Kids Love Qatar

We have been telling the girls for months now about how Qatar is such a great place for kids.  Well since moving here, most of our time outside of school and our home has been shopping for home items, food, a car, and just about everything that a kid would find boring.  The girls were finally about to see more about what Qatar has to offer for kids this weekend.

On Saturday, we went to Disney on Ice.  This was a pretty big deal.  During our last month in South Africa, we noticed that the show was coming there, but it was in August when we wouldn't be there.  So when we saw posters for Disney on Ice in Qatar, we knew we had to get them.  The show was perfect for the girls.  Taelyn was absolutely stunned with the Ariel parts, with her jaw dropped to the floor and constant clapping.  Kaelia loved the entire show and paid particular attention to little details like which characters were not on the ice but should have been.  She was also full of smiles throughout the show.  Afterwards, the girls showed us their own ice skating moves while walking back to the car.

The fun continued today.  To celebrate the start of the school year, our company held a Back to School Fun Day with bouncy castles, face painting, animal balloons, popcorn, and cotton candy.  This reminded us all of South Africa where these types of activities were available often.  Needless to say, the girls had a great time.  As we drove home, Taelyn announced that Qatar really is a great place for kids!

Reading to Mom and Dad

In Taelyn's kindergarten class, she is already learning the basics of reading and brings home books to read to us every night.  For the first week, she seemed to simply memorize the books, but this week, she really is looking at the words on the page and reading to us!  Here is a video of her favorite book so far: Sam and Bingo.

Getting Settled

Since moving to Qatar, we are slowly getting our house and ourselves settled.  During the process, however, there have been a few interesting moments.  Here are some of them.

1. We arrived to our house with our shipment from South Africa sitting in our living room.  With jet-lag on our side, Justin unpacked their entire shipment during the first night.  Here was the damage.

2. Our housing complex states that each tenant must care for the back "yard" while the maintenance maintains the common areas.  As you can see in the picture, you really can't call this a yard, and it certainly is not worth buying a law mover over.  So Justin has resorted to using some good old fashioned bush trimmers!


3. In order to buy a car, we needed to either get a loan from the bank or pay in cash.  Unfortunately, the loan process a little more complicated than we had hoped, and we were running out of time to get the car that we wanted.  So, Justin and I each went to the ATM and withdrew our first pay checks.  Ironically, the ATM maximum cash amount is so large, that this could be done in one single trip!  We have never held this much cash in our lives and probably never will.

Kaelia's Big Swim

Kaelia has been getting braver and braver in the water now that we swim practically every day.  Many of the neighbor kids join us each night as well, and that has given Kaelia some inspiration to take off the arm floaties and jump in the big pool!  As of right now, she can swim for about 1-2 meters before starting to sink.  This should improve as we sign her up for swim lessons in the next couple of weeks.

First Days of School

The girls finished their first week of their new school today.  It was a pretty exciting week as a family because for the first time, we are all in the same building as one another!  It was an especially big week for Kaelia who started her first big girl school.  The girls love their teachers and have already formed some friendships in class.  They were fortunate to spend lots of time with the new teachers' children during the last three weeks as Justin and I attended our orientation to the school.  So as the girls roam the halls now, they see many familiar faces and are always saying hello to someone that they know.

The girls reported a couple of highlights of the week.  Taelyn loves music class - she really can't stop talking about it!  And Kaelia really likes playing dress-up with all of the great costumes in her classroom.  The best story of the week that I have heard, though, is that when the girls' classes overlap on the playground for recess, Taelyn and Kaelia are happiest playing with each other.

Despite the great things about starting a new school year, however, the school day is really long for them.  Classes go from 7am until 2pm everyday, and they are exhausted by the end!

Taelyn & Ms. Carole

Kaelia & Ms. H

Summer Sun

This year, we had an extra long summer because our new jobs didn't start until later, so we made time for several little excursions.  We had lots of time with family in Ortonville and then ventured off to the west side of the state to see friends and more family.

Throughout the month of June, the girls got lots of quality time with their grandparents as well as Uncle Joel.  They went to Jeepers, the wave pool, Huckleberry railroad, and many many playgrounds, pools, beaches, and splash pads.  Then we all went to Canada with our best friends from high school, Adam and Michelle, and their twin girls, Kayley and Ryley.

For July, we spent most of our time travelling around.  Justin and I took a trip without the kids to Mexico and beyond.  Then we headed over to the Grand Rapids area in Michigan to see Matt and Brandy.  The highlights of this part of the trip were taking the girls to the zoo and to Michigan Adventure.  We had an awesome time!  We even visited our best friends from South Africa who stay in Muskegon for the summer.

We stayed in Michigan for a couple of weeks in August before flying out to Qatar.  There we went up to Boyne Falls with my parents where the girls enjoyed the local waterpark, pools, and playgrounds.  Justin and I ended that part of the trip by staying alone in Traverse City for a couple of nights.  It was restful and nice.  Then we ended our stay in the US with a few more visits with Kate and Brad.

One of the highlights over the summer was that we got to bring our dog, Meeka, back to Michigan.  Since we are not coming back to South Africa, we flew her to the US, and then she will travel on to Qatar.  It was great to have our families get to know her, and the girls loved having their dog with them for some good snuggle times this summer!

The kids had a wonderful time with their aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends - although they did struggle with a lack of routine and their own home.  It is sad to say goodbye at the end of summer, but we are looking forward to our next adventure in Qatar!

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Taelyn's Big Week

This was a fairly exciting week for Taelyn as two major things happened.  First, she learned how to ride a big kid bike!  We visited our close friends from South Africa, the Jettners, who happen to spend their summers in Muskegon.  There, Taelyn was intrigued to learn that Arianna recently learned to ride a bike.  She Taelyn spent a good 30 minutes with Justin outside on the driveway and managed to get the basics!  Since then, she has practiced more and more on her cousin, Jayden's bike, and we will be purchasing a new bike for her to ship to Qatar.  Here is the footage of her first successful ride.

Later on in the week, Taelyn finally also lost her "wiggler."  She has had a very loose tooth for about 5-6 months, now and didn't really know how to help it along.  We have decided that her first lost tooth was probably an accident from falling down, so the idea of having a wiggler has been pretty new for everyone.  While staying at Matt and Brandy's, they encouraged her to wiggle it around even more with her tongue each day.  Then Matt finally suggested that she just grab the tooth with her fingers and pull it right out.  So that is exactly what she did!

That night, Taelyn made a little envelope for the Tooth Fairy, and decorated it with a heart and her name before slipping her little tooth inside.  The next morning, she woke up and came right to me so we could check under her pillow together.  Inside of her envelope was no longer a tooth, but a Tooth Fairy dollar covered in sparkles!  Taelyn was so excited to see the Tooth Fairy money and showed anyone and everyone that would listen.  As of right now, she doesn't want to spend the money on anything because she wants to keep the Tooth Fairy money, but we will see if this continues.  She does have another very loose wiggler right beside this latest lost tooth, so another visit from the Tooth Fairy is just weeks away.  Perhaps next time she will bring a Tooth Fairy Riyal (Qatar money)!