Future Inventor

Today was "Job Day" in Taelyn's class at school as the students learn about the communities and the jobs around us.  So each child came to school dressed as the job that they would someday like to pursue in life.  Taelyn has changed her mind a bit since she said she wanted to be a museum curator last May.  For the last few months, she has come up with a series of invention ideas and has decided that she would like to be an inventor when she grows up.  She showed up at school in a make-shift inventor costume along with her inventor notebook with all of her ideas to invent someday.  Some of the inventions are actually really good ideas too.  Her most recent idea is the Freezerwave - a machine where you put food or drinks that you want to get cold quickly.  She explained it as the opposite of a microwave.  We have already encouraged her to think about getting a patent!  Here are a couple of the other ideas from her notebook.

The Plug Purse: a phone charger built in to a purse.

And our favorite ... The Butt Bra: a bra for a butt to keep it from jiggling!

Early Thanksgiving

This year, we planned on spending Thanksgiving with our next door neighbors and closest friends in Qatar, the McInnis's.  However, they will not be around next weekend, so we bummed up the festivities to this weekend.  We got together yesterday for a classic Thanksgiving feast and were all quite thankful that we could get the necessary ingredients here in Qatar.  I was even able to find whole cranberries!

The biggest highlight of the day, though, was the turkey trot.  Qatar obviously does not have its own
turkey trot race, and this was always one of our favorite parts of the holiday in the US, so I put together my own turkey trot for the kids.  It started off as a shuttle relay where the kids took turns running back and forth in front of our house.  Instead of handing off a baton to the next kid, they handed off the leash to their dog.  It was a pretty funny sight!  Then the kids all took one lap around the complex with the dogs and finished the run with a home made turkey trot medal.  All kids and dogs earned the reward!

Turkey Trot Relay

Turkey Trot Loop around the Neighborhood

Little Readers

Taelyn has really taken off with her reading this school year, and loves to read and write little booklets.  One day, she overheard Justin say that his stomach was hurting, and she decided that she wanted to do something nice for her day to make him feel better.  So she got Kaelia and I together and told us that she wanted us all to make a book for him.  After putting our hands together and yelling "Girl Power!" she directed us to the playroom to begin.  We all drew pictures on some paper, and then Kaelia and I went off to play together.  This was not good enough for Taelyn, however.  She continued to make more and more pictures.  Then folded the papers and turned them in to a book format and started to add text.  She then asked me how to spell a few words while she sounded out others, and before I knew it, she had created her own little book called Justin's Race.  Taelyn read her book to Justin afterward, and it certainly made his stomach feel better!

Taelyn's passion for reading books has also inspired Kaelia.  Tonight, in fact, Kaelia asked if she could read Taelyn's homework reading book.  I expected to read the book to her, but she took over right away and told me the title.  Then page by page, she read the words to me.  She sounded out some of the words that she didn't know and needed help with a few others, but for the most part, she read the entire book!  The more and more that she read, the more excited I got until Justin and Taelyn, who were reading on their own, heard the commotion and came over to watch Kaelia read too.  Taelyn was also helpful if Kaelia got stuck on a big word like "hungry."  What is amazing to me, though, is how Kaelia could pick up the skill of reading without any help from us or from school.  She has not been explicitly taught phonetic sounds, but she showed us tonight that she can sound out words and identify sight words.  I think she just takes in what her sister is learning and tries it out for herself.  We are so proud of her and of both of our little readers!

New Water Tricks

Since starting swimming lessons, the girls have taken more risks in the pool and learned a few tricks of their own.  First, Taelyn has been learning about the freestyle stroke, but she decided to see what would happen if she applied the same concept on her back.  Without even knowing it, she taught herself the backstroke.

Next, Kaelia has been more adventurous than ever in the pool and decided to practice somersaults.  One day, she just came up to me while swimming and told me to "watch this."  Then she just flipped over and over again!

Finally, the girls have also learned about swimming between someone's legs, and they love doing this.  Just recently, they started taking turns going through one another's legs, like a little game of leapfrog.

Halloween Doha Style

Today was a fairly eventful day as we discovered how to best celebrate Halloween in Doha.  Last weekend, I happened to find some pumpkins imported from the US, but they were about $35 for a very small pumpkin.  So we decided to get by without pumpkin carving this year.  Fortunately, they did get to partake in carving with the next door neighbors, but we also came up with our own activities.  Today, I woke up and found Justin making pumpkin-shaped pancakes for the girls.  Once he brought them to their plates, he took out a knife and started "carving" eyes, a nose, and a mouth out of the pancakes.  It was adorable!

After breakfast, the girls and I made Halloween crafts and hung them around the house.  In the afternoon, we went to a Halloween party where over 30 families got together to get in the Halloween spirit before trick-or-treating.  There were several games and prizes and even a piñata.  The girls had so much fun!

Next, we went with a group from the party to go trick-or-treating in the expat gated community where the party was.  All of the kids ran from house to house, excited to get more candy, and even more excited when they knew the people behind each door.  Kaelia was especially happy when she knocked on one door and found her teacher there, handing out candy!

Once we had had enough of walking around, we ended our night at another friend's house in the community for a little after party.  A Halloween movie was projected outside while the kids sat on the front lawn to watch.  It was the perfect ending to a great day.

Happy Halloween to everyone from Doha!

October Break in Doha

We just finished our first week-long break of the school year where we, unfortunately, were not able to travel any where.  The girls Qatari permits are still being processed, and we cannot leave the country until we have them.  On the bright side, the Jettners visited us from Saudi Arabia.  We are so lucky that our best friends from South Africa have now moved to Saudi and are just a 5-hour drive away!

The girls had a wonderful time playing with Arianna again, and we did several activities all together.  All three girls rode a gondola boat inside our Villagio Mall, we visited a local market (souq) where there were animals to hold and pet, street performances, and a bouncy castle area for the kids.  The souq had various festivities every day as a part of the big Muslin holiday, Eid.

We also went to the water park in Doha.  This was a great experience!  The kids enjoyed an incredible kiddie area with lots of different water slides as well as the wave pool and lazy river.  Then the adults traded off to take advantage of the thrill-seeking rides.  The weather was pretty hot at over 100 degrees, so the water was a nice relief.

After the Jettners left, we decided to try out a few things that Doha has to offer.  First, we took a dow boat out to see the city from a different view.  The captain of the boat played very loud music the entire time, and the girls did a lot of dancing along with it.

Next, we spent a day in the heart of the sand as we booked a dune-bashing trip.  A guide drove us up and down sand dunes and gave us quite a thrill.  At first, the girls asked if we were going to fall down the steep cliff of a dune, and we replied, "of course not .... we would flip over!"  But before we knew, the driver did, in fact, take us down the cliffs.  We all screamed and clung on to the door handles as hard as we could.  The girls kept yelling, "I don't think this is a good idea!" but on the driver continued. It was once of the scariest things I have ever done.

Halfway through the dune-bashing trip, the driver took us to a few sites.  We drove all the way to the Saudi Arabia border and then headed to the beach where we got to ride some camels.  The verdict from the girls was that the ride was very bumpy but fun.

Although we would have loved to have travelled during this break, we are so happy with what we did get to do, and we are especially grateful that we could get together with the Jettners!

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Our New House

We are finally feeling a little settled in our new home here in Qatar, so we decided to take a video of it to show everyone.  Our complex is brand new, and we are the first people to live in our house.  We were thrilled to arrive and find all new furniture and appliances as well.  The complex is small but perfect for us.  It has a small pool, weight room, games room, and playground.  Families live in every house, so there are plenty of kids for our girls to play with.  On most nights, our girls join the neighborhood kids as they ride their bikes outside after dinner on the street.

Here is the video of our house.