December 2015 (Part 1--through Christmas Eve)

December was a full month for us.  Every December, I do an activity advent with the kids.  Some activities work better than others and some are more memorable than others, and we do have lots of fun, though some days I wonder why I insist on doing it!  So, here are a few photos from our super December, complete with explanatory captions!  Yay!  (Blogging lite, 101)

We started by setting up nativity sets.  They boys still love this
Fisher Price set from their grandmother and spend hours all month
long arranging and rearranging the scene.

Then we put up the antique set collected over the years through 
judicious Ebay purchases and supplemented with all the animals 
who may or may not have been at the Savior's birth (like ducks, 
chimpanzees, and meerkats.  It's a family thing!)

Next we went ice skating at our neighbors' annual party
(a transplanted tradition from St. Louis where they came from).

The boys actually ended up being pretty good skaters once they
got the hang of it (and practiced a bit with these helpful seals),
 and they certainly loved every minute of it!

Our awesome neighbor--we love her!

We also went to a Christmas concert at a local school.  For security reasons,
we had to come super early and stand in line, so the iPads were assisting us.
And no, there were no pictures of the actual concert--did I
 mention how long the line was?

Next up was International Day at the boys' school, our next big PTA
event that was a HUGE success!  Here they are at the Canada table, sporting
their American finery (our finery really pales in comparison to the
finery from Pakistan, Palestine, Jordan, and India,
some of the other countries represented).

Eli blew out one of his teeth that day, attempting to blowing
up a balloon, an unexpected surprise!

One day we did crafts, stacked paper Christmas trees.  They boys
 loved them but wouldn't stand still enough to get in focus!

Another day, gingerbread cookies from scratch!

The husband was away the first part of the month at a conference,
but he returned from New Orleans with masks that had to be modeled!

Another night, we went to a Christmas tree lighting at the Grand Hyatt,
where the lights were festive, the gingerbread house with moving train was impressive,
 and the boys held it together even when things went past their bedtime!

Somewhere in there, the boys and the husband went to Qatar's National
day celebration pavilion, where lots of local government entities
showcased themselves.  Why J is dressed as a dragon, I have no idea....

They loved all the interactive games and displays!

Next up: the church Christmas party at the singing sand dunes.
Here is J climbing up to the top...

And E sliding down on a sand board!

The theme was Back to Bethlehem and here is J, modeling his Bethlehem best.
He made the vest in sewing class at school all by himself!

The husband wore his thobe to fit in with the locals. 

Another day, I went to school with E to help him with a school project.
He had to draw his dream house and then we had to replicate his "plan."
Fortunately, I encouraged him to draw a castle (I had made one of these
before, so I knew we could do it with the materials on hand).  

Of course, he did continue to draw while we were working, which was less helpful!

One night, we had a sleepover under the tree.  The lighting was very bad,
hence the less than beautiful photos!  The boys tried to spend the whole
night down there but only made it about 30 minutes before
decamping to their bedrooms, where it was cooler! 

Next up were the National Day celebrations at school.  J was told to wear
 his own thobe, and here he is posing with a Falcon.

Can you feel the LOVE?!

The requisite bouncy castle with the boys climbing up.

Eli's National Day finery was less authentic but more practical!

That same night, we checked into a hotel downtown at the souq for our
own National Day festivities.  We decided to spend two nights at a hotel
so we could get up early to see the parade and stay up late to watch the
fireworks.  It was a bucket list excursion. and we all had lots of fun! 

Here the boys are posing with a sculpture of hands holding up the Qatar flag.
While posing, they were given backpacks full of swag just for being cute!

Waiting for the parade to start....

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and dressed in national colors!

The husband posing with a friendly security guard!

After the parade, by the ocean on the Corniche with the Doha
skyline in the background.

Lots and lots of fun with our friends at the souq after the parade!

getting read for fireworks!

It was a little chilly and well past bedtime! 

The next morning at the hotel, while we cleaned up and
got ready for our departure brunch.

Our next advent activity was to make sandmen (instead of snowmen, of course!). 

And then, on Christmas Eve, we had lunch by the pool with some friends... 

...and then attended a Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner with some more friends
(apparently, it's a Sicilian-American tradition, and yes, there were at least
seven fishes, if not more and the boys were in heaven: friends to play with and
fish, what more could you ask for?).

That night, we put on our new Christmas jammies, read the Christmas
story, and got ready for the big day!  (Some of us were more thrilled with
our pajamas and hats than others!)

We made it!  Christmas activity advent DONE!  Huzzah and hooray!  Next up, the rest of December, wherein we managed to squeeze still more fun....We cannot be stopped!

Happy (post) Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving was lovely this year.  Early in November, while I was still working, I decided not to host, as I usually do, but as the day drew nearer, I started to feel more and more guilty about that choice.  Fortunately, inertia is a powerful force and by then I had already said yes to three different shindigs taking place the day after Thanksgiving and the day after that, so I stuck to my guns (or, more accurately, did nothing) and resisted the urge to host.  Instead, we went to our three different events and had all sorts of good food with good company and I only had to wash the dishes I used to make my potluck contributions!

Of course, being me, I overcommitted for the potlucks, so I ended up making quite a bit of food anyway.  Our first dinner was with some of the husband's friends from work.  We have been experiencing the Great Turkey Shortage of 2015 over here this year (the unfortunately timed result of avian flu and halal issues), so our friend ended up paying 99QR (about $35) PER KILO for the five turkeys she ended up buying, a veritable fortune in poultry, but the turkeys (prepared many different ways) were all delicious, so we appreciated her extravagance.  She also invited lots of expats from other countries and then directed them to make traditional American dishes, so I ended up spending time at one point talking to a lovely British couple about the finer points of green bean casserole and the curious combination of sweet potatoes and marshmallows and agreeing with a Kiwi woman who could not stop expounding on the virtues of this delightful American tradition with its delightful cuisine!  We brought our traditional cranberry jello mold with strawberries, granny smiths, and pecans (though, truth be told, many of the other expats were VERY suspicious of the "jelly"), my grandmother's curried chicken cheese ball (anything rolled in coconut is always a hit), and my patented German(esque) potato salad, because how can you go wrong with dill pickles and bacon?  E loved the potato salad so much he had it for breakfast before school this morning, finishing off the last little bit.  This party also had a face painter and a photo booth with props, so E had a dragonfly painted on his hand and J took far too many pictures with oversized sunglasses and bow ties.  We stayed for hours and ate more than we should have, just like every other Thanksgiving!

Look at the detail on that dragonfly!

E with his friend M from his class at school.

There are many, many more of these!

Later that evening, we went to the monthly soiree thrown by our neighbors that we rarely miss.  Because we weren't sure we were going to make it to that one, I hadn't cooked anything special, so we reformed the cheese ball and added new crackers, put the leftover potato salad in a smaller bowl, and threw some banana oatmeal chocolate cookies I had made earlier in the week onto a plate before we walked over.  These soirees are always potluck affairs where the attendees can perform musical numbers if they would like; this month's theme was Christmas music.  J led everyone in singing Jingle Bells, E hummed Walking in a Winter Wonderland while the husband sang (because E wanted to sing that one but then realized he didn't actually know the words when the time came to perform), and the husband and I did an a cappella version of Once in Royal David's City, his favorite Christmas hymn.  I never perform at these things usually, being happy in my appreciative audience member position, so this was the rare exception for me.  There were quite a few other numbers as well, including some really impressive singing, piano, and guitar playing by a young man from the Ukraine who pretty much blew the rest of us out of the water and some lovely ukulele playing by another very talented guy from Fiji.  Apparently, the festivities went on quite some time into the night but we left at 8:30pm, it already being quite a bit past the boys' bedtime.

We were pretty giggly after the first party!

Our hosts introduced us to a new Christmas movie before
 the party began...the boys were enthralled. 

The pseudo-duet.

I need to get better at selfies....

The next day, Saturday, the husband played in an early morning golf tournament...and his team won, for the second year in a row!  We met him at the golf club for the award ceremony and lunch, but while he was off winning, the boys and I were at home making more food for our next dinner that afternoon with friends from church.  For our final Thanksgiving feast, I made cornbread stuffing (with onions and apples), cornbread (for J, who loves it more than anything, my Southern baby), pumpkin and cranberry bread pudding, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy.  Oh, and I also cooked two turkey breasts in the slow cooker.  As I said, turkeys were few and far between this year; I found these two randomly in the frozen food section and decided to donate them to the cause.  We also had many roast chickens for dinner as well, smothered in vats of turkey gravy.  That dinner was delicious all around, with lots of dishes I want to get the recipes for, including a fresh cranberry relish I could have eaten the whole bowl of and a chocolate pie that I had to stop myself from devouring completely!

E with the first of two trophies the husband earned.

J with trophy number 2.

The victorious team!

On the course--look at that sky and that green!

In a year that is still filled with uncertainty, we are certainly grateful for all our friends here with whom we could celebrate, as well as all our friends and family at home we hope to see again soon!

On the blog again...

Oh my gosh, I am so far behind in my posting!  So, here is the catch up plan: get back on track writing contemporary posts from today on as if nothing had happened and (bit by bit) get caught back up on the posts about our vacation to Greece and everything in between then and now.  For today, a few quick updates to get back up to speed:

--My temporary job ended after the first week of November.  It was all kinds of fun but very, very busy, especially there at the end during the conference itself (which was, in many ways, awesome, but in some very important little ways not planned well at all--when I am giving up my not especially good seat to the Korean ambassador because someone forgot to leave one for him and someone else is asking know-nothing me where the former prime minister of Australia should go to get her make-up done, you know things have gone dreadfully awry!).  I loved the editing work and the office camaraderie, and the glamor of the hobnobbing-with-VIPs conference was a bonus, but I was exhausted when I was through and able to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt that working full time here is simply impossible for me.  The editing part was great: I worked when I could, when I wanted to, while the kids were otherwise occupied, and I could do that more often no problem.  The needing to be somewhere during working hours (and evenings) was just untenable given all kids' schedules and needs, which I had suspected but was happy to have proven to myself in glaring relief.

--The husband's work situation continues to be tenuous.  The hospital did decide to cut only 25% of the budget instead of 71%, which appeared to be good news...but for some reason, pharmacy seems to keep going back and forth from the cut column to the save column, which is all kinds of annoying.  Do we want to leave?  Not right now, for sure, in the middle of the school year (again), but we're not sure we have a choice in the matter at the moment, until some more decisions get made once and for all. So, in the meantime, in the interests of self-preservation, we are applying for jobs elsewhere but no real bites yet and there aren't even that many jobs available right now anyway.  We are also moving forward with our financial goals, getting our house in order in case we do have to leave suddenly.  The husband has been diligent about keeping us on track so we are in good shape.  As we have started to say a lot, every month longer we are here, our situation upon leaving gets better and better, so that has given us some peace in a very tumultuous time.  Do I love the unknown of it all?  Not even a little bit, but we have no choice.  A friend of mine suggested I try "radical acceptance," which seems like as good a strategy as any and has the potential upside of not making me insane on a daily basis!

--Meanwhile, life goes on: our first PTA event, a welcome social, was a smashing success, as I will detail in a longer post at some point.  We are now on to our next event, International Day next weekend.  This event will require quite a bit more work by parent volunteers besides the PTA leadership, so we shall see how it all turns out.  Fingers crossed!  Being PTA chairperson is alternately gratifying and aggravating; I find I have little patience for parents who want to complain but refuse to look for or assist with solutions to problems.  Some days I have to throw my hands up in the air in frustration but there are enough little victories, like a fun opening social, to keep me going!

--I participated in a group yard sale a couple of weeks ago and got rid of a ton of stuff, which was great.  I have been going through our belongings again, in anticipation of having to move at some point, and since we have committed to not shipping a container back home, we will only be sending a fraction of the stuff we have here back home in the end.  Our goal is just to have a small-ish air shipment of books and irreplaceable household goods in addition to as many suitcases as we are allowed and can get using our air mile points.  Which means eventually lots will go so for now I am slowing culling the unnecessary and moving it out in small batches.

--Um, the weather here this week is insane: last week the Emir and many children all over the country, including the Muslim children at my boys' school, participated in a country-wide prayer for rain.  Today, we have a deluge complete with thunder, which is something we haven't seen in over two years here.  Roads are flooded, of course, because drainage and infrastructure are not so much a thing here, so many schools were cancelled, but not ours.  Apparently, we are on higher ground, and the buses and parents were able to get through, so cancelling was not deemed necessary.  But just for a taste of what others of my friends were facing during school runs this morning, take a look at some of the pictures in this article, as well as a video of the rain INSIDE the airport (embedded in the middle of the article at about 9:50am, scroll down a bit): http://dohanews.co/heavy-downpours-in-qatar-lead-to-flooded-roads-school-closures/
Crazy!

Almost biting off more than I can chew!

So, it turns out that doing ALL THE THINGS all at the same time is not such a good idea!  If I had had a choice, I don't think I would have set about getting a new job, planning the first PTA event, starting online and in-person training for teaching online Seminary, adding 10 new students to the buses, and getting back from vacation and right into school with new homework routines for two kids all in the space of a week.  Not to self, do NOT do this again if you can possibly help it!

But I couldn't help it this time around, so off I went and since this is (literally, without exaggeration) the first time I have been able to sit down at a computer without having to accomplish something that needs to be done RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT, let me take a moment (but only a moment, because of course there really is more to do that I am just ignoring temporarily) to tell you how it's all going!

• My New Job: I started officially on a Thursday, the last day of our work week here, and was immediately given a HUGE amount of editing to do (three monographs all in disarray) by Sunday, so I worked 30 hours that weekend, got it all done, and almost passed out, but now they love me and think I can do wonders and feel so great about meeting their (completely insane) deadlines, so good on me!  The work has actually been fun, if very fast-paced, but I worked so hard in the beginning, I've been able to ease up a bit at the end of this week...though they did send me yet another essay to read on Friday morning when I was leaving for a day trip to Abu Dhabi (see  Seminary below), so after a quick trip to the business center, I spent my waiting time and flight time editing because they wanted it back by that evening at the latest.  Soon I will actually be done with the monographs I was hired to edit but I'll still have contracted hours left, so I'm trying to convince them I can edit or even, gasp! write their monthly newsletter and the conference program.  We'll see how that goes!  Regardless, it's been very, very nice to use my professional brain for a change.
• PTA: we had our first parent meeting just after we returned from Greece, our first teacher appreciation day breakfast a few days after that, and our first big event is coming up this Saturday.  Now, being PTA president is a big job under any circumstances, but here we have the added challenge that a large percentage of our parent population has no idea what the PTA even is or does and has very little understanding about things like potlucks and assignments and school-wide events, so we don't actually know how this social is going to play out.  At this point, a few days away, I am cautiously optimistic it won't be a disaster...but I could very well be wrong!  Meanwhile, I am making flyers (wishing I knew more about digital image editing, those two degrees in English doing me very little good in this case), running errands to the craft-esque store (no real craft stores here; this is an oddly stocked stationary store in point of fact), driving between the two campuses, and emailing ad infinitum--so busy!
• Online Seminary: this is my new assignment for church, basically scripture study class online for teenagers.  I have taught the face-to-face, early morning version of this class in the past and really liked doing it, but the training for the online version is trying to kill me!  First, there are a gazillion and five online modules with which I have been struggling (I am not a "hip" learner--video instructions do not help me!  Please give me something I can simply read, people!) and then it just so happened we were going to have a stake-wide training just now as well, so that was why I took a day trip to Abu Dhabi, a 14 hour day from start to finish, three hours of which were actual training and the rest I spent either in transit or in the airport (some of the time working on editing).
• School Bus: As I have shared before here, I am still the parent coordinator for the school bus, only now we have two buses going to two different campuses and many more kids, many of whom joined up on the first of October, which meant there was much emailing and calling back and forth to get those kids paid for and set up with the schools and ready to ride at the first of the month.  Some days, I think this particular responsibility I have is my least favorite of all.  80% of the parents are gracious and helpful but that remaining 20% are constantly upset about something and complaining right and left and I just want to scream at them that I am VOLUNTEER, for crying out loud, a volunteer who is saving you hours of your time and many levels of aggravation because you longer have to drive on our roads and helping your kids get to and from school safely and in a timely manner and maybe, just maybe, you should be a little nicer to me and not Reply All with accusations in ALL CAPS!!  Just sayin.
• Homework: I am really of two minds about the homework situation.  On the one hand, yes, I see the value in extra practice of concepts at home to solidify skills learned in class or to enrich instruction from the day.  On the other hand, I find 45 solid minutes at a minimum of homework for a second grader (and that is solid working time, not counting interruptions or wandering attention or anything else) to be excessive.  The 20 minutes of reading is absolutely fine, no arguments here, but the spelling brouhaha is so labor-intensive: 12 spelling words with a whole gaggle of "points" that have to earned each week by doing activities of varying intensities with the spelling words.  I'd say 75% of the activities take longer than 20 minutes, which seems like a lot to do every single day.  I'm already steering J toward those that require less effort just so he doesn't burn out on homework before the week has hardly begun.  Will he know his spelling words for the weekly tests?  Of course.  Will he have the energy to do all these really not spelling-based activities for such a long time?  No.  And don't even get me started on Arabic, where the homework sheets are once again completely in Arabic and so we have to send pictures of them to our Arabic-speaking friends just to get through the worksheets!  And now E also has homework, reading by himself and reading with me (which, again, we already do anyway and want to have him do as much as he is able to do) and many, many, many (like 30) sight word flash cards, which include words like it, a, Dad, and...going?  One of these things is not like the others, folks!
• Husband's Job: In other, hopefully happier news, the current announcement is that the husband's work will only be cutting 25%, so we are all pleased to hear that.  No one knows yet which 25% will be cut, which is unsettling, but after a week in Greece during which I didn't think about all this one iota, I came back with a very zen attitude about the whole thing and have ceased to worry.  In the meantime, the husband has been applying for other jobs and has gotten some nibbles, and I have dutifully scoped out schools and house prices in those potential areas, just to be on the safe side.  But for now, we are awaiting the other shoe and hoping to make it through the school year here, if not beyond, so we can achieve our goal to pay off all our debt.  Speaking of debt, are we extremely happy we finally sold our house in South Carolina over the summer, given the horrendous flooding there this past week?  Why yes, yes we are, especially since our house backed up on a ditch usually mostly empty of water and was right next to an area that routinely flooded, even during the most usual of rain storms.  Whew!  However, we are so sad to see and hear about all the devastation our friends in SC have faced and send them our love and prayers.

If I/we can make it through October, things should be more manageable.   And to think I was a little bored before summer...careful what you wish for!