Pool Time!

Living in a place that is SO HOT for so many months of the year, you realize that you have to figure out ways to entertain your kids other than just TV....unless you are okay with that.....
So we do the following:
Bedtime is now 930 or 10pm
Going to the park is from about 730 to 930pm
We build elaborate forts and let the house get SUPER messy
We cook all sorts of things
and Pool Time is ANY time because it is shaded!

 

I can't get the comments to work again. SO IRRITATING.
The pool is in the back corner of our house so Tom decided to cover an L-shaped portion which gives us enough space to sit next to the pool.
It was SO COLD the first few days because we didn't have a cover for the pool. We just had to make ourselves sit down in the freezing water. It was wild to have 120 degree wind blowing your hair and have your legs FREEZING in the water!
     

Ryan and Layla have gotten so much better in the water just in the last 2 weeks. It is amazing. We are so grateful for the pool.

 

Jael is our Dutch friend's son. He is the same age as Ryan and is SO CUTE. he makes this face all the time Wish you could see him dance. He and ryan are best buds. 

End of the School Year

I have had a few things in mind to post, but it has been BUSY around here. Layla was very sick for an entire week and now Ryan has the same thing )= Just a high fever and no real secondary symptoms. So we've been close to home for about two weeks now.

The heat is really coming in now....it has been around 95-105F which really isn't summer weather but that is starting to change. I don't consider it really HOT (at least this is what I tell myself!) until it hits 110. This afternoon it was 114 which is hot but the worst thing is even at night in the total dark it is still 100 degrees (= We are hoping to get our pool set up! We need to get a shade put up though so the water doesn't just heat up....that is pretty icky.  Poor Tom has about 50 errands to do to get this accomplished.

Anyway, the other thing that happened this week is the Certificate Ceremony at Layla's school! She is finishing KG2 and is going into first grade this coming fall! We are very grateful for the school and how positive it is. The principal has a great perspective on trying to educate a whole community and not just the student.

The big push this year was to have SOME sort of order at the certificate ceremony. Typically at big functions like this (which, honestly, rarely happen because women and men don't often sit in the same room) is that the kids run around everywhere and everyone talks on their cell phones. Last year the girls were in AMAZINGLY elaborate dresses. Basically on par with what a NYC fancy wedding flower girl would wear....hair all done up, henna etc etc etc. It is super fun and way over the top. There are also families who bring tons of big balloons, gift bags large enough to hide a small child and many other distractions. 

This year, they INSISTED the children wear their uniforms, arrive early an wait separately in an air-conditioned tent outside (I cannot imagine being the teachers and having to entertain 200 kids in a tent a 8pm at night waiting for their three minutes on stage!) The end result was a much more efficient and streamlined event. 

The afterschool program I do is at this school and the highlight of the evening both last year and this year was the Tae Kwon Do demonstration! It is about the only time when the entire audience is quiet and not looking at cell phones or something (=

Just to give you a sense of the room. Not sure you can actually see anything but this is a cool function of Tom's phone!

Layla is walking on stage with her class. She is the last one in this picture.

Here they are getting lined up for their picture

Her teacher is on the left and I'm not sure of two of the men but I'm sure they are in charge somehow. The guy in the middle is the vice principal who is a very wonderful man. He was with our current principal at their their other school in Sohar. He commutes every week in order to work at this school! The gal on Layla's left is her best buddy.

There is always a small portion given to reading the Q'uran. When this poor kid stood up he dropped the Q'uran! Not sure what his parents must have said later but it is a big honor to be chosen to read.

Thank you Granddaddy and Tutu Lisa!

  Thank you for our FUN birthday box full of goodies for everyone!!! We enjoyed watching Ryan trying to pick it up from the post office (= Thanks again!!!!

Ryan's 3rd Birthday

SO FUN that Ryan is turning three! He is such a happy boy and we are so blessed to have such an easy going kid.

These are the big sisters (= Layla's best friend is in the middle. She is from South Africa. The other gal is from Costa Rica. Layla thinks she can speak all the languages around her because she knows a few words in each of them (=

We asked for no gifts from friends so we got an array of very elaborate and funny cards instead (=

 

Here are a couple of his main playmates (= Collectively the thing they enjoy most is leaping off our couches on to cushions on the floor. It is the most played game every day (=

       

Yummy Food!   

Here we are! The cake is a fire engine if you can't quite tell. My favorite parts about birthdays are the  cake and decorating the house a few days before the big day!

The comments are screwed up again, but hopefully you can see that this is his birthday cake....a fire engine!

Here is the train set from Mom and Dad and Sue and Jen? maybe? Not sure. We probably need to buy another set of tracks the next time we go to IKEA. Thank you!!

This is the goofy smile we get these days.....but you can see he is happy!

Layla was SO HELPFUL to blow out the candles. She can't help herself!

       

Crazy weather and a new weekend

We love living in the Middle East. Life is just unpredictable and though that does get tiresome at times, it certainly keeps things interesting.

Lately the weather has been the crazy thing. We live in a desert which means that weather is pretty extreme and consequently it really really affects things when it changes or whatnot.  Lately, we've had rain almost every day for the last TWO WEEKS. It is affecting everything and has caused all sorts of flooding because there are no building codes (really, at all I don't think!) to address flooding. So all sorts of crazy pictures are getting sent from phone to phone of wild things all over the country as a result of the water.

The weather has been in the 80s instead of around 110 so we are LOVING IT. However, we have our own share of flooding, two burst pipes and really really dirty cars. It has taken Tom so much time to try and fix stuff himself, then find a guy to fix it the, get him to come back to finish the job etc etc etc. Any other house projects just get put on hold!

The other newsworthy item is that the government is changing the weekend! I think this is the craziest thing in the world. Living in Hong Kong and the US before, I never realized the Arab world has a different weekend. You should google all the various weekends around here. Anyway, our country has been talking about it for a very long time, but in typical fashion, they did nothing for years and now it is happening in three weeks (=

So we are having a three-day weekend! Normally our week is Saturday through Wednesday and now it will be Sunday through Thursday. As a person who sort of likes symmetry and order, it DRIVES ME CRAZY to never have a calendar that shows a full week. (yes I still use a paper calender!) Now at least, I can breathe a big sigh of satisfaction and see one week all on one page, finally.

Here are some random photos, by the way (=

The kids room now - the two pictures on the left are from Tom's grandma on his dad's side. Thanks Cary!  Sorry I didn't make the beds (=

This is a page from a book that she had and Cary has given a page to each great grandchild.

This one is for layla. I found a man who frames photos here in town and have had SO MANY things framed. This cost $15 for double matting and non-reflective glass (= 

Here is Ryan's "Jesus picture" from Frances Hook. My sister and I both had one growing up and mom got this for Ryan as a gift. Living in the middle east I am completely irritated by how Jesus does NOT LOOK ARAB, but sentimentality wins out on this one (=

Layla's Jesus Picture is the big one and is actually the one I had as a child.

This is a tea towel from Tom's mom.....I love the colors and the theme; Noah's Ark. Ryan just sits and looks at it sometimes (=  This is also in their bedroom and is where they sit to read. The bookselves are on the right and the bed is on the left.

I have thought about having it framed but didn't know if I was going overboard with framing everything (= I'm finally getting a wall of family pictures up in the next few months!

Chuh-bahmas

Here are just some random tidbits from life these days:
Layla had a sleepover today with her dearest friend Retha. She took a nap before she went and woke up desperate to talk to me about everything she had to pack for her sleepover. However, both my kids wake up super slow and her brain was not actually functiong yet. It was hysterical to watch her repeat the word Chuh-bahmas over and over trying to sort out what was wrong. I finally said "pajamas?" and hit the nail on the head.  That dear girl dug around for a big bag, filled it up with all sorts of nonsense (sorry Retha's mom!) and dragged it out the front door. So cute.

We went rug shopping tonight. We had 20 mins and bought two rugs (= I love knowing how to shop, how to bargain and how much to pay. It was SO EASY compared to our first time around. Granted we could have gotten them cheaper if we took more time, but we just had to move on. I'll show you pictures. This new house we are in has three more rooms than our previous house (office for Tom, office/second guest room and a large guest room.) Thankfully we did not have to buy more air conditioners....and there was furniture left here to fill two of the extra rooms, but we needed some rugs and it was about time to just go and buy them. The one for our TV room I want to wait on because I have a specific rug I am looking for . That is the worst way to shop here, but I have faith that they still have one somewhere in town (=

Layla is back in the swing of school. She had a bit of preschool paparazzi to deal with after being gone for three months, but I had prepped her teacher ahead of time and managed to squeeze her into the teacher's lounge and keep out the other kids (=

Ryan is talking up a storm and just being generally hysterical. He is now directing play time with us which is so fun. He wants to be a baby animal of some variety and wants one of us adults to be the mommy or daddy  version. It is all very prescribed in his head which is quite fun.

We had a time out in a park with my group of local friends. They were SUPER organized and very UN arab in their process (other than arriving an hour after their scheduled time). They had three or four plastic totes full of all the stuff for the fire and had fish to grill, shrimp, salad, and a pasta dish with broccolli (totally out of the box for them!) Coffee, tea, water and soap to wash up with, potato chips and a variety of drinks.It was a fun and freezing time. My kids actually wore their winter coats! It was really windy. So glad I grabbed them at the last minute!

Here is how it went down: "oh stephanie!!! where have you been? we haven't seen you? How was america? your family your trip? Ooo! you are a little bit fat!! (= yes, it is true, and they think it is a good thing after a trip to be a little bit fat (= awesome, no? That was all said in arabic, by the way (=

There is one girl in the group who is a sister and who lives in a different town. She desperately wanted to ask me if life in America was like it is on the TV shows. Dear girl actually said "but the men, they don't love a girl and lead her on and then leave her, do they?? Really!!?? I can't believe it!" Man, if she could see the stream of broken hearts from both genders...... Stuff like this is so sweet but so hard to actually correct. Her frame of reference is so so different.

anyway. I am getting super tired. Ryan had trouble sleeping tonight so I stayed with him until he fell asleep. It was hard for him to not have layla in the room.

Ryan being a little boy......

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Tutu Lisa - this is that shark shirt you gave him. He LOVES to say "Fish" all the time so this is perfect for him  these days (=

Desperate to beat on something......

Layla's Ballet Recital

It has taken awhile for me to get the photos to post, but here we are! Layla thoroughly enjoyed her ballet class and we will miss it this fall while her teacher has a baby!

Our swimming pool

I had captions on each of these photos and then they didn't "take" when I posted this. Oh well. Here is  wonderful Azeb our house helper preparing the place for the pool. She LOVES the pool (=

Layla was very eager to be helpful - this is such a fun age. Ryan likes to be helpful to but it is a little more symbolic and less literal (=

 

It was hard to imagine that for less than $200 we could have a real pool in our yard! With all of Layla's friends (in her western circle) leaving for the summer AND just the plain old HEAT....we decided we needed a little proactive intervention (=  Smart Hubby suggested the pool.

Layla - always ready to pose!

Ryan always ready to run and yell and throw himself around (= Tom says he is in a stage of "violent cuddling" now. So true!

645am

This is what I found at 645am the other day.



When Ryan gets up he goes STRAIGHT to the kitchen. He's done this since he could walk and it has resulted in several disasters if I was soundly sleeping!



He manage to pull a chair to the stove, open the box, pull out a donut, put his pacifier on the stove and go back to the table with donut and chair. His sweet little lips and chin were covered in powdered sugar from the donut! Crazy kid.

Hats

While it is actually overcast in this photo, it is offically hot and sunny every day now. Our white tile outside is BLINDINGLY reflective and covering our heads with hats makes sense. Funny how everyone covers their arms, legs and heads out here......it really does help if the sun isn't on your skin.

This pose totally captures part of Layla's personality (= What?!? a chance to pose in my hat and fancy shoes? Here is I go! Ryan is just happy to be around Layla (=