Farewell for now

Yesterday Othman had to leave. We had such a wonderful time during his visit and it was hard to see him off, but I'm so thankful he was able to come!

Whenever someone who is visiting leaves, my family always takes farewell group pictures in the yard. Of course we couldn't break with tradition and took some cute ones before Maria and I took Othman to the airport.

I love these ones in particular!

During his visit Othman and I spent a lot of quality time together, bought a car, he met some of my colleagues and saw my workplace... all in all it was lovely, and a nice preview of what it'll be like when he comes for real! Fingers crossed that his green card processing goes quickly and well!

Happy 24th Gus!

Happy birthday little brother!! 

Even though you're probably desperately missing your family (right??), I hope the road trip you're on has all sorts of fun in store for you! I always say 24 is the best year, it's a really good age to be. Enjoy it! Have a happy day and happy year!

The latest greatest news!

Lil sis Isa and her bf Matt are pretty cute.

The whole fam is a fan of Matt. He's all sorts of good (plus he's tall enough for the leggy sister). So when THIS HAPPENED yesterday,

our smiles were almost as big as these two!

Congrats both of you! Super excited and happy for you!

HBD Patrick!

Happy happy day to you! Here's hoping this next year brings lots of lovely things into your life!!

Tall big bro and I in front of his tall, tall workplace a few years ago.

Remember when I said he's generous? Well,for various reasons my salary is stuck here for the moment, so he's spending his bday buying me a plane ticket! Thanks big brother!!

Happy 21st Isabel!

To a sister who's classy, 

talented,

and loving,

happy happy birthday! Hoping 21 brings you plenty of new adventures, happy changes, and lots of love!

Little brother graduates!

All the Braga-Henebry boys now have college diplomas!

Note the double tassels: Thomas impressively graduated with a double major in Geography and GIS—Geographic Information Systems, aka a large part of what my dad does. He also got a music minor! I think he has his three older siblings beat!

O and I couldn't quite get there (neither could Isabel who's in the midst of junior-year finals), but I'm happy our cousin John-Michael and Grandma made it out to help him celebrate! I stole all these pictures from JM's and my mom's Facebook pages.

I love this picture of the boys—when it's just them you can't tell how TALL they all are! Plus it's funny seeing my dad in academic robes.

Huge congrats to you Thomas!

It's National Siblings Day!

What to say? I have the best siblings! We're all so different and unique and bring different things to our family to make a whole.

Patrick: the engineer. gets really excited about dorky things. ubersmart. the generous one. makes us laugh like crazy. 

Gus: the linguist. the social butterfly. laid-back. enjoys the good things. guitarist # 1. unfailingly cheerful.

Thomas: the geo-genius. the quiet one. guitarist # 2. the workhorse of the family. always steady. the gamer.

Isabel: the piano virtuoso. naturally-good-at-everything-but-you-somehow-can't-hate-her-for-it. the leggy one. master of efficiency. future best teacher ever.

Maria: the philosopher. the writer. the singer-pianist-organist. thoughtful. helpful. the (other) steady one.

Tessie: the artist. the teenager. the (other) one who gets really excited about dorky things. the guarder of colors. Dr. Doolittle.

We really are a patchwork of talents and passions and beauty! I love you and miss you all—just because I'm far doesn't mean I don't think about you every single day. See you this summer!!

Happy birthday Thomas!

Hey lil brother, remember when you were this small??

Well I know it's hard to believe...

  

But you're all grown up now!

Happy 22nd!!

Leaving for Morocco...

A week ago today I left the US to come back to Morocco and rejoin Othman here who had made the journey ten days earlier. It was a long trip, routing through Doha again, and since I've been back there's been lots going on here, so I don't have much time to blog. Big, big things that are happening here (think: job change) which deserves a proper post! As soon as I do have the time and energy for that, it'll come, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of my last days in the US.

Out to lunch with (part of) the fam:

Having a delicious homemade dinner, with siblings' friends of course, on a recently unpacked Moroccan tablecloth gifted by my in laws two years ago:

Cool phone pictures on one of my last evening walks with Bia:

And even an apt fortune!

Leaving was my family and their small Midwestern town was hard, I'm not going to lie. But my first almost-week here already seems like so much longer with all the things I've done and friends I've seen– longer in a good way! It's great to be gearing up for the school year surrounded by great people!

Two little cousins

Meet Aparcio. He's five.

And big sister Marisol, aged seven!

We all had a lot of fun meeting them for the first time and playing with them! Well technically we had met Marisol, but she was only a month or two old at that point.

They stayed an extra day after the family reunion, which was really nice because it meant we got to experience them without so much craziness around. Tessie, Maria, and I took them on a walk to the park the evening before they left so their parents could pack up the car.

They had a blast, as the three of us took turns playing various games with them. Most involved pirates... I think. Lots of running away from each other at any rate.

The only times they were still enough for me to take photos were while they climbed up the highest slide, or slid down and stopped in the middle, keeping away from the pirate or monster or whatnot below.

And it was pretty cute.

Then Marisol decided to come show me some of her martial arts moves, and I chuckled quite a bit.

Twirling got her attention next, since she had the perfect twirl dress on.

I really enjoyed getting to know her. We had quite a few talks over the weekend as she told me about her family's recent move from New Mexico to Oklahoma, and about her school. She's very excited to be starting second grade soon!

Aparcio and I had a few talks too, but more on subjects like: "If we swung this hammock really hard would the tree fall down?" and "Have you ever been to South Dakota? It's reeeeally far away!" Oh little boys...

They did seem to enjoy their visit though, and we hope they'll come back and visit us soon!

Henebry Family Reunion

Two weeks ago my dad's side of the family all came together chez nous in South Dakota to celebrate family love! 

We hadn't all been together in about 10 years, when the two littlest cousins weren't even born yet!

My parents hired a photographer for the event and I was waiting for the official pics to make a blog post. The families got individual pics,

as did the couples.

There were also lots of group pictures like this cute one of the boy cousins,

and this one with grandma and her grandkids!

The four siblings! Aka my daddy and his little sisters.

The weekend consisted of lots of burgers, alcohol, loudness, laughing, bonfires, music, and general revelry– just the way we like it! 

My cousin John Michael's new profile pic explains things pretty well.

Early on Saturday the whole clan made our way to the local children's museum which was lots of fun. We saw some animatronic dinosaurs...

I thought they were super cool!

But the sillies were scared.

read about some dinosaurs...

Thanks uncle Dave for the photo!

..and made our presence known!

The weekend went by quickly but it was wonderful to see everyone, and meet our littlest cousins. They stayed an extra day and we had an outing with them, photos of which to follow in the next post!