Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
We Got New Jobs!
After a long and very stressful few months of job hunting, applications, and interviews, we have finally found a good fit for our family for next school year and have both accepted jobs. Our next adventure will be Doha, Qatar!
Qatar is the richest country in the world, consisting of 250,000 Qatri, the rest expats. It is going to be hot and sandy, but a modern place with lots of building going on (World Cup in 2022). Housing is nice with a close community, exactly what we were looking for. This was actually the deciding factor as we battled offers between Qatar; Chennai, India; and Krakow, Poland.
I will be teaching MYP Humanities and moving up into HS English as the school expands, eventually getting IB DP. Justin was given the role as Student Support Services Coordinator, overseeing ELL, Learning Support, Counselors, and Admissions. This is such a great opportunity to work in administration at this point in hiscareer!
The school is getting overhauled, planning for the big growth and expansion of students. It will be a lot of work, some struggles, and in temporary facilities for a few years while they build a state-of-the art school to match the futuristic medical facility it serves, but what a great chance to help grow something awesome.
Qatar is the richest country in the world, consisting of 250,000 Qatri, the rest expats. It is going to be hot and sandy, but a modern place with lots of building going on (World Cup in 2022). Housing is nice with a close community, exactly what we were looking for. This was actually the deciding factor as we battled offers between Qatar; Chennai, India; and Krakow, Poland.
I will be teaching MYP Humanities and moving up into HS English as the school expands, eventually getting IB DP. Justin was given the role as Student Support Services Coordinator, overseeing ELL, Learning Support, Counselors, and Admissions. This is such a great opportunity to work in administration at this point in hiscareer!
The school is getting overhauled, planning for the big growth and expansion of students. It will be a lot of work, some struggles, and in temporary facilities for a few years while they build a state-of-the art school to match the futuristic medical facility it serves, but what a great chance to help grow something awesome.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Christmas Preparations
As we prepare for Christmas, our family took out our Christmas supplies and completed the necessary tasks: putting up the tree and making Christmas cookies. The girls were eager to help decorate the tree as usual. Taelyn wanted to spend time with each individual ornament and play with the decorations while Kaelia was a decorating machine. One by one, she grabbed ornaments and went to and from the tree. In fact, by the end of the decorating we couldn't find the star for the top of the tree. We searched all over the house and eventually found it hung on the tree in the back as a part of Kaelia's mission to decorate the tree. Taelyn did the honors by placing the star on top of the tree.
The girls' best friend, Arianna, then came over to make Christmas cookies. Each girl helped cut out various shapes and then decorated their cookies with frosting and sprinkles. The best part was, of course, eating the cookies afterwards.
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The girls' best friend, Arianna, then came over to make Christmas cookies. Each girl helped cut out various shapes and then decorated their cookies with frosting and sprinkles. The best part was, of course, eating the cookies afterwards.
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Next, we took the girls to Sleeping Beauty on Ice to spark the Christmas spirit. It was a fantastic ice show that also included acrobatic scenes similar to Cirque de Soleil and ballet on the ice. The girls loved the show. At intermission, they pretended to ice skate in the hallways outside the theatre and re-enacted most of the first half of the show. Taelyn was especially excited about the fire on the ice, and Kaelia loved anything to do with the "black ones" (the bad guys dressed in black).
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Taking on New Feats
Taelyn has been a bit of a daredevil lately as she takes on new challenges that she would never do before. First, she started swimming from the shallow end of a pool to the deep end. Before, she would only try to swim in the shallow end. Just this weekend, she even jumped in to the pool from the deep end and swam all the way to the other end!
Taelyn has also attempted to actually ride her bike. It is a training bike, meaning it is just like a regular bike, but there are no pedals at all. Kids are supposed to learn how to balance on these types of bikes by pushing their feet off the ground and lifting their feet up once they gain enough momentum. The process is supposed to bypass training wheels altogether. Taelyn has been pushing herself around for about a year, but never really had the courage to lift up her feet. But today we met up with Arianna at the skate park across the street, and Taelyn watched Arianna ride her same type of bike from a high ramp down to the bottom. So Taelyn decided to try it to. It was a bit scary as she went zooming down the ramp, moving her handle bars a bit from side to side with her legs flailing! But she did make it to the bottom and continued the same process, getting a little more graceful each time. I don't actually have a video of this, unfortunately, so I'll have to capture the feat at a later time.
Taelyn has also attempted to actually ride her bike. It is a training bike, meaning it is just like a regular bike, but there are no pedals at all. Kids are supposed to learn how to balance on these types of bikes by pushing their feet off the ground and lifting their feet up once they gain enough momentum. The process is supposed to bypass training wheels altogether. Taelyn has been pushing herself around for about a year, but never really had the courage to lift up her feet. But today we met up with Arianna at the skate park across the street, and Taelyn watched Arianna ride her same type of bike from a high ramp down to the bottom. So Taelyn decided to try it to. It was a bit scary as she went zooming down the ramp, moving her handle bars a bit from side to side with her legs flailing! But she did make it to the bottom and continued the same process, getting a little more graceful each time. I don't actually have a video of this, unfortunately, so I'll have to capture the feat at a later time.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Turkey Day at the Beach
It has become a bit of a tradition for us in South Africa to spend our Thanksgiving at the beach in Durban. I didn't really realize that this was a tradition until Taelyn pointed it out to me the other day. The beach is what she remembers from Thanksgiving, so we wanted to make sure we continued that tradition this year.
Sadly, the weekend was not a blissful as we had planned. Justin drove seven hours down to Durban through heavy rains, terrible visibility, and car accidents on the side of the road. He got us to our rented beach apartment safely late at night on Wednesday, but then I started to not feel very well. I spent the night with a fever, chills, and a migraine and continued down that path for the next several days. Bedridden on Thursday morning, it became apparent that Justin was going to have to cook Thanksgiving dinner all on his own.
Justin did a great job getting dinner ready and stepped out for a little while to go for a run. My only job for the day was to take the pumpkin pie cheesecake out of the oven when the buzzer went off while Justin was gone. So I got out of bed to complete this task, but as I pulled the rack a bit out of the oven, the pie dishes went flying out and crashed on to the floor. One of the glass dishes shattered all over the floor while the other pie flipped upside down! The girls and I just stood there in shock as Kaelia yelled out, "Mom, look at the pies!" Just then, Justin walked in and saw the disaster. Aside from the pie episode, dinner was delicious; we even ate the upside down pie even though it looked a lot more like crumble.
For the rest of the trip, I was still sick, but we all managed to get out each day to see some sights. One day we visited the Durban Aquarium where the girls were fascinated by all of the fish, sharks, and turtles. Another day, we went to a small water park and enjoyed the water slides and lazy river. Taelyn absolutely loved the park while Kaelia struggled to stay warm. She did eventually try out one of the water slides and the lazy river, and she seemed to enjoy it.
Other than some day trips, we spent most of our time at the pool, the playground, and the beach. The waves on the beach were pretty big - lots of surfers took advantage of them each morning. They were a little too harsh for the girls to fully swim, but they loved running in and out of the waves and playing with sand toys.
Overall, it was a nice, relaxing weekend with some difficult hiccups to overcome here and there. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of the weekend, but here are a few.
On a side note, Taelyn also had her Thanksgiving feast at school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It was a really nice celebration for all of the pre-K students, and they each chose to dress up as either pilgrims or Native Americans. Taelyn decided on a pigrim girl because she got to wear a skirt. Here are some pictures of the event.
Sadly, the weekend was not a blissful as we had planned. Justin drove seven hours down to Durban through heavy rains, terrible visibility, and car accidents on the side of the road. He got us to our rented beach apartment safely late at night on Wednesday, but then I started to not feel very well. I spent the night with a fever, chills, and a migraine and continued down that path for the next several days. Bedridden on Thursday morning, it became apparent that Justin was going to have to cook Thanksgiving dinner all on his own.
Justin did a great job getting dinner ready and stepped out for a little while to go for a run. My only job for the day was to take the pumpkin pie cheesecake out of the oven when the buzzer went off while Justin was gone. So I got out of bed to complete this task, but as I pulled the rack a bit out of the oven, the pie dishes went flying out and crashed on to the floor. One of the glass dishes shattered all over the floor while the other pie flipped upside down! The girls and I just stood there in shock as Kaelia yelled out, "Mom, look at the pies!" Just then, Justin walked in and saw the disaster. Aside from the pie episode, dinner was delicious; we even ate the upside down pie even though it looked a lot more like crumble.
For the rest of the trip, I was still sick, but we all managed to get out each day to see some sights. One day we visited the Durban Aquarium where the girls were fascinated by all of the fish, sharks, and turtles. Another day, we went to a small water park and enjoyed the water slides and lazy river. Taelyn absolutely loved the park while Kaelia struggled to stay warm. She did eventually try out one of the water slides and the lazy river, and she seemed to enjoy it.
Other than some day trips, we spent most of our time at the pool, the playground, and the beach. The waves on the beach were pretty big - lots of surfers took advantage of them each morning. They were a little too harsh for the girls to fully swim, but they loved running in and out of the waves and playing with sand toys.
Overall, it was a nice, relaxing weekend with some difficult hiccups to overcome here and there. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of the weekend, but here are a few.
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| This free picture slideshow generated with Smilebox |
On a side note, Taelyn also had her Thanksgiving feast at school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It was a really nice celebration for all of the pre-K students, and they each chose to dress up as either pilgrims or Native Americans. Taelyn decided on a pigrim girl because she got to wear a skirt. Here are some pictures of the event.
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