1st Summer Stop: London

On our way home to the US this summer, we stopped by in London for five days to enjoy a family trip and to break up the long flight from Qatar.  We weren't quite sure how the girls would like London with lots of walking and museums, but we were pleasantly surprised at how much they absolutely loved the city!

First, we checked in to a cute little apartment closed to Regent's Park where we soon walked over to the London Zoo at the park.  The girls certainly enjoyed the huge open space and green grass in the park on the way to the zoo since we rarely see that in Doha.  They even decided that they were going to do a little "workout" (jog) on their way to the zoo.  We all had a great time seeing the various animals at the zoo as well.

The next day, we were quite busy visiting the Globe Theatre and St. Paul's Cathedral.  We took a tour of the Globe and saw many of the costumes and props that are used in Shakespeare's plays at the Globe today.  We also got to see the stage set up for the most recent play, Richard III.  Taelyn was most excited about the trap door in the center of the stage and asked questions about it to the tour guide in front of the entire tour group.

Then we got a chance to meet up with my sister who took a train from Manchester to visit us.  This is the first time that the girls got to meet Aunt Heather, and they had a great time getting to know her!  Heather came with us to several hot tourist spots, including the Tower of London.  This has always been my favorite site in London, and it ended up at the favorite attraction for the entire family.  We learned about the security system that was once used around the tower (a moat and wild animals likes bears, crocodiles, and lions), Anne Boleyn's beheading in the center of the city walls along with her tomb in the church next door, and the princes that went missing and were later found 200 years later under a stone stairwell.  Taelyn really took all of this knowledge in and has been telling everyone she sees about what she learned at the Tower!

Other sites we visited were Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.  The girls already knew a bit about Big Ben prior to the trip, so anytime they saw a big building, they would ask if it was Big Ben.  They finally saw the actually clock tower and never mistook another building for it again.  At Westminster Abbey, the girls went on a children's scavenger hunt to learn about the people buried there.  At the end, they got a huge chocolate coin to eat.

One of the biggest highlights of the trip, however, was seeing some musicals at the theatre.  We took the girls to both Wicked and The Lion King - my two favorite professional plays.    Both girls were so excited going in to the plays because we had been listening to their soundtracks everyday in the car ride to school during the last month.For The Lion King, we made sure to get seats right on the aisle so the girls could see the animals as they enter in during the opening scene.  They loved the show!  Kaelia kept reaching out to touch the animals in the aisle and was so excited to have touched an elephant.  Taelyn really loved Wicked and was intrigued by the story line of the Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's perspective.

To end the trip, we went to the Harry Potter Warner Brother's studio where we saw the entire set used to make all of the Harry Potter movies.  From Harry's bedroom under the stairs to Hogworts Express to Diagon Alley, we saw it all.  We also saw the costumes, wigs, masks, and wands.  Then the girls got a chance to ride a broom stick in front of a green screen just like the actors.  They were filmed and produced into a film.  See the final productions below.  To top off the Harry Potter experience, we also enjoyed some butter beer!

Kaelia's Broom Experience

Taelyn's Broom Experience

Our time in London was amazing for the entire family.  The girls did another photo scavenger hunt of the city and learned so much about this impressive historical place.  Justin and I also got a chance to run in the beautiful Regent's Park every day with fresh air, rivers, and green all around us.  It was the perfect way to start the summer!

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End of the School Year Recap

To wrap up the school year, both of our girls had little ceremonies to celebrate their accomplishments from throughout the school year.  First, Taelyn had a small promotion up to 1st grade in her classroom.  She received a certificate and then led an animal charades activity for us while other students organized different activities for their own parents.

Taelyn and Elliot lead Animal Charades

Taelyn is a lion!

Kaelia is Caring!

PE Award

The next day, Kaelia had a ceremony in the gym where she received two awards.  The first was the Caring Award for demonstrating caring behaviors all throughout the school year.  Then she earned a PE class award for having good sportsmanship this year while also doing well with her motor development.  To sum up both attributes, I like to think about a little incident that happened once in PE that her teachers told up about.  Kaelia took a really big swing of a bat and accidentally hit another student in the head.  The other student started crying, and Kaelia was so upset by what she did that she started crying too.  Eventually the PE teacher had to console and comfort Kaelia more than the other child!  I guess that shows that she can both swing a bat and is caring.

Other than the end of year awards, here is a recap on the girls' experience at school.

Kaelia - Pre-K:
Kaelia made her debut to big-kid school in Pre-K this year where she spent five full days of school per week.  This was a lot for her to take in during the first semester and was often very tired.  She grew quite a bit during the second semester, however, and had a completely different take on school from then on.

Kaelia has made drastic improvements in her reading, writing, and math this year.  She learned how to use both capital and lower case letters correctly and can count to 40 with no mistakes (sometimes more than 40, but is not consistent).  Kaelia can also do some simple adding like 1+1.  Her biggest area of growth, however, is her reading.  She learned sight words in class and then applied that knowledge when Taelyn brought home her own reading homework.  Kaelia is now on a PM level 6 which is the average level of the beginning of 1st grade.  More importantly, however, is that Kaelia loves to read to us!  We are so proud of her.

Socially, Kaelia had a wonderful experience with her classmates.  She enjoyed playing with everyone as well as independently.  She was especially close with the four other girls in her class in addition to her several boy interests!

The highlight of Kaelia's year by far when during her last unit on journeys.  Her class learned all about the USA and set up the classroom to become America while the other Pre-K classes did the same with Egypt and France.  Then they packed their suitcases, grabbed their passports, and went on a journey to the other Pre-K classes where they "visited" the other countries.  When visitors came to Kaelia's class, she got to be a bank teller and give them US money.  Kaelia developed a huge sense of pride for her home country in this event - especially when she learned about the first people to walk on the moon.  Because of this knowledge, she now has aspirations to become an astronaut for the US someday!

Taelyn - Kindergarten:
Taelyn started the year off on a very good note, making new friends and getting to know her teachers.  She especially liked her music and art classes, but did well in all of her subjects.  Shortly in to the school year, however, her kindergarten teacher had some family problems and was absent several days a week for 2.5 months.  Then her teacher decided to go back to her home country, and Taelyn's class took on a new teacher.  This lack of routine and consistently was very difficult for Taelyn, and the rest of the school year was spent on trying to get her back on track with classroom routines and her academics.  By the end of the school year, though, Taelyn made big gains.

Academically, Taelyn really excelled in her reading after Spring Break.  She loves reading signs outside as we are driving, and she recently discovered that she can read independently in bed after we have already said good night.  Taelyn also has been working on her writing quite a bit.  She is focusing on making writing smaller and neater in addition to trying to sound out how a word should be spelled.  This will still take some time and practice as she continues to get exposure to word spellings and connects how the English language is different from Arabic - another class that she took this year as a school requirement.  Finally, Taelyn has grown in her math skills; she can count past 100 and can add any numbers from 0-10.

Socially, Taelyn was fortunate to have a really good group of friends this year.  She stuck mostly with the girls, and there were plenty of them for her to choose from.  At times, the girls had to figure out how to get along with some many people wanting to decide what to play, and this led to some great problem-solving practice.

The highlight of Taelyn's year was when her class took a field trip to a nearby horse stable.  Here, she learned all about K-2, one of the horses, including what horses eat and how to care for them.  Taelyn now still points out the stables from across the city to tell us that where Al Shiquab Stables are.

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Kaelia - 4-5 Years

"Mom, today I'm turning five!"  This was how I woke up today - with a new little five-year old whispering in my ear at 5:30 in the morning.  Needless to say, Kaelia is pretty excited to reach this next birthday and has grown as a person so much in the last year.  I can't believe five years have passed by so quickly!

Academically, Kaelia has progressed quite a bit this year.  She has picked up on some sight words from her sister and started reading by herself, trying to be just like Taelyn.  It is incredible to see just how much she is able to read on her own now!  She is at a PM reading level 6 which is an early 1st grade level.  She can even read the entire 75 pages of Dr. Suess's Hop on Pop to us!  Kaelia has also mastered counting to 100 and is still working on identifying all of the numbers on paper.

Kaelia is very specific about the things that she likes.  Her favorite colors are (in order) blue, purple, and rainbow, and she is very particular about drawing rainbows with all of the colors in the correct order.  She also still really likes Frozen and did not care if she already chose that theme for her birthday party last year.  She still likes it, so she wanted the same theme again this year.  Lately, however, My Little Pony have become one of her new interests as well.

Kaelia also LOVES music.  She makes requests every time we are in the car.  Some of her favorites include the soundtracks from Into the Woods, Frozen, and Wicked.  When she is given time on the Ipad at home, her first go-to is Kid's Youtube where she watches different versions of her favorite songs that kids have created and uploaded.

There is also some sparkling personality in Kaelia.  She is a very kind and caring kid, and showers people with hugs and kisses.  She loves to tell her family and closest friends that she loves them.  In fact, sometimes she has to be told at school to keep her hands to herself because she is too affectionate with her friends - especially the boys!

Physically, Kaelia is now 42.5 inches tall and weighs 35.5 pounds.  She has been able to ride a big girl bike but has not practiced in a long time and has not mastered this skill yet.  She is very capable, however, with sports.  She has tried both swimming and gymnastics this year, and has a good deal of potential in both.  Right now she is just trying to figure out what activities she enjoys the most as she battles between wanted to do an activity and then just wanting to play without being bothered by a coach's instructions.

In addition to her birthday party last weekend, Kaelia celebrated turning five with her classmates yesterday, and we went out with the McInnis family today for brunch.  Kaelia came back with some face paint and a full belly!

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Kaelia's Swim Assessment

Kaelia has been taking swim lessons again this term and had progressed quite a bit.  Today she had a little swim assessment to see if she could advance up to the next level, and she passed with flying colors!  Here is a small video clip from across the pool.

Taelyn's Talent Show

The kindergarten classes got together today for their own special talent show, and the idea actually stemmed from Taelyn.  Our entire school had a talent show a couple of weeks ago, and Taelyn was the only kindergartner that signed up for the event.  She was a little young to perform with the older kids, so her teacher organized a talent show just for the kindergartners.  Taelyn got a group of girls together and taught them how to balance a spoon on their noses while drinking water out of a cup, and the four of them performed their trick today.  It was pretty cute.  We are so proud of Taelyn for volunteering and leading her group!

Friends, Water, and Fun!

This weekend was jammed packed with friends and fun.  First, the came over from Saudi on Thursday night with some friends and stayed the weekend with us.  On Friday, we all headed over the the water park in Doha where we had a great time in the wave pool, lazy river, and numerous water slides.

Saturday was Kaelia's birthday party; she was so excited that Ari was there to celebrate her special day.  Then we went to the clubhouse for some food and more swimming.

The weekend felt like another vacation and was a great extension of our getaway last weekend.  Now we just have two more weeks to go until our summer officially begins!

Kaelia's 5th Birthday Party

We celebrated Kaelia's birthday on Saturday by inviting three of her closest buddies from school along with Arianna and her friend, Maya, from Saudi Arabia.  It was a lovely day!

Kaelia decided fairly early in the party planning process that she wanted to have a Frozen-themed birthday party just like last year.  This time around, she was more involved in the planning, though.  We came up with some games and food ideas together; we even made Elsa's ice powers (glittery blue silly putty) as prizes for the winners of the games!  For food, we decided on troll rocks (meatballs), Olaf noses dipped in snow (carrots and ranch dressing), fixer upper fruit, and melted cheese sandwiches to melt a frozen heart (cut with heart-shaped cookie cutters).

Kaelia, Taelyn, and Arianna were also eager to prepare for the party over the weekend.  Each morning, they woke up before the adults and got to work right away on creating decorations.  Then they taped their pictures throughout the house a few hours before the party started.  Here are a couple of their decorations.

Family hug with the birthday girl!

Before the party started, Justin and I gave Kaelia her first gift: her own perfume (because she always takes mine) and Anna's coronation gown from Frozen.  Kaelia loved them both and wore them both to the party.

At the party, Kaelia was a great little hostess and a good sport.  She greeted everyone at the door and immediately brought them over to where the fun was currently happening.  When Kaelia won a game, she graciously gave up her prize for one of her guests.

After games, Kaelia and her friends decorated their own cupcakes.  We tried to put some candles in one of the cupcakes to sing happy birthday to Kaelia, but they started to fall over halfway through the song!  She didn't mind at all and then enjoyed her own decorated cupcake afterward.

Next, Kaelia opened up her presents.  She got a bracelet-making kit from her best friend in her class (Maren), a Frozen tennis set from her boyfriend (Jayden), a big-eyed stuffed animal from the other boy she loves (Eli), a Littlest Petshop monkey from Maya, a My Little Pony human from Ari, and a My Little Pony human and pony from Taelyn.  Taelyn was especially excited to give her presents to Kaelia because they are some items that we couldn't find in Qatar, and Taelyn did a little research among her friends to find out where we could find them.  She couldn't wait for Kaelia to open the gift and talked about it for weeks with me.  The next door neighbors also stopped by the party,

and Keira and Ewan gave her a little purse filled with rings and necklace that says "5."

Kaelia loved all of her presents and kept talking about how nice her friends were to get her such great presents.  Her best quote was, "My friends did even think about themselves.  They just thought about me!" as she reflected on how hard it can be to buy someone a birthday present and not just focus on what she would want for herself at the toy store.

Kaelia had such a special day, and we are so thankful that she got to spend it with such great buddies!

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