Experiences in Egypt

Dear family and friends, We had a wonderful opportunity MLK weekend to travel as a family to Cairo, Egypt. We went with a group from the chapel on base. It was only for 4 days, two of which were for travel. We will be posting pictures from this trip for a while. It was an unforgetable experience. We hope you enjoy the pictures. This was a picture in the Cairo airport. I was trying to get the "Welcome to Cairo, Egypt" sign in the back but it didn't work too well. The kids were great on the plane. We began our trip on Friday at 7:30am. Flew from Adana to Istanbul, then to Cairo. Three continets in one day! We arrived in Cairo about 4, got to our hotel and we were greeted with warm towels and a fancy drink for all. Dinner and then a nighttime tour around Cairo, the city that never sleeps!
This is a statue of Ramses II. It is thought that he was the pharoah during the time of the Exodus. If this is true, I told the kids that the statues we were seeing of Ramses could have been built by the Isrealites! We learned that a kings beard is straight if he is still alive, and long and curled at the end if they are dead. Look at the statue of Ramses II. Was this statue done when he was alive or dead?
This was us in front of the pyramids of Giza. The pyramid on the far left was the first one, built approximately 2589BC for King Khufu. It was 481feet tall but is now only 450 ft. tall. The second pyramid (behind Brett's head) was built by Khufu's son, King Khafre. It is shorter than his fathers but is on higher ground, so it looks bigger. It was also covered with limestone at one point. This was built approximately 2530BC. The third one was built by Khafre's son, Menkaure. It is the smallest of the three and was built about 2500BC.
This is a picture Brett took of the second pyramid while Max, Marin and I were taking a trip inside of it! Max's favorite part of the trip was the fact that he didn't have to bend down while walking through the tunnel. It was about a 50 ft tunnel going down, then 50-75 feet going up. We ended up at a large open room with a casket inside. It was stuffy and hot. If you look closely you can see the tip of the pyramid is still covered in limestone.
This is another great picture - we travel hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars so that my sweet Livvy Leigh can play in the sand! I thought it was perfect with the pyramid in the back. All of the kids were great on the trip. We had one meltdown on the way home. Other than that, all went well. If you look closely at this pyramid you will see a little pyramid on the right side. I think there are two more behind that one. These were built for the queens. The Sphinx is actually off to the left, out of the picture. We'll post that later.