was a hot second - a 6 week break.  I hope you will still accept me back. I'm ready to commit again.  Let me do a quick photo montage of December:
Arrival in DC  - not many pictures of DC since I was working most of the time. But I did get to have a little fun. I met up with my cousin Michael and his wife Bahar for dinner one night AND I got to go my Aunt Helen's  where I saw my aunts and uncles and cousin Nyla and her new baby for the first time.

First stop after arriving from the airport - got my hair did and my eyebrows cutted ;-)  My eyebrow hairs were super freaking long - if i didn't trim them soon, i was going to have to tuck them behind my ears where my sideburn hair goes. Sideburns didn't like that idea.

Little Eliana Louh - Such a doll

Okay so second to meeting my baby cousin, Eliana - the next biggest thing was my first stop at Taco Bell.  It did not disappoint. Taco Bell has come out with two new flavors of sauce Fire roasted and Verde.  Good stuff, but it tastes a little too gourmet so I'm sticking with mild sauce. Tried and True.

Then what to my wondering eyes should appear, mild sauce and 4 friends, Oh my! Oh dear!                                              

Then on to North Carolina for a work conference:

Christmas dinner with my co-workers at Maggianos in Durham, NC.  Half the table was still waiting for the waiter to bring rice to the table after we paid the bill. In Africa, a meal is not complete without rice.  Pasta didn't make the cut.

Moe's catered our lunch one of the days - mmmmm - I ate too much for lunch - then I just wanted to lay down a cot in the back of the conference room for the rest of the afternoon.

This is just a special one just for you - I spent an evening at this giant mall in Durham and was getting some photos printed in wolf camera store. This fine Wolf Camera Poster was hanging up on their wall as an advertisement for their ace photo services.  WHAT?????? so weird!! A) it's from 1981 B)That acid wash mess is nuts! the zipper on those jeans is like 11 inches long..no one needs to show off a giant pelvis in such a way! (more pelvis please) C) Those people are late for the gold rush.

Okay, so that was North Carolina. Then, I headed back to DC for a few days. I spent most of that time working, spending time with Sergio and his family and I hung out with one of my greatest friends, Genie:

We had a good old time. We went to this trendy pizza joint that has PEPPERONI DIPPING SAUCE. I'll never forget it. And we spent a few hours together talking and catching up, which was also nice ;-). LOVE GENIE!

Then, on to Kansas City for Christmas! It was a full week with my dad, stepmom, and younger brother and sister in town and my mom there and my older brother and his wife and kids. Sergio flew in on Christmas day so we got to be there together a bit. It was good times.
Also had lunch with my favorite Shanny C, but no photo to show for it ;-(

He's like a little duck. He does this think where he scoots/bounces on his behind without his hands all the way across the room. America's got talent.

It's her real life baby doll. She always says, "isn't he so cuuuute?"

My brother Jason, owning the sofa....And Batman

Baby Hewey. He looks so big here! He's only 13 months old! haha

Dont mind the evil eyebrow..i love my little sophia

with a fresh manicure and her first lashing of eyeshadow and lip gloss. She was feeling it too.

my beautiful sister

Love him!

We worked on Sophia's Lotus pose - she had no idea her legs could do that till Auntie Lenna came around.

Okay so that was Christmas -
Then we flew back to DC. We celebrated Aunt Amal's birthday, new years eve, and my cousin Deena's new baby Simeon's baptism! lots of celebrations!

Happy Birthday to our Matriarch! We love Aunt Amal

Mikey and Bahar

Me and Mom at Aunt Amal's lunch

 Then on to New Years:

Very Low Key New Years Eve. I was a bit under the weather (damn kids and their germs) so we ended up having to cancel our big plans and we just had a really nice time at a nice bar in Arlington. A couple of Sergio's friends came out and that was that. We wanted to make sure we were able to rest up and be in good form for our drive to Harrisonburg for the baptism!

The baptism of little Simeon! Such a cutie pie! I didn't get any photos with him though cause he was a sleepy little thing once he got done with his busy baptism morning.

Then we had 1.5 days left in DC - which I spent with my mom who was in town. We did some shopping and had good times.
Then we said good bye to DC ;-(

Key Bridge - courtesy of Joy Khalil's Droid

We left DC on Jan 3 and flew to Amsterdam..Landed there at like 2am and had until 6am to try to find a place to get some rest before the flight to Nairobi:

Damn armrests. All we wanted to do was sleep and there was NOWHERE.

Now, we're back in Nairobi - Or I should say I am back in Nairobi. Sergio was here with me for a couple of weeks but just left last night to move back home ;-( Definitely feeling the blues right now. So I'll leave you with the following link:
Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel