Wow, there's almost too much news for one month. To start with, Atlas turned a big two years old, and we had a great time celebrating with him and his friends. In no time at all he'll be asking for the car keys and bringing it back with the hydrogen fuel cell empty, no doubt.

Two big parties marked November this year, as they did lasat year - the Marine Ball, the U.S. Embassy's premier event, and the Glitter Ball, sponsored by the Australian High Commission, and much more on the, ahem, "artistic" side, rather than traditional. Our photos this month will give you a taste of the contrast between the two events. For the Glitter Ball, our table of ten was one of half a dozen or so tables that decided to do a musical skit for the audience. Our group did a take off on the Australian cult classic "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", making it "Priscilla, Queen of Dhaka". We spent a couple months conceiving of, rehearsing, and perfecting our skit, but in the end, as last year, ended up with second prize. Still, not a bad result and our group had loads of fun in the planning of it. Our big musical finale was Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", and I'm sure that now none of us will be able to hear that song without remembering how we all looked in our outlandish costumes.

Just a week after that, and we departed on our big three week vacation to New Zealand and Australia. Our first couple days were on a farm stay outside of Auckland, then we spent several days with our friends Todd and Nona and their kids Josh and Adam, in Hamilton. We got to visit the hot springs in Rotorua, and had a wonderful Thanksgiving with these other far-flung Americans. Our next two weeks in Melbourne were also very enjoyable, seeing friends, having lots of great fresh fruits and vegetables that we didn't have to soak in Clorox first, and taking the kids to some of the many parks the city has to offer. Of course a vacation with two little kids is rarely a true vacation, so it was nice to get back to our big house in Dhaka and only have a couple weeks left until Christmas!