Do Camels Count...It's My Birthday Week~

~ Have a Very Blessed Christmas ~ 

Mine is a wildlife/nature blog, but for this special week, I felt a  desire to claim it as my own and share a little bit about from whence I come...I did include camels in front of the Sphinx, and that will have to count for the day.

I never knew my father Howie, yet he has always been a part of me.  He and his wife Eva raised my father after his mother passed away at age 4.  Father Howie and Mother Howie was what my father affectionately called them~

Dr. Joseph Morton Howell, would become this nation's first US Ambassador to Egypt under President Warren G. Harding's administration from 1923-1927~

He authored the book "Egypt's Past, Present and Future", which became controversial at the time, more accepted today~

Father Howie was one of the first American diplomats to enter King Tutankhamen tomb.  Below is on the first of 3 such visits that he made~

My father was Robert Breslin Howell, and he stands to the left of his grandparents.  His Aunt Lorena and her two children are also in the photograph above~

Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Howell and my father, when a young boy~

Father Howie on far left visiting the Sphinx~

My father's beloved mother, passed away at such a young age, leaving behind my father at age 4. 
* You may want to check out my SkyWatch Friday entry for December 7, 2011.  I shared in it about Waverly Hills Sanatorium where Mrs. Howell and thousands more died during the TB epidemic~

In later years, my father performed in stage plays in California.  That is him standing behind the lady seated center left.  He was also the voice of Mo and Noah, much like the characters in the skits of Amos and Andy on Radio Manila, among other stations at the time~

My twin sister Haze walking with my father and me with our mother in Oakland, California, where we were born~

I was the one with momma and always the one with the ready giggles, while my sister was more shy.  We moved from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon.  When we were 5, our family moved to Kentucky...back to where my father's mother had passed away, all of those many years before...home again~

Momma~

My parents Robert and Ginny~

Bill and I dated off and on for 6 years where we grew up in St. Matthews, Kentucky.  We were married after he returned from Viet Nam on December 22, 1969

While Bill served in the Army, I went to work as a flight attendant for Braniff International Airlines out of Dallas, Texas~

We will celebrate Bill's birthday on 18 th, my birthday on the 21 st, our anniversary on the 22 nd and Christmas on the 25 th...all tucked into one week~

Be sure to visit Little Red House for more Mosaic Monday entries from around the world!