Roughing it in the desert

Last weekend we went camping, our first time in the desert, and our first time as a family.  The husband has taken the boys camping several times before in the States, but I have managed to avoid going every other time (what?  There have always been scheduling conflicts!  Yeah, right!).  To say I'm not a huge camper is a huge understatement.  The husband, on the other hand, has a long Scout and family history of camping and cabining and all sorts of out-of-doors pursuits, so he is always enthusiastic to go and give the boys that experiment.  This time, we jumped on the bandwagon of a father/son or Scout campout that turned into a much bigger ward campout at the last minute.  I think there were more than 60 people there in the end.

So we loaded up our car with everything we could think of that we might need (and a little bit more) and headed out to Zekreet, a beach on the other side of the country, about an hour away.  And, of course, the boys LOVED it.  Zekreet is filled with huge limestone monoliths, perfect for climbing up and semi-sliding down.  When we finally got out to our campsite after a 15 minute off-road ride along the beach and had been unloading for a few minutes, I looked around for E and found him almost at the top of the huge wall of rock behind us, happy as a clam.  He must have climbed up and down the rock face 20 times in the next 24 hours, if not more.  J, who started out getting to the top and then getting stuck, conquered his fears and was up just as often.  Both boys were basically running wild all evening and all the next morning, happy to be doing something new.

 We did the whole nine yards: s'mores, food cooked by the Scouts, an enormous breakfast with pancakes, eggs, breakfast burritos, and BACON, and looking for shells and playing in the water at the beach.  Our night sleeping in the tent went relatively well: we separated the boys, putting J on the edge and E in between us, which was good choice since E turned into a whirling dervish at night and ended up perpendicular to the husband and I, at our feet.  He did sit up suddenly at one earlier point and launch himself across where I had been sleeping and onto J's chest, but he was still asleep and I was able to wrestle him back to his sleeping area before J woke up enough to get upset.  Must have been having a really vivid dream of some kind, perhaps about flying?  We were with a mixed group of campers, so the teenagers stayed up far too late for me and the tents around ours had even younger kids, some of whom had rough nights of coughing and crying at various points, but we all managed to get some sleep, which I consider a win!  Maybe we will try this camping thing more often next winter when it cools down enough for it again (the hot weather is almost here, so I think we might be out of weekends for now).

E on one of his many climbing adventures up the hills.

Here we are in front of our little blue tent.  We ended up taking the rain flap off and sleeping on top of our sleeping bags and blankets for most of the night since it was cool out but there wasn't much of a breeze...until it started blowing so hard we thought our tent was going to fly away at 3am!

Eating fruit cocktail out a can, cuz I'm classy like that!

E with his favorite band of brothers!

Pensive  or mesmerized J at the bonfire. 

Did I tell you the husband got a new camera?  He spent lots of time working on taking shots like these of they boys and their glow sticks!

A blurry shot of them at the top of the mountain.

A clearer picture of their "boys' club," which Mommy quickly shut down when the little girls climbing up made it to where the boys were.   No girls allowed?  I don't think so!

A partial family shot courtesy of a friend who got us before we left the next day.

Chinese New Year

A few weeks ago we were invited to a Chinese New Year party with members of the Emergency Department.  We had never been out with these people, nor to this restaurant, nor even to a Chinese New Year celebration before, so we didn't really know what to expect.  Not surprisingly, we had a great time!  The restaurant was fun; we had a private party room, but there was also a kids' room with movies and video games, not that our boys ended up staying there for too long--there was food to be had!  So much good food!  The boys made me proud: they complained there weren't enough dumplings and ate their weight in Peking duck!

The restaurant was above some luxury car dealerships
(and E and I were searching for a potty at the moment).

The restaurant looked a little like a bordello, no?

There was a LONG wait before we ate, so the iPads appeared. 

The boys LOVEd their envelopes with eight brand new one riyal bills!

The Peking duck station.  This woman was a genius, so so fast!

Look at all this fabulously yummy food!  Delicious!

Life shots

Time for some more pictures to try to help those of you across the many ponds get a sense of life here in Doha.  

What's this, you ask?  A picture of sour cream, finally back on the
shelves after a mysterious and almost devastatingly long
absence, of course.  Random shortages happens a lot here,
so when you find something you've been missing, you will
often take a picture to share with all your friends.  I mean,
it's Sour Freaking CREAM!

And these are camels.  I still can't get over seeing camels!

Remember when I mentioned the rain?  Well, one of my
least favorite quirks about construction here is the endless
fascination with polished marble, which is hazardous enough when
coated with the ever-present layer of fine dust but positively
life-threatening when it rains! 

Another shopping shot: lamb brains, anyone?  No?  But they're
from Australia and everything!

This might only be meaningful to those of us living here, but we recognize the uniform
(or some variation thereof) every single immigrant worker who lives here 
wears every day, even in the middle of summer, at the hottest part 
of the day (which is representative of the entire gamut of human rights 
questions here)...only this isn't a worker, it's the construction 
site equivalent of a scarecrow, meant to demonstrate (I think)
proper safety attire...or possibly to scare people away from the entrance!

What's this, snow? Oh no, just a bunch of soap suds outside of our Honda Dealership.
Because it rained a lot and there's a soap factory next door.  What's wrong with that?!

Bits of the boys

Time for some pics of the boys, a sampling of our everyday lives:

The other day, they were out riding bikes when they came back and shouted that they were going to go see the rabbits.  Wait, what?  Rabbits?  Here??  I followed after them and found that some of our new neighbors have three rabbits they let out on the grass every afternoon.  They let the boys play with them and they were in heaven.

Another day (don't be fooled by their clothes; they really like these particular shirts!), we went to visit our friends who used to be our neighbors and now live in another part of town where they have private beach access.  They let us come visit all the time and we are very grateful for their generosity!

Love the light behind him!

Can you imagine the size of the bird that made these tracks??

This shot was taken right before he waded all the way in and
 soaked his shorts, because of COURSE he did!

And this week, it finally, FINALLY rained!  Hooray!  We had lots of fun playing in the rain and splashing through the puddles for the first time this year.

Me waiting for the boys' bus, catching the rain drops on the side of the clubhouse.

Here's a little moment of culture clash: before it had even stopped raining,
my boys were out riding their bikes gleefully through the puddles...

But they had to dodge these guys, who were sent out a few minutes
later to "clean the streets" by pushing all the water in the puddles into the
drains...Why?  It's going to dry quickly, don't worry!
And look at how much fun the kids are having?

Sounds of music

This weekend the boys watched The Sound of Music for the first time.  They have been learning "Do Re Mi" at school and were amazed that I knew all the variations (quick quiz: anyone else's mother make their siblings matching outfits so they could sing this song in public?  No?  Just us?  Pity!  It also helped that my father loves Julie Andrews so we saw the movie as often as it was available.).  The boys kept wanting to sing along and learn all the parts, and I decided it was high time for them to watch the movie on their own.  So, after church, we downloaded it from Amazon and set them up to watch.

And they LOVED it!  I mean, they had lots of questions: what are nuns?  What's wrong with climbing trees?  What kind of a name is Gay-org?  Who is Hitler and why is everyone waving to him?  I thought their interest might flag after the fun songs were over, but they stayed glued to the screen the whole time.  We had to pause after two hours to go to a friend's house, so they watched the last hour at home the next day.  Their favorite part?  The funny third place winner at the Salzburg festival who can't stop bowing!  Their favorite song?  "So Long, Farewell," though (How do you Solve a Problem Like) "Maria" is a close second.  E was even willing to sit through the documentary that came along with our 50th anniversary edition download.  Who knew it would tickle his five year old fancy so much?

I told them when "Edelweiss" came up that they would recognize that song because I have been singing it to them at night for years; it's one of my staples.  But no, afterwards J said he had never heard it before at all...ouch!  It's been great to have them singing the choruses all around the house for the past few days!

The husband thinks we should move on to West Side Story because it's more exciting, but I think it's too scary for my very, VERY tender-hearted duo, stylized fight scenes notwithstanding.  Plus the ending of that one is so dark!  I think maybe Oklahoma instead?  Those songs are catchier anyway!

Happy (belated) Birthday to E!

We celebrated E's birthday a week after I got back from the States and had some issues downloading the photos, so here they are, at long last!

It was an Angry Birds party, once again, but different from J's party (not Angry Birds Space, you see, so no planets and rockets, just birds and pigs this time around).  And it was a small party.  We followed our rule of one guest per year of age, so there were five other little boys in attendance, plus two younger siblings and J, of course.  We had cupcakes and lots of snacks, all of E's favorites, and when they ran out of things to do, they played Legos and everyone was totally happy.  I LOVE little boy parties!

We started off, though you can't tell here, making our own angry
birds out of air dry clay.  The kids had lots of fun, and some were
 pretty creative little sculptors!

Then we set up our own sling shot obstacle course and
let the kids go to town knocking it all down and then
setting it up again.

J was VERY serious about his aim!

E vas super enthusiastic about his presents...

SUPER enthusiastic!

And then he had to stop and read all the books he got from us
 and the grand parents.

He was very interested in the books, like a good son of
mine, and everything else was on hold until he finished them!

The Real Survivor

Guilty pleasure confession: last week I stumbled onto episodes from the current season of The Real World (it's called Skeletons--apparently they've done away with the geographic subtitles?) and started watching.  To be clear, I was a Real World watcher from way, way back.  I think I didn't see the first season in real time--didn't have cable then, probably?--but I was solid watcher for many years, though I stopped somewhere a long time back.  And it occurred to me as I was watching that both The Real World and Survivor are showing their 30th (!!) seasons, which is, frankly, CRAZY!  (How am I this old?)

And noteworthy, no matter what your thoughts are on reality TV as a genre.  Because, in many ways, for better and for worse, these two shows were the trendsetters, the pioneers of the mode.  For all we now grouse that reality TV is about as "real" as faux fur, that first season of The Real World was ground breaking television.  We're going to take a relatively diverse bunch of twenty-somethings and stick them together in a house without any responsibilities, turn on the cameras, and see what happens...?  It could have been a disaster; it almost was.  But it was also compelling, if far too laden with swearing for my taste (although now that first season seems positively demure in comparison to what gets said by your average Housewife or Next Top Model or resident of the Big Brother house).  And Survivor took all that, tossed out most of the "real," threw in a million dollars, and upped the ante, spawning its own raft of the Biggest and Amazing Top Projects that followed.

And I have to say, I actually do like quite a lot of reality TV.  It's funny, though, because I think I like it most now because it's the kind of mindless but still entertaining something I can have on in the background of my life without really paying that much attention.  Some people listen to music; I put on the latest episode of...whatever happens to be available. 

This week, as I said, what was available was the 30th season of The Real World.  And can I just say I was shocked, SHOCKED to see how much things have changed?  Long, long ago, the series went out of its way to avoid showing the cameras and production staff, trying to maintain the illusion of objectivity and distance you will now recognize from every reality show that has followed.  Now, however, the cameras and the operators themselves are in the shots all the time.  I feel like the cameras practically have their own story lines!  No more editing out the parts during which the housemates talk about the cameras.  Oh no, we are leaving that all in there now.  And during "confessionals," we no longer keep up the ruse that these folks are just talking to the camera all alone.  Oh no, now we hear the producer, complete with subtitles in case we can't hear her (and most often so far it's a her), asking pointed, leading questions of the person in question.  In fact, it appears that the roommates have a bat line directly to the producers and so far they've talked to them at least once per episode.  What the heck?  (Again, I feel so old!)

And I saw this happening long ago, back when I was a regular watcher, but apparently now the only people who are interested in being on The Real World are all exhibitionist binge drinkers with anger management issues and loose morals, so watching them really isn't all that entertaining since they all manage to blow up, run around naked, get drunk, and make out or sleep with someone in the FIRST 48 HOURS so that's why they have added this season's twist to spice things up: periodically, someone from their past, usually someone they hate, will appear at the door to play roommate for a while, sending them all into a tizzy and generally creating new drama every couple of days.  Wait, what now?  All this blatantly contrived insanity kind makes you long for the tried and true, stable Survivor formula that has moved forward basically unchanged since the show began!  To be honest, now I like the competition shows the best, particularly Project Runway and Top Chef in all their iterations.  My boys like Survivor because of the challenges and the shots of wildlife, and I like The Voice because most of the singing in actually good, and Adam Levine is one of my new favorite people.   In most of these, you really only have to pay attention to the last 10-15 minutes of the show when the judging/runway/immunity council takes place, which is efficient television watching at its best!

Now shhhh, someone's ex-girlfriend is knocking on the door, that green dress is really not so fierce, and I want to see how many chairs turn around!

Doha does it...sometimes!

Oh, Qatar....you make it so hard to love you sometimes!  While the world reels from FIFA's decision to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in November/December instead of in the blistering summer heat (a good but fraught choice made necessary by choosing Qatar in the first place), we are reeling from our own little run-ins with choices Qatar is forcing us into.  Wait, does that really make it the 2021 World Cup...?  Hmmm....

Anywho, as I have said in the past, the falling oil prices have resulted in all kinds of budget cuts here, including at the husband's work.  No one is happy with the results, and the effects just keep on rolling in.  Meanwhile, we've been trying to move the boys to a new school and recently found out that one of our top choices may be closing because of a dispute over a lease, which means not only that we may have even fewer choices that we like but also that 1000 more students may be released back into the applicant pool, increasing the competition that much more.

[Actually, I learned while writing this post that the school has been able to get a one year lease extension, but that really doesn't help us, because then what do we do the next year?  The school community was celebrating because the extension was the direct result of the unheard of step they took to gather over 600 signatures from parents (which is almost every single parent), which were then presented to the Supreme Council of Education (yeah, the name always makes me think about Star Trek or Gattaca or something) in protest.  I mean yay, democratic action saved the day...but the huge and swift petition only got a one year extension.  What is it going to take to get the entire five year lease renewed?  Sheesh!]

In another area that affects us daily, they have decided to deal with the ever increasing rate of accidents and traffic violations by lowering the speed limit on the freeway, which is awesome...except that the folks who were speeding to begin with still don't slow down and now we are all sitting ducks for when they zoom up on us, flashing their headlights imperiously, now going 50 kilometers per hour faster than we are!  Super! Honestly, I have become such a crazy defensive driver since moving here.  While I was in Utah, I had a little Nissan Versa rental car (instead of my usual behemoth Honda Pilot), and I found myself zipping in and out of places/lanes at breakneck speeds because that's how I have to drive to stay safe here, in a much larger vehicle, every time I get on the road.  My training did help me narrowly avoid an accident in the carpool lane on one of my drives home from Salt Lake, much to my cousin's amazement, but I actually didn't think it was that big a deal because I end up narrowly avoiding accidents like that here All. Day. Long.  If the accidents don't get you, the stress will.

There are bright spots to living here, don't get me wrong, before I start to sound too negative, and I've talked about a lot of them before on this blog.  To add to that list, I love a place where roasted cashews are as plentiful and almost as cheap as water.  And I do love that skyline up there, as do my kids.  And I've become very fond of my new friends here, though there aren't too many of them yet and some of them are leaving already, stinkers!  There are great things about Doha, mixed into the little annoyances; the trick is to keep reminding yourself of those when the others smack you in the face!