Lessons learned

I've had some time to reflect on what went well and what really didn't during this, our first summer home as expats.  Some things we lucked into doing right, but many things will need to be changed next time around.  Wanna hear?  Even if you don't, I'm going to tell so I can remember for next year.

• Flying: This time we flew into JFK, which left us a really long flight (after an already long flight) to SLC which was always going to be a bear but was awful after a delay longer than the flight itself.  And we flew out of O'Hare, and I have never, never, EVER left on time from O'hare so perhaps we should avoid that airport altogether.  In an ideal world, we would fly overnight both to and from Doha but there are very few overnight flights heading out and most of them leave around 1am.  However, I almost think that would be better.  Almost....  Some people suggest breaking your trip into two legs and staying in a hotel somewhere on the way.  I think this might also be a good idea, though I'm not sure how doing so would affect the ticket prices.  Maybe we could even stay a week somewhere else along the way, which might give us a chance to see some of our old friends who are scattered almost everywhere there's a major airport.  We shall see....

  

  See how smily we were on the flight out?  J crashed right after this pic and E is already asleep.  Notice there are no pictures from the flight home.  I didn't have a spare hand!

• Timing: We left the day after school got out and we came back about 10 days before school began.  I think leaving that early was a good idea, but we could have left even earlier given how bizarre and unnecessary the last two days of school were.  As for coming back, I think we could give ourselves just a week to get reacclimatized, but I wouldn't want to give us any less time than that.   Returning to Doha time was much, MUCH more difficult than getting ourselves on US time on when we arrived, for some reason, so I think we need a good week before school starts to get ready.

  

  The night before we left for our two month tour, the last day of school.  (We are all in long sleeves because that spot is the coldest in our house, where three air conditioning systems converge.)

• Scheduling:  This time around the husband was there with us for the first half of our vacation and then he left to go home.  That was a mistake, on many levels.  First of all, he missed Ramadan here, which was silly because work hours are shortened dramatically during Ramadan, so he wasn't able to take advantage of that at all.  Second, after he left, the boys felt like the party was over and vacation became much more like work for them (the husband really is the fun parent!).  It would be much more sensible for us to go over on our own and then for him to join us for the second half of the break and come home with us so the boys have something to look forward to and we have two parents instead of one when tempers start to rise and behavior starts to plummet as our vacation goes on and on.  Granted, our scheduling will largely depend on the timing of family reunions and things some summers, but hopefully we will still be able to figure out schedules that will work for us.

  

  Assorted fun times before Daddy went home!

  

  
  

  
• Shopping: In this area, we actually did pretty well.  I was only unable to bring home one big item, a giant laminated world map that was just too long to fit into our suitcases and I couldn't see carrying it on with me while wrangling the boys at the same time.  Pound-wise, we came in under our limit, though I did discover that our luggage scale is about a pound off from the scales at American airlines, and so I did have to do one bit of shuffling from one checked bag into one of my carry-ons at check-in, but that wasn't a big deal.  And so far, at least, the list we made has turned out to be a good one.  I just finished (finally!) unloading all the toiletries and medicines and food and kitchen things and school supplies we bought and storing them in various bins and tubs and cabinets, and it looks like we are pretty well stocked, which is great! In fact, the husband may not have to stuff his suitcases to the gills when he goes to the States in December.  I know he's happy at even the thought that he might get to skip his quarterly jaunt to Walmart and the fun packing in the parking lot that comes with it!  Of course, I may change my mind between now and then....mama may need a new pair of shoes or two!  (Not from Walmart, of course!)  And these boys of mine keep growing, so I'm not ruling out their needing new pj's AGAIN (sheesh!).
• Playing: Someone told me to be careful not to make vacation too fun or the kids won't want to come back.  While there is definitely some wisdom there, I also feel like we don't want vacation to be a drag.  Finding that balance was tricky this summer.  Again, I think we did better during the first month than the second; by then, we were all flagging, sadly.  We did spend some time with various cousins, and I think the boys would be happiest if we increased our time with them considerably, so next year we will work on that, too.

Random picture from the temple. The scruffy attire happened on purpose: I decided their church clothes for summer would be sandals and plaid shirts, so I wouldn't have to worry about ironing and stains and white shirts and scuffed church shoes.  I'm lazy like that!