Easter Weekend

Easter kind of snuck up on us this year because we just celebrated St. Patrick's Day last weekend, but that did not stop us from having a jam-packed weekend of Easter activities.  We started off by making lots of various crafts together: bunnies and chickies holding suckers, colored paper egg strips, and egg-shaped yarn balls filled with candy.  Then we moved on to food activities by making an Easter carrot cake and decorating eggs.  This year, the girls experimented with multiple colors on their eggs and even attempted to make some minion eggs from Despicable Me.

On Friday night, the girls put their eggs and baskets out for the Easter bunny and woke up on Saturday to find that both were gone and hidden somewhere in the house. (We have to celebrate Easter here on a Saturday because we have school on Sunday through Thursday in the Middle East.)  The girls followed a trail of Easter hay from their bedroom to the upstairs living room where the Easter bunny left a new kids' Bible.  Then they searched the room and found their own Easter baskets.  They both received some books, crafts, and candy while Taelyn also got a Slinky, and Kaelia got a bathroom back scrubber (she loves those!).

Next, the girls make their way downstairs where they immediately started finding eggs scattered throughout the downstairs living room (since we don't have any outdoor grass space suitable for an egg hunt).  They had a great time finding all of the eggs and agreed to share and split all of their candy at the end.

After the egg hunt, we all drove to a new park that we have recently heard about and even got to bring Meeka.  Dogs are not allowed in parks here, but this park was completely empty so we gave it a try.  This was the first time Meeka was able to run around in a large grass space since moving to Doha, and she had an awesome time!  Kaelia also had a blast riding her scooter while Taelyn ran around and threw a ball to Meeka over and over again.

Finally, we went home, had some lunch, enjoyed our carrot cake, and the girls got to work on the crafts from their Easter baskets.  To complete the weekend, we watched the Easter movie, Hop, went for swim at our pool, and had a barbecue for dinner.  We all had a wonderful day and a fantastic Easter!

Happy Easter to all of our friends and family!

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Healthy Carnival

The PTA at our school organize a Healthy Carnival event at the school today.  Various vendors set up booths to educate both students and their parents about different entities of healthy living.  This ranged from firefighters teaching about how to avoid house fires, paramedics teaching about CPR, a yoga instructor holding a yoga session, and outdoor fitness games.

Kaelia's class has been studying healthy living in their current unit, so she actually worked at one of the booths that her class prepared ahead of time.  She had a bucket for visitors to pull out a picture of food to then stick on to a large diagram of food groups.  Then if someone correctly placed the picture, she handed out a sticker.  She did a great job and really enjoyed the booth - especially when she had a chance to guide her own friends through the game.

One of the highlights of the event was the ambulance station where a paramedic taught the girls about what an ambulance does for people and how to call them when an emergency arises.  The paramedic put bandages and a neck brace on the girls and then brought them inside an actual ambulance.  At the end, they got to set off the siren.

Another great booth was the fire station where the girls got to use a fire extinguisher to put out a real fire in the back of the school.  Overall, the entire Healthy Carnival was a hug success.

St. Paddy's Weekend

Doha did not disappoint this year for St. Patrick's Day.  We started the extravaganza on Thursday night with an evening Irish celebration at one of the hotels downtown.  There was a huge tent set-up similar to Octoberfest with a full Irish buffet, Irish beer, and a band that was flown in from Ireland.  Justin organized a table for many of the teachers at our school, so we all met up and celebrated the day.

The next morning, we took the girls to another hotel for an Irish brunch, along with a few other teachers from our school too.  The brunch was delicious, full of Irish food as well as lobster, steak, sushi, and endless desserts.  For the girls, there was a bouncy castle and a special kids' buffet.  During the brunch, a band played Irish music and some Irish dancers even came in to dance.  Afterward, we took the girls to the beach access at the hotel to swim a bit.

Top o' the mornin'!

Saudi Visitors

We had a very busy and fun time with some good friends this weekend.  The Jettners came to visit as well as some of our closest friends from China, the Boumas.  Both families now work at the same school in Saudi Arabia and drove over to Doha together to see us.  The girls loved seeing Arianna again, and they really bonded with the Bouma's daughter, Avery, whom we last knew when she was only 2 years old.  Also this weekend, we all went to seeShrek the Musical and Justin also had a hockey tournament throughout each day.  It was a crazy weekend, but very fun!

On Saturday, we topped off the weekend by renting a double-decker dow boat in which we brought food, drinks, and swimming gear as a driver took us out to sea and anchored near a little island.  Another family also met up with us - people we worked with last year
who now work for the same company as the Jettners and the Boumas in Saudi.  The boat was awesome, and the kids had a great time swimming.  Taelyn and Justin were the first people to jump off the top floor into the water.  She smacked her leg pretty hard in the jump, but was back up there in no time ready for more thrill. Eventually all the kids and men swam from the boat to the island.  Once the sun set, we had the music on while the kids enjoyed a good dance party on the top floor.

We are so glad our friends came for the weekend, and we all had a great time!

Taelyn's Morning Assembly

Taelyn's class led the morning assembly at school today, and she ended up having a pretty active role.  First, she was the first person from her class to speak, and she was very excited to start off the performance that they prepped ahead of time.  The class created their own versions of Dr. Suess's Is a Camel a Mammal for Dr. Suess Week.  Taelyn also came to school dressed as Fox in Socks today in honor of the week.

Then the first graders were highlighted for their recent work in music class, and they performed to a song with wiggle flutes.

To top off the assembly, Taelyn received another Pride of Principle award - this time for her risk-taking abilities that she demonstrated in Destination Imagination.