Things I'm Grateful For

1. I am so glad that I came here with my family.  I probably wouldn't do anything like this without them.  Of course, without Steve, I wouldn't have even thought about moving overseas.  But having Big E and Miss A here has helped me be happy.  They are so cute together.  The other day I was cleaning up from lunch and I heard a bunch of giggling, so I went into the dinning room and saw Big E playing peek-a-boo with Miss A who was sitting under the table. I took a video of it, but it's not letting me upload it, so if I can figure out what the problem is I'll post it. Try watching it here.

2. I am grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I am so glad that we have a church to go to here, and that we didn't have to find one we liked or that had similar teachings to the one we went to at home.  Our church is the same here as it is at home and I think that's awesome.  The only difference is the people who make up the congregation.  But we read the same books of scripture; we have the same lesson manuals; we have the same hymnals.  The sacrament prayer is the same.  The chairs even look like the ones back in the States.  Having church be the same has helped me so much.  After everything that I've had to figure out, church is not one of them.  It is wonderful to be a part of a world wide church.

3. I'm really glad there is a huge expat community here.  Because there are so many people here from other countries, there's that many more people who know what we're going through right now while we're still trying to adjust to life here.  We can commiserate together or laugh together at the many mishaps that happen.  And I think it makes us more likely to be friends because we have this big thing in common, and also to help each other out.  (It's also fun to go to church with people from Africa, South Africa, England, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka,  and the United States.  There could be more, but that's all I've met.) I went to a Doha Mums (a Mothers group) new member night last night at Red Lobster (yep, they've got a Red Lobster and the cheddar biscuits taste the same:) ).  I met a Mom from Belfast, another from Lebanon, another from Oman.

4. Most things are in Arabic and English; all the road signs, the food in the grocery store, signs at the store, the names of stores (the big stores are in English only, other smaller ones are both and I've seen a few that are just Arabic).  The workers, who are also expats from India or the Philippines, speak English, though some of them speak very broken English.

5. I'm glad that Steve got a job with school that he did.  They have been so helpful with getting our drivers licenses, or Steve's residency permit, and they support families.  There have been some frustrations with waiting or things that happened, but I'd rather deal with that than having to get drivers licenses and residency permits on our own.

6. I'm glad we live were we do.  To be honest, at first I was disappointed that we didn't get assigned to the community housing.  But it's nice here to have such a small compound where it feels like a community.  Having the playground next door is quite nice. The only thing that could make it better is grass, which the community housing has.  There are only 13 Villas in our compound.  Every one has a family with at least two kids, there's another stay at home mom; everyone who lives here is here for either Qatar Academy or Awsaj (The school Steve is at).  There is one man here who works directly for Qatar Foundation with the library.  It feels like a nice neighborhood where kids are safe to play outside in the street. Since it's a compound no one is driving on the street unless they are going to a villa.  We have a playground next door that Big E and Miss A love to play in. (The heat doesn't seems to phase Big E, but we try to get out in the evenings or early morning when it's cooler.)  We have even felt okay letting Big E go out and play with the other kids without us going outside, which is something I'd never have done back home, even if there wasn't a big canal next to our house.  Big E is getting to know the kids around here and loves to play with them, even the older ones.  And that makes me so happy.  I was worried that he wouldn't get along with the other kids, or before meeting everyone, that there wouldn't be any kids for him to play with. But it seems that there was no need to worry.  All day today, when Big E wasn't outside, there were little knocks on the door asking if he could come out to play.