July was a busy and productive month for us. We started with the wrap-up of our trip to Vietnam (see last month's message for details), and soon after our return found out that we would be taking a quick trip to Singapore to take care of some medical and dental appointments that had been pending for a while. We managed to fit in a trip to the Botanical Gardens and to the zoo to keep things interesting for the kids - check out our photos this month to see highlights.

Another big event this month was Crystal cutting her hair (relatively) short and donating the tresses to charity - Locks of Love is an organization that takes donated hair and makes wigs for kids with cancer. You have to have at least ten inches of hair to donate, in case you'd like to consider it; Crystal had about 15 inches chopped off.

On the home decor front, we FINALLY got our rickshaw painted, and are really pleased with the results. We gave the artist pictures of our family, which he translated to canvas in the way only a Bangladeshi rickshaw artist can. We've got a photo of that too.

Things at the Embassy have been busy for Adham; the second in command of the consular section left post at the beginning of the summer transfer season, so the consular chief asked Adham to fill in as acting deputy until the new one arrives in August. It's been fun and rewarding to have the extra challenges, and it should look good on the all-important Employee Evaluation Report.

School starts again in a couple weeks - stay tuned for pictures of our little scholars...