Kom Ombo and a birthday celebration

Okay, I want to share some more layouts from my Egyptian vacation that I finished in August, but hadn't gotten around to posting.


After leaving Edfu, we continued our journey south on the Nile, and, late in the afternoon, we docked at a temple called Kom Ombo. This temple is dedicated to the crocodile god, Sobek, and I thought the carvings here were pretty cool. As we left the temple, we took a few minutes to pause and watch the sun set over the Nile. Kind of an awesome thing to see.

The layout pictured above is one of two double paged layouts that I finished in my QuickQuotes class at CKC Charlotte in August. I thought the colors on the paper were perfect to match the dreamy feel of the Nile River, with the mist rising low over the horizon. And believe me, this layout had tons of room for sticking extra photos on it. Here's a few that I tucked into a pocket we created on the layout:

That evening, as our boat headed for Aswan, everyone on the tour prepared for that night's "Galabea Party." We all bought galabeas... some had more elaborate garments than others, and a few of us bought scarves or headdresses to finish our ensembles. In full regalia, we paraded down to the dining room:

Ahem, you may have noticed that there was one person who chose not to dress in costume. What can I say? My man is certainly not a follower. At any rate, we all got a good laugh out of admiring one another's outfits. During dinner, Mohammed stopped by our table and asked a question. I forget exactly what the question was, but I knew what it meant. See, when we first boarded the boat, we had to provide a copy of our passport. And our passport contains things like... our date of birth. And the boat crew uses that information against you in the most nefarious of manners:

Yep, my birthday just conveniently happened to take place on the night of the galabea party! As dinner was wrapping up, the dining room and kitchen staff would come out beating on pots and pans and singing in Arabic. The maitre d' walked around the room, showing the birthday cake with a lit candle to each table, until he finally came to a stop in front of me. Then he drug me to the front of the room where everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and who knows what else, and one of the staff danced me around a little bit. I have to admit that, while it was a little embarassing, it was certainly the most memorable birthday celebration I think that I will ever have. Please excuse the craptastic photo. It was very dark in the dining room, we were moving around a lot, and poor Alton was trying to cope with my camera.

After dinner, we headed up to the lounge area and hung around for a while, dancing and just having a good time. All in all, a pretty awesome birthday! And on that note, I think I'll call this post complete. Still lots more finished layouts to share, and more silly stories from my journey down the Nile. Til next time, stay safe, stay creative!