Our First Visitors!

So you know the feeling when you haven't done something in a while and should start doing it again, but just don't get it done?  That's about how I feel.  So here is my attempt to get back in to blogging after a few months break.

December was a busy month.  We had our first visitors since moving here! My parents came mid-December to spend Christmas with us.  We had a wonderful time.  Steve had a half day of work on the 17th and the 18th was National Day and so that was the official 1st day of Winter break.  We spent the 18th cleaning house.  The bathroom in the spare bedroom hadn't been cleaned since we first moved in here.  We don't need 3.5 baths, so that one just stays closed.  We store things in there, but it was so dusty.  Steve vacuumed up the dust.  I've never seen something inside get so dusty.  A friend watched the kids so that Steve and I could clean.  Mom and Dad arrived in Doha around 11:40 pm, and by the time they went through passport control, it was the 19th, their 33rd anniversary.

Steve went to get them.  I wanted to be the one to pick them up, but I am not a night owl, and I didn't want to be so tired and have the possibility of crazy traffic with it being national day (it's kinda like the 4th of July for us). But I heard them close the car doors and come in at 1am.  The kids were up early of course, like 5:30.  So I did my best to keep them quite so that Nana and Papa could sleep some.  Miss A and Big E got to watch at least 2 shows on netflix on the computer after breakfast before I let them go in the guest room to wake Nana and Papa up.  Jet lag is a beast, but you have to get up and act like the time it is where you are, otherwise it'll just take longer to get over it.  Big E and Miss A were so excited to see them.  The first day we just went to the park and kept them moving without doing anything big.

We went to Afghan Brothers for dinner. It's a restaurant near our house where you eat sitting on the floor, and you eat with your hands.  We ordered one big dish to share - grilled chicken and rice.  It was really good.

Then we took them to Villaggio Mall to see the extravagance, even though that's not even the most expensive mall.  But it does have a water canal in it with gondola boats, like Venice.  The shops are set up to look like you're walking outside along the canal.  The ceiling is painted like the sky.  The first time I've ever seen a Tiffany & Co., or a Gucci, or Prada, or a Baby Gucci for that matter was in this mall.

The next day was Friday and we went to church.  Santa also made a special visit to our house.  He came to a Christmas party that we went to with some friends from Steve's work.  But Miss A threw up and Steve took her home before Santa came.  I think she gagged on something as she was fine after that.  But it was her first time to see Santa.  So our friends, who Santa suit it was, offered to come over before they went out of town and be Santa.  Miss A was scared of him and would not sit on his lap.  :)
This is what they did after Santa left. Ran to Papa.

 But after he left she said, "Santa, my house!" and "I sit on Santa!"  So it was a hit, even if she was scared while he was here.


While Mom and Dad were here we went to see:
The camel races again:



Sheik Fasil Museum (which is just a business man's private collection.  We went around with a tour guide for a portion of it and he said that the Sheik had just bought 160 cars from the US to put in his collection.  It's seriously the biggest collection of random stuff.  There is even a portion of a house from Syria that wasn't there when we went before):

Here's part of the house from Syria


We went on a Dhow cruise.  It was seriously chilly.  The day was cooler than usual, and then the sun went down and we were on the water with lots of wind, even when the dhow was anchored. Most people crowded into the tiny room to play games and talk after dinner.  Some of the youth jumped into the water before the sun went down.  The air temp was probably low-mid 60's.  Not idea swimming temps. Miss A did not like the wind blowing her hair around and so she stayed mostly in the little cabin.  She also refused to let me take her, so poor Steve was stuck inside most of the time.





I doubt the dhow would have passed safety inspections in the States for group tours.  There were seriously large gaps in the railings that kids could have fallen through.  But fortunately none did.




There was lots of playing outside:

And Nana and Papa reading bedtime stories.  This was the preferred arrangement.  Miss A seems to like men more than women.  She took to Papa right away, but it took a bit for her to warm up again to Nana.



We took Mom and Dad dune bashing.  We went last year with some friends.  This year we went earlier in the day and had a great time.  They all rode camels.  It was fun to see Mom's reaction to the dune bashing.  Steve had to talk the driver into doing a bit more bashing though. He was extra cautious with the kids in the car, which was very thoughtful of him.  But they are not scared of it, surprisingly.
We also enjoyed sand boarding (sort of).  They have a snow board that you can ride down a dune after you get to the camp.  We just sat on it and slid down the hill.  Steve had to talk me into it, but it was fun.

Here is the driver with mom and dad.

Saudi Arabia is the land across the water from us.

The camp where we played and ate lunch.

Here we are sand boarding, except we're sitting down rather than standing. I was nervous to go down at first, but you have complete control in stopping.  Just remember to keep your mouth closed.

The trek back up was rigorous, especially if you had the board.  Steve was kind enough to run down and get the board for me.

Big E loved going down and he also went down alone, but without the board.  He was pulling himself down.

Our first few days were filled with fun.  I can hardly believe that it's been over a month now.  Christmas was wonderful, which I'll write about next.  

And They're Off!

So on Saturday we did something new.  We went to the camel races.  It was quite a different experience than the horse race we went to last year.  But totally worth going.  The weather has turned nice, finally, and the day happened to be cloudy for the first time in a very long time.  It felt so nice.

Behind us is the starting line.


The first major difference is that there aren't any stands for spectators to watch from.  You drive along the inside of the track and follow the camels.  It's a bit hard for the driver to watch and drive, but you don't go very fast.

The white suv on the right of the picture is waiting to follow the camels.  He's probably one of the ones who owns a camel that is racing as there is a barrier between that car and were we could drive.  In the center of the picture is the tv camera that is broadcasting the races.  They get the start, and then guys sitting on top of suvs with cameras get the rest.

On the far left you can see a camera guy.


Another big difference is that camels don't run very fast.  As we jumped in our car to follow, the fastest we drove was about 35 km/h (about 20 mph) and that kept us at the same speed as the camels.

The third major difference is that the camels don't have a rider.  There is a robot that has a whip on it. The robot is controlled by someone in a car who probably owns the camel.  The whip goes in a circle and whips the camel.

As we waited for a race to start, one of the people with us asked the guy in the ambulance about the races. He said that one camel costs 1.5-5 million qatari riyals ($412,000-$1,373,400).  There was a lot of money at the races.  We saw so many camels. Not all of them were racing.  There were young camels, probably in training, as well as racing ones.

Here are some camels that weren't racing that crossed the street right after we finished a race.


One funny tidbit, a camels bottom lip flaps as it runs.  It looks rather odd.

Big E fell asleep on the way there and when we woke him up to see the camels, his eyes lit up.  I wish I had a camera on to capture his expression.  Miss A also loved seeing the camels.  Neither of them minded being in their car seats to watch the races.  And both were sorely disappointed when it was time for us to go. 

Happy Birthday, Miss A!

Yesterday, Miss A turned 2!  I can hardly believe she's 2 already.  We celebrated with cake and presents at home.



She has grown so much in the last few months.  She has started talking much more and putting words together in short phrases.  She asks where people are.  She got a baby doll for her birthday and it was love at first sight.  Today she has told me that she has put the baby down for a nap a few times "baby, nap", and she tells me when the baby is up, "baby up".  She loves to do what Big E does.  She watches him and tries to do the same. Most of the time it's cute.

Here's to another year of learning and growing!

Back to a New Normal

Well, we've been back in Doha for a month now.  Where does time go?

My flight with two kids by myself went fine.  I could do it again if I had to. The biggest thing that happened was that since I can't go through the body scan (which I'm glad for, I don't like those things) in the Tulsa Airport with a chid in my arms and I had no one to help watch them, I had to be patted down.  Why do you ask?  Because my maxi skirt, which I chose to wear for comfort, was too long. Are you kidding me????  What is happening to our world?  Modesty is rewarded with suspicion and a pat down. Anyway, that was the worst of the trip, thankfully.  Big E fell asleep in Chicago as we waited to taxi for take-off.  Miss A had trouble getting comfortable enough to stay asleep, but she wasn't fussy much.

Coming to Doha this time around was soooo much easier than last year.  We just had to get over jet-lag.  There was no trying to figure things out, no jumping through hoops or getting lost trying to get somewhere.  We know people and have things that we need to do.  Also, though Doha doesn't feel like home like Carthage did, my house feels a bit more homey now.  Maybe Steve coming two weeks before me helped. :)

To get over jet lag, which was completely different this time around, I had to just keep busy.  36 hours after I arrived in Doha, I started watching kids again.  The first week I had 8 kids (including my two) from 6:20 until 3:35.  I actually think it helped us get over jet lag.  Big E only fell asleep once during the day.  I reorganized my kitchen cupboards, which I had been wanting to do, I sorted through some things that I brought back with me and put them away, I cleaned a lot.  Anything to keep myself awake.  Last year I had no trouble falling asleep at a normal bed time, but we'd all wake up around 3 am. This time around, I had a hard time sleeping at bed time and sometimes wouldn't fall asleep until 3 am.  So glad that's over with.  

Big E is a  master at going to school, though it's taken this long for him to remember his backpack on his own when we walk out the door in the morning. :)  But hey, he's doing great for a 4 year-old. He doesn't say much when you ask him about his day.  Usually it's "I don't know" to whatever you ask. Maybe I don't ask soon enough. :)  It's odd to go from having him home all day every day and knowing what goes on in his life all the time, to having this 6 1/2- 7 hour gap of time that I don't really know what he does.  But he seems happy.  He has homework to do each night on the computer, reading and math.  He enjoys doing it.

Miss A missed Big E at first.  She'd ask where he was through out the morning.  Now she's used to it.  She is starting to talk more and put words together in short sentences, such as "where Daddy do?" (like go, only with a d).  She tells me when she's hungry and when she wants a nap, which is thankfully earlier in the day, so that way she gets to nap before we go pick up Big E

Oh, another interesting thing that happened was that someone in Georgia tried to spend $178 at Walmart a few weeks ago.  Somehow they got ahold of our US credit card number, made a card and tried to use it. Thankfully our bank caught it as the distance was too far away from our usual spending, and denied the transaction.  But what a hassle.  I had to wait for working hours over in the US before I could call and settle things.  Well, Steve ended up calling, but still. It is all taken care of now, though.

I've been asked to organize the play group this year.  Hopefully it'll turn out better than the last time I did it.  :)

Time in the Good Old USA

Here's the next part of our summer.  It wasn't quite as busy as we had more time. :) This is another post mainly for me with lots of photos, so if you don't want a photo dump, then be warned. :)

When we left Frankfurt, we found out, yet again, that Miss A's reservations was missing.  So after standing in line to check in like normal, we had to go over to a special counter and stand there for a while.  It's a good thing we were early.  They had to basically start all over with our reservations.  When I got back to the States, I called our next airline to make sure everything was set for my flight back to Qatar.

The video players were not working properly on our flight back home.  They would play for about 5-10 minutes, then start the movie back at the beginning.  So glad we brought something of our own.

Even though we got to my parents around 5pm on the 4th of July, we didn't see any fireworks.  :(  I was hoping that we would be able to make.  But we were so exhausted that by 8, Steve and I and the kids were in bed.  After like 20 hours of travel, fireworks just don't seem quite as fun.  But we did hear them. Sometimes I'm sad that my kids aren't experiencing life like I knew it growing up.  But then I remember that I don't remember much from when I was 4 and almost nothing from when I was 2, so I guess for now it's okay. ;)

My sister came the same day we did and so between her and her son, and us, there was 12 hours of jet leg.  My sister lives in Hawaii, so it's 5 hours behind Central Time, and we were on Germany time, which is 7 hours ahead of center time.  So when we were falling asleep trying to stay awake at 6 pm, she and her son were awake and ready to go.  We would wake up around 3am and she and Manu (her son) would wake up after 8 or later if an alarm wasn't set.  It was interesting for the first few days.  But we all eventually got over it.  I really do think that going west is easier than going east in terms of jet lag.  It's easier to keep yourself awake until a normal bedtime, even if you wake up at 3am, than wanting to go to sleep but can't until 3 am.

Anyway, the summer was filled with lots and lots of swimming.  Big E started to get used to the water and loved jumping in the pool.  He did take some swimming lessons, which I think helped a ton.

Here's Miss A waiting with me while Big E did his swimming lessons.

 He found he liked having an inflatable ring.  Now he'll wear a life jacket.  He started the summer unwilling to even get his hair wet in the bath (no worries, I still washed his hair, it just wasn't pleasant for anyone around :) ) and ended the summer jumping in the pool and excitedly telling everyone that he could touch the bottom of the pool and hold his breath.

Miss A loves to swim and this summer proved no exception.  She has no fear of the water and as soon as we said we were going swimming she'd get all excited and say, "Simming! Simming!!" and run to get her swim suit.


The weather was quite cooperative this year and it was much cooler than last year.  We were able to go outside in the mornings and go to the park.  We even had rain and got to splash in the puddles! I think this is only the second time Miss A has splashed in puddle created by rain.  The first being in Germany.

And Big E started to learn to ride a bike in the evenings or mornings.

Miss A liked to be pushed on the trike. Her legs weren't quite long enough to peddle herself.


Manu, Big E's and Miss A's cousin, was fun to play with.  He's just a few months older than Miss A and there were so funny together.  He would hit Miss A for sometimes no reason, and then she started bitting him sometimes in response to a hit, sometimes for no reason.  Ever since Manu and my sister went back to Hawaii at the end of July, Miss A has missed Manu.  She walked through the house calling for him and now she loves to watch a slideshow of pictures from the summer, particularly the ones with Manu in them.  :)  So I guess the hitting and biting didn't really effect their relationship.

Manu brought with him a love for The Piano Guys.  So we watched at least one video of them a day usually more. Peponi, Cello Wars, and So Happy Together, were the favorites and were watched most days.


Yep, even first thing in the morning, Manu would ask for Peponi and then all the others would join in and want to watch.  :)

Again...

And again..

Can you guess what they're doing?  Yep, watching The Piano Guys.  We really got our fill for a while during July.


My other sister, K, came and we got to meet her little girl, Miss E, who was born right after we moved to Doha.  Big E loved to make her laugh.  And she loved him.  It was so good to meet her; she's so cute.

Miss A loves Miss E, too, and asks frequently to see picture of Miss E. She also asks where she is.


With everyone together, minus my sister in Japan and a Brother-in-Law, we took some family photos.






Big E doesn't usually take naps, but Nana's house can be exhausting for little people.

My dad was a favorite this summer.  Manu started calling him Paka, and so that is his name.  Shortly before we left the US, Miss A started calling him Baba. He never made it very far in the door when he came home from work before these two would run to him yelling "Paka!!". 

We visited a new (and 1st) Children's museum in Tulsa.  Though not very big, the kids had fun.  They had a tape tunnel that was fun for Big E once get got up the courage to go into it.

There are many birthday in July in my family and so we had a combined birthday party.  Big E and I made the cake.  

One of the more practical things we witnessed this summer was the installation of a tornado shelter.  My dad always called them "'Fraidy Holes". But I think he's changed his mind. 

We had to test out the shelter.  It's certainly not a place to hang out, especially if you have claustrophobia, but it'll keep you safe in a tornado.

We also witnessed a severe storm.  Not tornado producing, but there were some strong winds.  It was loud enough that I got out of bed to check the weather at midnight.  We lost a maple and a large branch out of another tree.  

But Big E got to climb a tree for the first time after watching his aunt climb up to cut some of the limbs that broke.

At the end of July, Steve and I and the kids drove to Carthage to visit some friends.  It was a wonderful visit.  Not much had changed, and it felt as though we had never left.  I loved visiting with friends and catching up.  I wish we could do it more often.  It was very refreshing, but at the same time made the prospect of going back to Qatar harder.  I'd move back to Carthage in a heartbeat.  I loved our time there. We visited many more people than in this picture, but it's one picture from our visit.

While we were in the States, we had to take advantage of fresh produce.  Near to my parent's house is a peach orchard.  So we went and picked some super yummy peaches.  We picked half a bushel and then ate all the peaches we possibly could.  Peach crisp, and peaches for snack, peaches for breakfast and roasted peaches with cream sauce.  It's making my mouth water just thinking about them.  I also went to the local farm stand in Bixby and bought fresh fruit and things and it was so yummy.  You just can't get really fresh things here, other than the occasional cucumber or eggplant from Qatar.  As you can imagine, Qatar isn't exactly an agricultural society.

Miss A and Big E grew up a lot over the summer.  Miss A now thinks she can use a computer like Baba.

We visited a splash pad. 

I got to work on some projects that I've wanted to do, but don't have the resources for in Qatar.  I made two maxi skirts and an Nativity Advent calendar.  I really enjoyed making the calendar, and I can't wait for Christmas to come so that I can use it.  Many evenings for the last month of my stay in the US I spent hand stitching the figures and watching "White Collar". So enjoyable.

We flew to Utah mid August and visited with some of Steve's family.  Big E loved playing with his cousins.  We stayed with Steve's brother and the kids loved playing in the backyard, which was so lovely with a swing set, tree house, and a trampoline.

We visited my grandparents.

And we visited my family's cabin up in Weber Canyon.  I love that place. I would love to spend a whole month or more in the summer there.  My grandparents used to live there.  It's so peaceful and beautiful there.  I have so many wonderful memories of summers and even a few Christmases at the cabin.  While there we enjoyed some cookies on the deck, took a walk down the road to see the horses and enjoyed the quiet. And yes, I was a bit cold. :)

We then met with cousins and aunts and uncles and went to catch butterflies in Provo Canyon.  The kids had a great time chasing after butterflies.

We went on a hike one morning, and it was nice.  I already miss being able to get out into nature and not melt from the heat.  :)

After our week in Utah, Steve flew back to Doha (kinda jealous that he got to fly by himself and do whatever he wanted on the flight, but I did choose to stay an extra two weeks with my parents, so I guess I can't complain), and I went back to Oklahoma.  Miss A started to take charge when she was hungry and couldn't wait for dinner.  :)  She pulled up her own chair and bit into an unripe plum and a peach.

Bed time is super fun when Nana and Grandpa treat you to ice cream in your pajamas and you can fall asleep on the extra long ride home.  (I did have to ask Big E to stop talking after about 5 miles, then he was asleep in less than a mile. :) ).

That is one happy boy.

On my last day in home sweet home, we went to dinner at a really yummy bbq place, where I could get some pulled pork.  ( we ate as much pork as we could over the summer. ;) ) Then we went to the Bass Pro Shop to let the kids run around.  Big E thought the water fall inside with the fish in the stream pretty cool.  He also loved the atvs.

We had a great summer.  I can't wait for next time...